This is exactly what I've been trying to say the whole time, thanks hells.

No just you know english is not my mother tongue...

It isn't his either.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/B ... bat/115569

This is one of my favorite reviews on the site. Playful and funny but it gets to the heart of why this is a classic.

Man, going back a few pages, let me be a bit of a contrarian and say that if you're doing a 0% or 100% review, you damn well need it to be good. Saying something is either perfect or has absolutely no redeeming qualities at all does require more justification than a "yeah it's fairly good, just a few filler tunes" kind of review. I don't want to discourage people from going to either extremes with the rating (although we don't need any more 100% reviews, really..) but I don't say anything wrong with holding those kinda reviews to a higher standard.

Oh certainly, if you mean when I said 0% or 100% shouldn't have some higher standard. I definitely agree with that. I just meant there's no criteria like "you can't give something a 0 or 100 that just came out this year," as I've seen some people kind of imply - like there's a time stamp on it. Or like you can only give out a certain number of each or else you're being disingenuous as a reviewer, like others who say they don't believe in giving out either one. You should certainly have an informed opinion and a real reason for giving those scores though, not just hyperbole.

Akerthorpe approved post.

Why is this related to the use of homophobic slurs?

Yeah, I agree with Casp, my 100% reviews were given a lot of thoughts and effort.

I think it's gonna be pretty hard for me to ever pull off a 100% review, mainly because most albums I would give such a score to have already been covered widely and by better writers. Hell, just breaching from 80% and into 90% is pretty hard for me.

There is definitely something to this, particularly regarding perfect scores. I did a count of how many perfect vs. zero scores I've given over the past 11 years that I've been doing reviews here, and I've found myself leaning towards altering the scores of about 1/3 of the perfect scores that I gave, whereas I don't think I'll change any of the zeros. Most of my perfect score reviews were written prior to 2008 and several of them were recently purged because they were in the old track-by-track format.

This is a great Napero review. Not like there's such a thing as a bad Napero review, but this one in particular I love because of how it manages to both tear down the release and masterfully explain why "metal as worship music" is pretty much a tautology. I am not inherently opposed to bands talking about religion in metal, but pretty much 100% of the ones who just use it as a vehicle for preaching tend to be half-assed at best and absolutely vile at worst, thinking that their subject matter can compensate for a lack of proper songwriting, and he said that better than I ever could.

The use of the various theories was good. Also, it's good that he pulled up at the end and left a little room for it not being a wholly terrible example of an easily botched idea. It is, in the end, a capable music review put into a larger context that only a lot of masochistic experience could provide.


If you do (and I encourage you to give it a shot), sticking to the personal is going to do a far better job of assisting your insight than repeating things that have been said in other reviews. Also, the existance of those reviews provides a condensed literature review, so you know a) what's already been said, and b) what they haven't said that seems obvious to you. You can either supplement the given body of work or focus on a more personal album that others don't think as highly of. Either way, give it some consideration. It's like the golden fleece or some shit.

This line from Caspian's new Hammers of Misfortune made him sound like a noob who discovered heavy metal last week and only heard this album once. He's also wrong about Locust Years being a bad album, of course.

Yeah, HoM are nothing like Ghost. I remember liking Locust Years pretty well, but I don't see how he would say that about their charging, riveting August Engine, the energetic Slough Feg-ish debut or their new one which is quite heavy as well.

@Grave_Wyrm: mayhaps I'll give a 100% review in the future, yes, but it's gonna take a while, I think, mainly because I don't wanna annoy people with more glowing fanboy praise for the likes of Heaven & Hell or Somewhere Far Beyond I'm very traditional as far as my potential handful of perfect scores go, so I dunno.... We'll see in the future.

Really? There's nothing for you outside of traditional celebrity that's worth a ring? I find that hard to believe. I'm wondering what your criteria are, and whether/how much fame factors in.

Oh no, there are surely some underground monsters that I'd gladly give a 100% to. Records such as Anthem's No Smoke Without Fire or Pagan Altar's Mythical & Magical are definitely deserving of a perfect score if you ask me.

My main criteria for giving out such a score is that there musn't be a single instant of the album I find irrelevant, annoying, or detrimental to the overall experience in any way whatsoever. However, there are also certain intangibles which I take into account, the kind of thing that's beyond mere musical enjoyment. For example, the aforementioned Somewhere Far Beyond is, for me, not only a case of an album where not a second of its run time is wasted, but also a genre-wide classic and one of the few cases where a transitional album works perfectly, as the ideal mid-point between a band's savage, hungry youth and the more refined, ambitious experimentation that was yet to come. SFB is the kind of release that I don't simply love; I admire it. It's not necessary for a record to be a before-and-after sort of deal for me to give it a 100%, but it certainly helps a lot.

I hope this explanation is clear enough, as it feels a bit jumbled even to me

My personal stance is fairly similar on 100% reviews, but there are exceptions. As it stands, I'd say I know three completely timeless and indisputable 100% albums in metal for me, and all three of them are very popular albums by very popular bands. I guess I believe that sometimes popular things get popular for a reason, so it's not exactly surprising that a huge chunk of my top 50 albums are all extremely well regarded in general. There are exceptions though, with newer albums or stuff that I recognize has some sort of flaw or quirk that my not always work, but if the overall picture just becomes this much larger than life enigma of what I look for in music, or if it just somehow completely enraptures me over and over and over again across dozens of listens, I can still see it as a 100%er in my eyes (namely Sigh's In Somniphobia or, while not metal, my all time favorite record in HORSE the Band's The Mechanical Hand).

There are plenty of albums that get extremely close to 100% to me that are less well known though. Obtained Enslavement, Slough Feg, Skeletonwitch, GTK, etc. I dunno, for my personal scale I feel uncomfortable giving a perfect score to something that hasn't been proven to be timeless (using a barometer of me of course) or seems to achieve something far greater than itself. Just me though.

I have three albums in particular released after the 80s that I'd give a 100% on this site, which I plan to review soon - Gorguts' Obscura was actually the first of what was four, but I did that way earlier than planned. So three more. But my criteria is just something so well put together and something that achieves some sort of musical goal to what I consider utter perfection. I never really believe in a set criteria for it. It's art and it should move you in ways you didn't expect. I want to be surprised and with these albums I have been.

edit: Actually, Melechesh - The Epigenesis was one, too. I suck at planning these out.

I did 3 100% reviews, a series called Tony's Classics (Sigh, Reverend Bizarre and recently Primordial), it's just albums I've been listening to forever and I consider them pretty much perfect. Opeth and Slough Feg and maybe Solstafir are possibly next. It has to be "special".

Huh, I guess it's a pretty universal idea. I got the idea from droneriot's series some time back.

This is a perfect time to ask a question I've had for a while. So, I'm not as strict on the 100%'s as most people are, but I do like to keep those scores reserved for albums I consider completely and thoroughly amazing; perfect. I've given out a few and there are three more albums out there that are going to get 100%'s from me. Even though there is this group that I consider perfect, there is one album that I think stands above all of those even still. Should I drop all of the others barring that one to a 99%? Should I just leave them be? I mean, technically, I do have one clean cut best-album-ever, but I think the others are also flawless but not as good as that one. Does this make the others technically not worthy of the 100%?

I just realized that sounds really weird. Basically, I've given out those 100's, but there is one that I'd give like a 150% if possible. If that makes sense

I wouldn't say so. It really is just a number and doesn't matter all that much beyond a general indicator of how you feel. I've never been a fan of overthinking the ratings.

But if you're newer to metal, then chances are you'll change your opinions as you go along anyway. Some albums like Pagan's Mind - Celestial Entrance I would no longer give a 100%, while others like Savatage - Edge of Thorns, I still would. Could go either way.

Good point. My opinions have changed on a few actually. I've bumped like two or three down from 100% to 99% and one went down to 97%. I think I gave The Legacy like a 100 at first but I quickly realized that was far too high and that taught me to gauge those high scores more carefully. I do plan on rewriting at least half of my 100's because they were really early in my time here (Stained Class, Sad Wings, Thundersteel, H&H, I already deleted my Powerslave and EN ones lol) and I'd like to give them a better shot.

Muloc's how-to 100% guide is a good one and one I subscribe to, stainedclass.

Let's look at this scenario:
You wake up, and found out you've won lotto. Your dad had aggressive, terminal cancer which miraculously healed that day as well. On your way to get lunch, you end up having a threesome with two stunners of your preferred gender. This happens on the way back too, and you find out that the war in Syria has ended in a way that will benefit everyone.

But when you arrive back home you realize that you forgot to buy the milk!!! Will that ruin a perfect day? Of course not- you'd still give that day a 100%.


The other scenario is equally obvious:
You wake up upon news that the business you own and put all your savings into has burnt to the ground. Nothing left. You write your car off on the way to examine the smouldering wreckage.. and when you get there, your mum tearfully tells you that your dad has died unexpectedly. Meanwhile, someone lets off a pocket nuke in Paris.

But when you arrive back home you find you got $10 extra change from when you bought that milk.. But despite that little nugget of providence, you'd still give the day 0%.

People who are obsessed with perfection=100% I don't understand at all. Hell, RTL has Escape and it's still an obvious 100% for me.

Yeah, of course there will be some albums that are simply special beyond the scope of normal scoring scale. I have some things like that, too. On a general note, though, if you keep running into situations where there are big differences between the extent of your appreciation for albums you give 100%, you need to adjust your ratings, because the 100%+ type albums are clearly the ones you need to give 100%, and the ones that aren't that good deserve something slightly less.

This really is the best way to see it - I mean, people will have their own grading scales. But I can't relate at all to the mindset of 'every single note has to be transcendent and I have a complex mathematical formula to calculate a score for when it isn't perfect.' It shouldn't be that mechanical I don't think.

I wasn't comparing ghost to hammers of lame as a direct comparison, by the way. Read it as more of a "if you like a lame, watered down swedish band (ghost are swedish, right?), you'll like an equally lame american band" or words to that effect.

Where can I find Muloc's 100% guide?

I really like Empyreal's new reviews on the Howe Metal Church albums. Definitely captures what I like about them, how they sound so big and but still decidedly unpretentious and blue collar. Despite being such a well known band I'd dare say those albums are still underrated. Would be interested in seeing you review the new one when you're ready.

I'd like to go back and edit some of my old reviews to more accurately reflect my tastes now. I like writing about music and reviewing but I just never got in the swing of it for more than a few months at a time. Hell I still need to review my last Secret Satan because i'm a fucking asshole and never did it even after my schedule at the time cleared up

Thanks to all the cool regulars here who keep the site updated with neat opinions on albums known and unknown!

Yeah, I need to hear it first. I'll probably buy it sometime soon and give it some listens - looking forward to it, actually. And thanks, I had fun writing those reviews and am quite happy with how they turned out. I've known those albums since I got into metal.

those scenarios were a pretty close paraphrasing of it.

Came here to say the same thing. Reading that inspired me to revisit one of my old favorites, and I have to say hearing "Waiting for a Savior" for the first time in ages conjured up a few tears. Such a meaningful and emotionally charged album; Empy did it justice.

Edit: Ha, rereading my own review from back then and it's really quite garbage. Hey, what's a fifteen year old to do? At least I had passion...

Really enjoyed Five_Nail's reviews of Agalloch's Serpent and the Sphere. Such a shame that it's the album they went out on, not entirely creatively bankrupt but definitely heading in that direction. Hopefully Khorada and Pillorian (insert obligatory John is a douche comment here) will play circles around Serpent and the Sphere.

Well, it's the lesser Mikey, who isn't one of the better writers here. It's basically the most cliche review you could possibly do for Number of the Beast. Every single stereotypical complaint and compliment is the exact thing that any entry level metalhead has heard hundreds of times already. I don't get quite as annoyed with redundant reviews of classics as some of the other high level folks here, but that's an example of one that adds literally nothing to the overall scope. Oh well, at least it's better than what he normally does.

Oh yeah this was mine. .

In fairness to me with the first one, I was actually talking about the song "Hole in the Head" and not the whole album, which I said has some prog elements.

With the other two, I see your point. "Dark Crusade" is a song I really intensely dislike for reasons beyond my control and my description of "Slaughterday" was just a really hyperbolic way of saying that the track is just a generic hunk of death metal.

I've been rewriting some of my old reviews from my earliest days (2005 to early 2006) as some of them have been purged due to being in the old track-by-track format, and I took note of Empyreal's review of Power Quest's Wings Of Forever while redoing my own. I had actually thought that my opinion of that album would change upon hearing it again after a few years and more than 10 years since reviewing it and oddly enough it hasn't. Since Empyreal's review is almost as old and he had a wildly different opinion on Neverworld, I was curious as to if he'd heard Wings Of Forever recently and if he still held the same general opinion.

Just my curiosity getting the better of me, I suppose.

Nope, never heard that one again. It hadn't really occurred to me. Maybe it'd be interesting.

Shoutout for Acrobat's new Cro-mags review. It's indeed a great album for lifting weights!

Props to Agonymph for his latest batch of reviews. That latest Saber Tiger is really good...