I'd like to complain about a review of Thor's Hammer - Three Weeds from the Same Root by reviewer OzzyApu, entitled "Home Depot Couldn’t Save Capricornus - 9%". I think this review is not honest, and I would like to address directly to OzzyApu:

A review is not a political debate. You are free to think/like/dislike whatever you want, but please, don't mislead listeners. Rating an album 9% makes readers think that it is a pile of inaudible shit, with sloppy playing/production and incoherent message/attitude - which is objectively not the case with Thor's Hammer - Three Weeds from the Same Root. You should obviously be able to make the difference between "I don't like this album" and "this is pure shit". Your critic about repetitiveness and lack of inspiration may be justified, but not the 9% rating.
I read some of your other reviews and you gave a better mark to obscure French joke-bands demos (like Ond Aand and Zarach Baal Tharagh). This is stupid, pointless and shows that you are prejudiced against politically-oriented bands.
If you don't like NSBM, then don't listen to it, and don't review it... Trying to diss good bands because of their ideas through a partial review is not honorable.

In conclusion, I wrote a short review of Thor's Hammer's album to balance the weak score, and hope it will be published soon.

Here we go again...

Haven't we been through this shit an uncountable number of times? The percentage rating is not a particularly important part of the review.

Also, writing reviews with artificially inflated ratings to "balance out the average" is just as bad as underrating a review.

C'mon man. I didn't give it a 9% based on the ideology of Capricornus. I gave it a 9% because of the backwash production, the half-assed Destroyer 666-ish riffs, the buried instruments, mini-golf slap toms (aside from redundant drumming) and a host of other problems. You could have put this in the review discussion thread and made less of a commotion.

Read over it again, because I'm pretty sure these are the only mentions of NS I made.




Read it again and quit your bitching. That's three sentences out of the whole god damn review. As Oblarg said, the score isn't the important part of the review.

OK, I usually never include marks or scores in my reviews. I gave Three Weeds from the same Root a 88% rate (take it as humour if you like), because I think it's a very good album, though not an all-time classic. The score is not important for those who read the reviews. I suppose that most people surfing on the site just check the average score of an album to evaluate it, and that's why I wanted to balance your review.

As I said in my review, I haven't listened to Deströyer 666, because I have never been interested in that band. It's true that Phoenix Rising was released in 2000 and Three Weeds from the same Root 4 yours later, so maybe there was inspiration taken from it, I don't know.

I suggest you listen to the whole Thor's Hammer discography to compare production on earlier recordings. And let me ask you some questions: does the score of your reviews have a link with your musical preferences? If so, do you really prefer Graveland - The Fire of Awakening (55%) or the Ond Aand/Z'B'T split (21%) to Three Weeds from the same Root (9%)?

Fail #1.


Fail #2.


Fail #3.


Fail #4: Biggest Fail of All.

Read the rules:

You're taking this too seriously, KFD. As I just posted, the score isn't the important part, yet you're judging my taste based off the scores I gave certain releases. Aside from that, I don't need to answer your question.

I even have this little bit on my profile: "I still want to state that the real review is in the words, not the numbers."

I know, and you also say that your older reviews might be out of date because of your evoluting musical tastes. But I answered to that:

The score is not important for those who read the reviews. I suppose that most people surfing on the site just check the average score of an album to evaluate it

At least, that's what I do myself, when I want to evaluate which is the best release of an unknown band, because I don't always have the time to read all reviews from beginning to end.

EDIT: here's my review, since it won't be published:

First of all, this will be a short review, since I'd rather write my reviews in French. I would just like to counteract the weak score induced by OzzyApu's review, with which I disagree. I cannot compare Three Weeds from the Same Root to Deströyer 666's Phoenix Rising, because I haven't listened to it and have never been interested in that band.
For those who are not familiar with the Polish scene, Thor's Hammer is straight-forward NSBM with atmospheric keyboards. On this album, Capricornus is joined by members of Dark Fury on instrumental duties. Thus, the drumming and recording process sound more professional than usual. The music is made of minor scale speedpicked riffs and agressive drumming, with lots of blastbeat and doube bass. Capricornus's voice is typically low-pitched, in the middle between black metal and death metal vocals: that's his seal.
Not only the music is solid and well-produced, but contrarily to what OzzyApu said, the lyrics are great, at least in metal standards. Just read "The Law of the Wave" and "The Blind Searchers", for example. They bear a message of wisdom and preparation to war, plus they are well-written. Of course, most lyrics are pretty simple, but keep in mind the comparison to the BM scene in general.
This is Thor's Hammer's best album by professional production standards. I still love the raw sound of The Fate worse than Death, but I am conscious that regular metalheads might be repelled by its rehearsal-like production.
In conclusion, this is harsh, fast and militant NSBM; if this label does not disturb you, you will not be disappointed.

Anyone who won't take the time to look into something deserves whatever they get.

This. Plus, average scores are highly unrepresentative or accurate of the quality of the album. It all goes down to personal tastes in the end, but many albums may have very different views, someone may rate an album 33, the other 99 and it will be averaged 66 which means nothing. It only means someone thought it was the best album ever and someone else thought it sucked, it doesn't mean it's decent. Also, you have albums with only one score which means a lot less than an album with 20 reviews. You just can't judge an album by its score, like I said, averages is not representative of the metal community as a whole, you may very well have Black Legion worshippers reviewing a particular album when anyone else may think it sucks, it's just foolish.

Regarding your review, reviews should be just that, reviews, not a counter-argument. That, and you don't start a by review describing how it will go, that it will be short and all.

There's nothing wrong with Ozzy's review. It's obviously not a blind attack against NSBM, nor is its score unnecessarily low given the arguments presented in the review itself. Besides, sure this album's overall score may be low (I might still acquire it one day, perhaps review it too, but that's far from being anytime soon I reckon) but Thor's Hammer's other albums are rated very high, so the worst thing that can happen is that someone who might be interested in the band would explore those albums first instead, and perhaps come back to this one later.

Your review, KFD, on the other hand, wasn't a good idea. Reviewing here is obviously a question of expressing one's opinion, and that includes opinions contrary to the ones already present. However, one should be polite and discreet with such counter-opinions, including the previously mentioned fact of intentionally saying that your review's purpose is to modify the average score, and personal mentions of previous reviews/reviewers. Want to modify the average (which is certainly a part of any "dissent" review - to give another opinion than the one or ones already there)? Be silent about it and simply write a decent, personal review that deals with your opinion of the music, not somebody else's.

Plus, reviews that directly address older reviews instantly become useless if those old reviews are ever to disappear. KFD's review would make no sense at all without OzzyApu's review there.

There was one of them that quoted my Agent Steel - Alienigma review back when I gave it a slightly more negative review. Then I made it positive all the way and now he looks like a dumbass.

Don't be like that guy, people.

Having listened to Thor's Hammer before, I would actually say that the score pretty much is supported not by Ozzy's review but by the content of their releases. His critique about repetitive and lack of inspiration definitely warrants a 9% score which, as others have mentioned, isn't all that important. If you have an album with 9 songs, and only one song is good and everything else is redundant, you pretty much only have one song worth talking about anyway. Even if that 1 song is great it only makes 11% of the album worth listening to.

Fuck those people. If they're too lazy to actually read the reviews people have taken the time to write, then they deserve whatever distorted perception of an album they get. Going by average score is essentially following popular opinion, and that's never a good idea when it comes to art; popularity shouldn't affect your opinion of something at all either way. If you're talking about people who are trying to look at a band's "classic" albums, say, they're looking at Judas Priest's page and are wondering which albums are the historically important ones, then number of reviews written is much more important than the average score.


You certainly have the time, because there's no deadline. You're just being lazy and/or impatient.


Yeah people, don't pay attention to Empyreal. It'll just make you look stupid in the end.

Anyway, the review isn't going anywhere.