The album is good in what it tries to achieve, although it treads a style which I don't like much, but is it that good? An album which has six 100% in eight reviews? I sincerely doubt it.

You have to remember that each review is indicative of only what a single person believes. What you have is six people who believe that the album is worth a 10/10 score. I'm sure many others believe otherwise - yourself included.

I'm pretty puzzled as to why Metal_Jaw thinks South of Heaven is a "technical" album.

Metal_Jaw is testing my ability to remain objective. It takes every ounce of my strength not to delete every review of Reign in Blood that contains anything other than glowing praise.

I know man, it's just weird to see such a thing happen because MA usually doesn't work like that. What I mean is that usually you get more of the opinions of longtime objective reviewers who compare new releases against the general panorama of metal in its totality, rather than a row of fanboys all giving out perfect scores.

It's not the "way of MA", eh, so one tends to be somewhat suspicious.

Napero's review of Annihilator's "Alice In Hell" is an excellent read - I feel the same way about the album, but I never though it it in that much depth. It's something that sounds good, but I rarely returned to listen to, and I agree about the shortcomings. Perhaps the best description is "the spirit has been downgraded from a Tasmanian devil to a ferocious baby alpaca." - it makes it seem like it's polished for instant consumption, pretty on the surface but perhaps without the depth that makes something top shelf.

I just want to say that UltraBoris review of Master Of Puppets is probably the best, most accurate review i've read so far.

Hey Zodi, reading your review of Koloss was the equivalent of listening to an actual Meshuggah album. I guess you made the best of it then!

Thank you for the kind words, sir. I remember Alice in Hell being the first thrash album I heard that left me a bit cold despite the superficial excellence. I didn't want the review to turn into a personal pile of memories from the 100 Years War era, but the feeling is curiously enough still there when I hear it.

"anyone who uses the term "thinking man's metal" deserves to have an eight-string guitar broken over their head."

Though I kinda like this album, I do find this quote to be so true.

Hey hells_unicorn, could you answer me on a doubt I have regarding your Odalheim review please? I've read it and I seem to have missed the point of your intro where you talk about the different extremes between death and black. Where you referring to Viking aesthetics that you later on talk about or something more? Because you mention Dissection and Unanimated and I got somewhat confused on what was your point in the end.

Could you please clarify that?

I was referring more to the musical aspects, specifically how the melodic contours of Odalheim were much more consonant and the atmosphere was lighter than the typical Behemoth or Incantation album, or even mainline Swedish bands like Grave, but was still much heavier than bands like Enslaved from the black metal side of the coin. I was attempting to describe the unique middle ground between the deeper and generally heavier aspects of death metal and the lighter, frosty character of Scandinavian black metal that the album occupies musically, which is comparable to Dissection and Unanimated, though naturally not exactly the same.

The Viking aesthetics were largely absent from the works of Dissection and Unanimated, unless memory fails me, and I was speaking to that more from the standpoint that most traditional death metal bands tend not to focus on that particular subject for the duration of an entire album, though that's pretty much common knowledge to anyone who has visited Unleashed's profile here.

Ah, I get it now. Thanks for taking some time to explain it further.

You have no reviews for other Unleashed albums, how do you think Odalheim compares to the back catalogue?

I was planning on starting their discography actually, and I was going to work backwards just like I did on Arch Enemy's discography. I'd put Odalheim up at roughly the same level as the first 3 Unleashed albums (all of which I really enjoy), and above most of what happened afterward. Granted, I haven't had a chance to listen to Midvinterblot, Hammer Battalion or Sworn Allegiance yet (I have all 3 on order and they should be getting to me in the next couple days, I'm still stuck in the era of CDs lol) so that opinion is subject to some change.

More Unleashed is always a good thing, and even better if it's in physical format!

Sworn Allegiance is good but not great, it's a bit cheesy particularly in the lyrics but has some very cool songs and some real firepower. Midvinterblot takes that formula and expands it to the point where I can say it's one the band's best, really catchy yet "rifftastic" songs, I really like that one. I still have to check out the remaining three after that one but all in due time.

But since you put Odalheim in such a great level I think it might be sooner rather than later.

Just reviewed Azure's Moonlight Legend. I can't believe no one's done it yet. Such a gem.

Good review mate, not bad for an early effort in writing. I know I should review that album, I mean I almost publicized it for a few weeks here on MA, but I've been faltering in my will to write in the past few months. Let's just say that my inner self is not in pen and ink mode. I'd like to take a swing at that album though, I wouldn't rate it that high nor put it on the same level as Far Away From The Sun and Slaughtersun but I'd say it warrants a solid 75/80 in my book. The production is too dry and I think that a bit more warmth would make the album sound even better.

I do love the style though.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/E ... and_Ov_Dog

Ex Deo are not Italian...

Canada... Italy... They're practically neighbors. At least Ex Deo's lyrics are centered around the whole Italian / Roman thing.

That is why he talks about 300.

Greek / Italian / Canadian / Macedonian Close enough

The 300 reference isn't actually geographic so no harm no foul. The only thing that bugs me is how he calls them Italian when he knows the band is comprised of all Kataklysm members.

Well maybe he means Italian Canadian. You know, how all the Italian descended people from the US say they're Italian and have Italian flag licnese plates and watch Jersey Shore... But on a super cereal note: Maurizio does have a very Italian sounding name!

Maurizio is of Italian descent but he is actually Canadian, as is Kataklysm. It's a rather small mistake on a decent review though, nothing to make a big fuss about.

For what it's worth, I always like reading these enthusiastic reviews. Despite my previous indifference to Ex Deo, now I want to Youtube the album and see if I want to pick it up.

Agreed! Now it's time to finish some more reviews of my own. I've been slacking lately.

Definitely a decent review, that "Italian" thing just jumped out at me.

Earlier in the M-A IRC channel caspian wrote "occaisonal", and I assumed it was an accidental typo. But in his new review he does it again, three times!

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/B ... 68/caspian

guess it's like my than/then thing which took me a fair while to get over. I still swear that they never taught me that at school. Makes pretty obvious sense that the I would go after the s, haha. It's probably in every review I've ever done.

OzzyApu's review of Shining's Halmstad is poorly written in parts, with seemingly nonsensical descriptions such as and

Perhaps my not understanding what humid despondency is has something to do with the fact that I also don't like Shining.

Also, why don't I understand this sentence:

That last sentence is a poor way of suggesting that the bass isn't plugged in, because he can't hear it.

The recent Odalheim review is a very good read. And "..crushing your feeble skull for the glory of Asgard" is the most gnarly sentence I've read to describe such an awesome band.

I'm back after taking a little bit of a break from the forums. Probably missed nothing but anyway when I went to go submit two reviews, I noticed it said "publish" and when I clicked and ok'd, my reviews were instantly accepted. Anyone else getting that? No extra points were given, though.

The same happened for me this morning, Ozzy. Wild.

Yeah, we've decided that there's a selection of users whose reviews are of consistently exceptional quality for it to warrant immediate acceptance. Don't go abusing your privileges now.

Metal scribes \m/

Cool. Am I one?

now THAT had just confused me a lot ...

Maybe you shouldn't ask for it, eh?

Metal_Detector, click on "write a review" and see if the button at the bottom says "submit" or "publish", it's that simple.