He reminds me on Horst Janssen and his pamphlet "Angeber wie icks. 1 Quijoterie". He was also contemplating that only he had the right and correct opinion of what art has to be and how its modern representation had to look like. In contrast to Noctir, he approaches it from a more satirical and humorous point of view and does not dare to be dead serious or insulting.

So i was reading the new skyfire review and got bored. I then started to scroll down and read the rest (slow day in the army). I get to the bottom and i was reading what seemed to be the one person that agreed with me 100%. I felt so connected, and scrolled down to see who wrote it. It was me i'm on my phone and i couldn't remember writing that review.

That's awesome. I don't think I could do that - I pretty much remember every single album I've ever reviewed.

Glad to see Noctir took the time out of the day to break my heart (again) and trash another one of my favorite black metal albums The Sun of Tiphareth. His reasoning sucks a little less than it did for Bergtatt, but I can't help but think he is deliberately sitting behind his machine planning to reek havoc on everyone that actually adores those older bm classics.

It's like a sacred cow barbecue up in here.

I've done that before. I was reading my Dark Moor review, and I was like, "Man, I'm totally behind this guy. It's like he read...my review..."

This review confuses me... MDB have only began to shed their death metal influence over the past few releases, especially on the last one? Is he counting Evinta, which is a compilation in the end, and not the Bargest EP? Because that was actually one of the most death/doom things they've done in years! I just don't get his reasoning and I think that he doesn't have an idea of how MDB actually sound.

It almost seems like he's getting MDB and Paradise Lost confused, regarding the shedding of the Doom / Death style.

*She. But yeah, I wasn't expecting a death/doom album, it was clear that they did with Bargest and that they were continuing the boring doom path they had on their last 3 albums.

I'm not confusing any band with MDB. Just stating that the band once known for a bit more of a ballsy sound has now faded to a mighty boring sound. But I understand we will all have different views on it. You should too.

And Damnitt why does everyone assume I'm a dude?

Let's be honest, 90% of this site minimum is men, it's a safe assumption.

At least we aren't a fandom forum where girls are scared to register.

Here, all the women are cool, 'cause metal chicks are cool. Metal chicks in bands are even cooler. Metal chicks in the kitchen are the best.

Shut the fuck up before you I kick your ass in the kitchen and make you my bitch, I want a sandwich with mayo, cheese and ham. Bring me a beer too.

I just assume that everyone here is a guy, until proven otherwise. Success!

As the rest have put it so delicately (or not) Immortally_Insane, it's rare to see women around these testosterone filled boards.

Anyway, I just don't get your reasoning in saying that MDB have been straying away from death/doom recently. I mean they've been using a gothic sound ever since 1995, and in some respects one could say that TLTS already had some signs of that even though it only took more prominence on their next album. What surprises me is how you expect them to deliver something more oriented to their old stuff, mainly when apart from Barghest they haven't done anything that heavy in a long time. I respect your opinion but you know that one's writing and is always open to criticism, that's just what I'm doing here.

Who's to say I haven't already done that, good sir?

Well then, where's my sandwich, I'm still waiting...

(I hope you understood my message, btw, don't try to be funny, you're not.)

Criticism is fine, no worries, I just didn't quite understand the problem.
So first of all, most of the music I review is given to me rather than me choosing it. I only have a few albums of theirs and know them from those albums. I briefly listened to some of their newest stuff here and there, then began the review of the new album. I guess after re-reading that review, I worded it poorly. But you are most likely much more knowledgeable about the band than I am. I just wrote the review to the best of my knowledge and ability, though I totally see how what I wrote could be seen as wrong.

Ultimately, what I wanted to get across, is that for a band once so big and powerful for the genre (which, of course, is merely speculation from what I've read) has now become something completely different, and boring. Of course I expect people out there to disagree with me, but I hope that clears it up? If not, let me know what else I can explain.




Will someone please get Antoine a sandwich?

Is poor humour a bannable offence?

As for 'understanding' a message that tells me to shut the fuck up, no; nowhere in there did I hear "Don't try to be funny. You're not".

@ Immortally_Insane - I truly get what you mean, trust me. Sometimes it's hard to give a long running band a review if you don't have a background knowledge of it and you get a promo for their new album. It has happened to me before, in fact that's the reason some of my cross-posted reviews from the other website may be a bit bloated on the score. Nevertheless I feel that sometimes it's best to use a different approach and judge the album by itself without necessarily comparing it to the rest of the band's discography. For instance, using that as an argument in the introductory paragraph as to let the reader know that the reviewer's opinion is based solely on the album at hand, as to avert doing unrelated comparisons. It's a more defensive style of writing but helps you cover your ass when trying to give a backward comparison look over the majority of the band's discography may go wrong.

With that being said I actually haven't heard the album yet, so the score and reasoning may still apply. However it's the introduction that could be seen as somehow misleading. Like I said, judge the album on its own merits and not on what you think the band has been before. If it's good it will be so no matter whatever they have released prior to it, wouldn't you agree?

And thanks for being open to criticism, that often shows that a reviewer is willing to improve his/her writing. Keep writing more and more as it's the only way to improve. The more you do the more comfortable you feel with it.

Well androdion, I am in no way a pro at this so I will always be open to criticism. Criticism is what helped bring me to the level I'm at now so I will never turn it away. You bring up some great points, thank you for pointing that all out to me.

My pleasure milady!

Some negative commentary on terrible writing - if you're a terrible writer, please become self-aware and try to improve your writing rather than simply trying to cover more ground.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/R ... lack_Iommi

This writing is absolutely terrible. It's a collection of fragmented thoughts walking through track-by-track, with a lot of poorly written qualitative evaluation but not a whole lot of actual description of the music. It's common knowledge that the individual musicians in Rush are highly regarded - this review fails to offer any details or insights into what they do, either in a very basic sense that a listener might pick out, or in depth as a musician might make note of. I hate reviews when someone spews forth a bunch of disorganized thoughts on a prominent album that don't accomplish anything other than establishing that the reviewer has an opinion. Terrible writing coupled with a lack of insight makes worthless reviews.

Even worse is commentary on commentary, referencing the writer's perception of existing views on the album without offering their reasoning.

"They loose the line, the string, they fall deep in a pretentious world rather than a joyful and creative new vision of things."

"But what's awful here is that crappy piece known as "Tears" which should have had enough power to ban Rush from the metal archives. Deep Purple also had a dreadful piece in his underrated "Fireball" named Anyone's Daughter, but this is completely balanced with the rest of the album. Here this doesn't happens, unfortunately."

"So, if you have, in a song that has more than twenty minutes only 6 or 7 excellent ones and the rest are rolling around being good and mediocre ones, and then your album is almost completely made by fillers, well, I shall rate this with a 73%, because it is a good thing, overall, pretentious, overrated and freaky yes, but good enough."



Here's another terrible review:
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/F ... 80/damejro

Nearly the entire review is spent praising the album very generally, offering a poor, evaluative overview that manages to avoid actually talking about the music. A couple mini-paragraphs building sentences around the word "troll", then getting into why the album is great by skipping over the guitars/vocals/drums by describing those three with a total of two adjectives between them - purely qualitative ("awesome" and "fantastic") without actually talking about the music. Then the reviewer finally gets to talking about the music.

The accordions and chorus parts in Fiskarens Fiende, the ultra-catchy melody in Trollhammaren and Iskalla Trollblodet, and the dark atmosphere of Manniskopesten and Nattfodd"

This, this, and this - what about them? The review offers a vague overview of Finntroll - they're a metal band, something about trolls, something else about trolls, and they include humpa-polka in their music - that's as in-depth as the "genre" and "lyrical themes" fields on MA get you. I really hate when reviewers take half a sentence to start talking about something worthwhile, then finish the sentence getting back to not talking about the music. This one does it twice.

and starting a review with this:

(I think I have something similar in one or two reviews as well)

anyway:

It would have been nice to see a discussion of this.

BastardHead gets the first Time 1 review! And it's awful!

The album or the review? Because the review is fine.

He's pointing out that the fanboys will strike back, because it's Wintersun.

Goddamn, there's already two reviews for Time in the queue, for 76 and 100.

Holy shit, I wish I could pull a 11/23/63 and convince Jari to stay where he was before.

My blog is getting unprecedented attention this morning, with comments already calling me an inflated, talentless hack, accusing me of simply trolling, and my favorite, "LOL YOUR MUSIC TASTE IS BAD FAGGOT". I invite people in this thread to the same challenge I laid forth in the comments section on my own site. If you feel the review sucks terribly, tell me. No writer should be so cocksure in their ability so as to feel they have no need to improve, and understanding and accepting criticism is one of the most important aspects of writing. So if you disagree with my viewpoint or something, feel free to yell, but if you say the review itself is bad, be sure to explain why it is, otherwise I'll assume you're a die hard Wintersun fan who is unable to accept somebody not liking the band/album and tries to knock those detractors down out of some knee-jerk defensive reaction.

What if the label is behind this "two part thingy" -- Nuclear Blast is never mentioned? You are not getting the point across what the benefits for Wintersun are in this respect. And to me the first four paragraphs -- Well ... nowadays -- circles a bit around itself. Aside from this it is well written and offers a good amount of insight.

If Nuclear Blast is behind the splitting of the album, then just swap out a couple instances of "Jari" with "Nuclear Blast" and my opinion is the same. Even if the creator is not in favor of the split, we listeners are still getting shafted in return for patience.

I didn't mean the review was awful (it isn't, it's very good), I meant the score was really negative. Should have been more clear.

BH, that's something called "success" and "recognition"

I think BastardHead's Wintersun review is very well written and, for the most part, spot on.

The album is nothing but giant pseudo-symphonic cheesecake, the recipe to which can be found in every average "how to polish a turd" type of home manual.

BH - this comments section will get bloated. I know, I got the same treatment with my last Agalloch review. http://www.last.fm/music/Wintersun

... and of course doomknocker would be the first 100%.

Nuclear Blast didn't hold Tobias Sammet back from releasing The Wicked Symphony/Angel Of Babylon at the same time, though they did hold back AOB several months Stateside for some dick reason. Sort of immaterial, just throwing that out there. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your review. Regardless of my opinion on the album (haven't heard it yet), that's just plain entertaining writing.

The reason I think it might be more Nuclear Blast's doing than Jari's is because they advertised the album as coming out in like, 2008. They spent advertising money and he kept pushing it back. The splitting is obviously a way to inflate sales, but I think it's less Jari trying to recoup his expenses and more NB trying to recoup theirs. I've heard conflicting reports about when Time II is coming out though. Early 2013 is the best guess, but I've also heard rumors he isn't entirely done with it yet so for all we know it could be another three years. Either way it's an asinine slap in the face, regardless of whose idea it was.

I rather like Time I, but BastardHead's review was excellent. Very thorough and well-justified. The beginning chunk is a bit fluffy but was entertaining as all hell.

While I didn't agree with it 100% (I'd probably give it a score in the 70s) Bastard's review was a damn good read. Since Ozzy's Agalloch review was mentioned, gotta say I didn't like that one at all (but I'm obviously biased). It's one of those reviews that make me think "did this guy listen to the same album as me?".

Oh we listened to the same album. I listened to that since it was leaked and wrote the review the day of, so I had plenty of time. Kept it around for a month and still disliked it. The things I disliked about it could be the things you liked about it. Simple as that, so no problems. Just don't ever do what the HeavenDuff guy above mine did - bitch about it on last.fm and then post a review to counter it (with multiple grammatical errors).

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/A ... /mdjokic70 Wow, this guy has no idea what he's on about and probably didn't really listen to the album that much at all.