Well, by reacting to all the reviews of that album which are immeasurable lengthy and overzealous, you made a statement about that pattern and the "context surrounding it, at least in the sense of the reviews accepted thus far." It's as if you're saying, by reviewing an album like that with a fairly short and concise review, that contrary to the reaction of everyone else reviewing this, it's just a normal album and nothing to go crazy over. In this case you emphasized that sentiment by making it particularly short, as if you were reviewing some random one-man black metal band's bedroom demo; it's just another album in the queue method of thought.

I don't like writing unnecessary information - I'm not going to write a mini-biography or introduction to a band if I'm not extensively familiar with them. A lot of reviewers seem to pad a review heavily on the front end based on little more than reading a label's blurb or Wikipedia article - when reviewing music online that's a complete waste of time when you can read one of those. The only time I'll write something like that is when there really isn't a lot of information on the band readily available and I know them well - the best example of that right now is the OBW review, because I'm familiar with the band, their history, and the context better than you could find on the first page of a Google search. Some writers like reviews to be a self-contained, comprehensive briefing on the band, but I don't like to write that way in this context - if my words on the music inspire you to care enough about the band to look further, it's less work to find a mini-history from their site/label/wikipedia.

Regarding the examples you stated - the only one of those that I had previously read reviews of was Shadows Are Security. I'm surprised you picked Dingir because I haven't otherwise read a review of that and my review more or less matches the apathy I saw on the forum - I checked it out because DeathcoreDecimator recommended it (I know him outside the forums) and he seemed enthusiastic, plus the artwork was cool. I'm admittedly pretty apathetic about that, not passionate, but the music had an unusual sound so it was something interesting to write about. The SW/V split hardly has other opinions - the are other reviews of SW but I haven't read them, and Vothana is almost untouched - I'm aware of the general regard for those bands, and I checked out the release as I was curious. The noise of the split is by far the most overwhelming part, I don't think it was mastered properly and the SW material that's also on a comp sounds like shit to me (keep in mind I love Vlad Tepes and Torgeist, and I thought this was noisy shit). I think that review does it justice, it really does sound like a Vlad Tepes demo after being run through a dishwasher. While I'm aware that Sonata are popular, I haven't read anything about them since around 2004 and I reviewed that single based on seeing it linked on another forum - not passionate at all, but I did get creative to describe how painfully cheesy yet uninspiring it was.

I had seen plenty of opinions on Illud and I knew that I had an unpopular opinion, but I simply wrote a review as I would normally write one - I wasn't interested in extensive persuasion or supplemental writing, but I wanted to provide my opinion of the album and note the points that I liked most - the catchy songwriting and great use of hooks, and the shameless self-indulgence. I don't think the writing would be interesting if I kept talking about the rhythmic hook of Radikult or continued listing more examples of what I was talking about.



I'm pretty sure this is just perception - I wrote that review much like I'd write any review, I didn't beg the point, and it seems like you're saying that you felt that it should have been a response to other reviews, but it wasn't. I think there's some room for interpretation of my intents when I don't frame it in my own perceptions of public response, a band's intentions, and indirectly saying "this is what is going to be thought about the album". I write directly about what I hear, about the music, the audio coming out of my speakers, rarely the band's history/career/reputation. I suppose that framing is a lot of what some people think of as reviewing, but I honestly don't care about it most of the time - it's a distraction from me listening to the actual music, and as I said before, a lot of the fluff that gets put into reviews is readily available basically anywhere other than a review.

Compare that Sonata Arctica review to my reviews of Avantasia, Dark End, and Pathfinder - the Pathfinder one is more dragged out and painful as it's a full album and not a single, but I think you'll see a lot of similarity. More attention is paid to some releases, but I review them pretty much the same - I listen, give it some time, listen again, and listen more if I feel like I need to, then review it while listening through it. I don't think I've gotten a comment on that Avantasia review, ever.

Oddly enough, I wrote a short review for one of my favorite releases of last year, probably shorter and with less content than that Wintersun review, and nobody has ever questioned it. Looking back, I feel like I barely said anything about the music.



Small text means it's not important

Exactly the point - it's pretty much the same length as my review of Maximum Oversatan's demo, but I think I say more in the Wintersun demo because in the MO review I'm kind of stuck on "this is dumb as hell and it fucking rules!"

My point about the other reviews of Wintersun's album is that they use many words to say very little. They use large formats to convey the scale of expectations while saying very little about what happens if you simply put the CD into a stereo and listen to it. I assume that's what is meant by "tell us about the music", but I suppose the allure of this is the hype.

And then again it tends to be the thing that stands out the most!

Well, you found enough time and will within you to break down some of my reviews that you didn't like because of things you thought were superfluous or ill-conceived, so with that in mind I find it a bit awkward that you keep dodging the bullet on looking at new reviews written by me in a slightly different style. I find it even stranger when that same change would go into concurrence with the points you had criticized earlier. I make a good point don't I?!

I will reserve the right to ramble as much as I like on anything I like in my reviews, on subject or not, as long as I have the necessary review part in there as well. I also fail to see what could be wrong in the formulaic method of reviewing, as long as it suits the album, the reviewer, has the necessary parts, and doesn't look like a shopping list or a cinderblock; some people actually prefer that, it makes finding the beef in the text easier, and if the reviewer is a trusted source of opinions and analysis, it's actually pretty convenient. I like detours and and even rants, and I do both of those without any logic whatsoever if I happen to feel like it, because I write for fun, not for money or fame. And if someone happens to like what I write, that's fine, it's appreciated; it's just entertainment for myself and maybe some others if they feel like wasting their time.

Concise reviews, made to stick to the point and nothing else, are fine. Long reviews with extra crap are also fine, but the latter needs to be an entertaining read. There are short, pure opinions, and then there's the other edge of the envelope, the winding, branching, maybe gimmicky pieces that are meant for different purposes, and may serve as a form of amusement outside of the realm of pure reviewing. Funny, philosophical, stuffed with opinions of anything, political, prophetic, whatever... The two approaches can both be challenging, but the challenges are of different form.

I have to give a shameless plug to Zeingard's review of Exodus' latest flop "Exhibit B: The Human Condition", there's only a couple reviews accusing it of mediocrity at present, but no one yet who made the much needed move of taking that pile of modern, groove-infused dung to the woodshed the way he has. I was thinking of hitting that album at some point soon, but I think I may hold off for a while since he pretty much reflected my sentiments on that album.

I have only a little thing to point out about this review ---> http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/E ... 54/3aboood

the hurdy-gurdy in Eluveitie's first album is played by Sarah Wauquiez and not Anna (Murphy).

That's your only complaint? That review sucks way harder than that one line-up error.

Ugh whenever I see someone list "Highlights:" at the end of their review without elaborating upon what makes those songs highlights I take a holy oath with God Himself never to read their reviews ever again.

I reject them outright if I come across those in the queue. If you need a highlights or a pros and cons section at the end of your review to sum up your thoughts, something you should have spent the entire body of the review doing, then you're either A) lazy, B) being incredibly redundant, C) not a good critic in the first place, or D) any combination of the above.

Nappy's Master of Puppets review is a grand example of his style, which I happen to quite enjoy.

I disagree. I steer far away from delivering a track-by-track approach to my reviews, and that means describing the overall sound. I almost never have to discuss individual songs, but I feel that recommending specific tracks at the end of the review helps newcomers to the album find something that they might enjoy. If you're really set on dealing in absolution with this ideal, then I sincerely hope that you're never one to find my reviews in the queue.

If the review is good, I don't care if you add that at the end. If you reject these, BH, well eh...

While having highlights at the end of reviews comes off as very amateurish and is, well, lame, it seems a bit harsh to outright reject all of them. But like Tony said, well eh...

They're fucking redundant and pointless and ugly and have no place outside of a short blurb inside a 'zine or something. If it's a highlights segment I'm a liiiittle more lenient on it if the rest of the review is good, but if it's a pros and cons section I promise you it'll never go through under my watch. If you can't explain what is good or bad about the album within the review, you shouldn't be reviewing.

Though I sound more harsh than I really am. It takes like two seconds to just edit out the section and resubmit. Nothing in the review is lost, the meanest review mod is happy, your review goes through, all is right with the world.

That's exactly the problem with a lot of bad reviews - a lot of people try to turn reviews into entertaining reads, but their attempts to get more words out of their mouths are as graceful as stuffing it full of newspapers and shouting at the top of their lungs. You write gracefully, affording you the ability to go on tangents and flavor reviews while making them enjoyable reads. Most reviewers who try to write like you don't accomplish the same effect. The other edge of the envelope, as you called it, tends to be more difficult for an inexperienced writer to grasp, as they don't know if they're on the edge or off the deep end. It's more problematic with reviewers who struggle to effectively convey the thoughts on music in their head to the reader without the distraction of trying to make their writing entertaining - all the scorn of an UltraBoris review with emaciated guts.

A few examples of attempts at illustrated writing:

An amusing history and narrative within a good review: http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/G ... 967/Napero
An attempt at creative writing, virtuous only by spacing out bland writing: http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/W ... 13/kluseba
An "acceptable review" enshrined in the scribblings of the bastard child of Charles Dickens and Ayn Rand: http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/W ... and_Ov_Dog

Lefty's writing gives more regard to the fact that he is writing and he has an opinion than it does to the music being reviewed, and kluseba's attempts at creativity are like a Sonata Arctica chorus, so forcibly overused that it makes me wonder if there's anything between them.

One of the most identifiable forms of terrible writing, conveniently formatted for easy identification. I feel the same way about the terrible writing practices that I mentioned recently, especially lengthy pseudo-histories of prominent bands.

Good lord BastardHead, the new Arsis review is the funniest (and most insightful) thing I've read in weeks.

I think he could learn a thing or two about restraint from John_Sunlight's communist fanfiction.

I had fun writing that portion and review as a whole. Did I go overboard? Absolutely. But speaking just out of personal pleasure, I have the most fun when I do. I feel like my voice and style are more in line with the overblown and silly, and with things like that I'm merely playing to my strengths.

Basically I write like Dragonforce and I enjoy writing for at least partially the same reason I like listening to them.

It's really not fun reading. You know that there are other parts of the internet to public your slash fanfic, right?

I don't expect everybody to like it.

It's a good review in the sense that it accurately highlights the strengths and weaknesses of 'United in Regret' while being entertaining but it could definitely do with some heavy pruning around the edges. I actually paused half way through the fourth paragraph, scrolled down and decided to make my lunch before I continued reading the rest.

You've been fairly prolific lately Bastard, keep it up.

As long as it has musical description, eh. I don't think you have the right to say what could be or not be published on MA, Zodi. And BH also has a blog that's he's using, so yeah, his fanfics are published elsewhere.

This is not my style of review, there's too many pop culture references and it won't pass the test of time in my opinion, but there's obviously an audience for it. I prefer artsy and snobby reviews over BH's blockbuster method, but to each their own. Anyway, It was a bit fun to read, but yeah, overlong. At least its creativity was not only in the format.

zeingard, you should write more reviews too. I need some unparalleled cynicism.

Of course I have no say what should and should not be published on MA. Since my brief statement doesn't seem to say it sufficiently, I'll elaborate, and rather than being indirect, I'll be direct.

BastardHead: First of all, don't take this personally, I'm talking about one review and nothing beyond that. That Arsis review is terrible. It's more juvenile than MetalSucks writing, and far off-point. While humor can be integrated into reviews well, I don't find you entertaining like Napero's reviews tend to be, it reads more immature than you accuse Arsis' lyrics of being. I read half of the review and it's just self-indulgent wankery, the writing equivalent of Behold the Arctopus - boastful bullshit that teenagers might find amusing but completely without substance. The entertainment factor might be there if you didn't spent that extremely long paragraph basically writing a LiveJournal romance novel, but it's still drawn out and irrelevant. It's a slight variation from writing two pages calling Dani Filth a cocksucking faggot and whining about his lyrics while you write about fucking his girlfriend. Compile everything I wrote in this thread about the nature of reviews and stick that in front of the seven sentences I wrote about Wintersun and call it a review. It sounds like what I wrote in high school when I wrote about whatever the fuck I wanted to for as long as I wanted and claimed it touched in whatever I was supposed to be writing about because it eventually returned to it. It talks about the original point, but it's a waste of time and it's angstier than Evanescence.

Returning to the original point, you're writing on a tangent from the lyrics, literally writing fan fiction about you fucking the dude's ex girlfriend because he's a loser. It ends up not even meaning much since you generally speak positively of the album once you're done fucking his ex girlfriend. The first half of this review is worse than you say his lyrics are, more immature than literally writing about a broken heart in high school when you're far past that - worse than Korn or DevilDriver continually pondering that type of theme into their late 30s. It's an exercise in futility. Yours is bigger than mine. Your dick-waving introduction is over twelve inches long. What good does it do? You didn't insert it in the right place, only a small minority of dysfunctional degenerates will appreciate it there.

That's a terrible way of putting it (pun intended), and that's how an extensive (pun intended) length (pun intended) of your review comes across. I don't mean to be a dick (pun intended), but your writing is more self-indulgent than ANUS (pun intended). You describe the album as being catchier than herpes - considering the transmission rate of HSV-2 is 4% or 10% depending on your gender, do you understand how futile this would be if I wrote two pages about how your review is like herpes?It may or may not be, but you'll have to spent 15 minutes reading down until you get to the part you're waiting for.

You manage to get a similar point across in your review of All That Remains last album with a degree of restraint on the background, keeping it entirely relevant. If you can do it in an appropriate way, why do you feel the need to whip it out all the time? Relatively frequently at least. See how annoying this type of bullshit is?

What have I been talking about with reviews like this for the past week? Well, Morrigan was kind enough to write a tl;dr version (p.s. your tl;dr version was worse than the first half of that Arsis review).

Sorry Zodi, it looks like you and I just have completely different philosophies when it comes to reviewing. My main goal is to be both critical and entertaining, because dry, facts-only reviews bore the living shit out of me. Pretty much every reviewer I've ever been a fan of has a substantial personality, whether or not you think my personality is appropriate is entirely in the eye of the beholder. When I have fun writing something, I can only assume that there is a contingent of like-minded fools who will have fun reading it. Is it juvenile? Absolutely, that's the kind of silly humor I typically deal with. Those are the kind of jokes I make in real life, and I review in what is essentially the exact same voice. I won't say I have no ego, because I wouldn't throw in little jabs about how sexy I am if I didn't get some self indulgent pleasure out of it (and the bit about naming the football player after myself was just that, merely a silly little nudge). So yes, I won't argue that I have a habit of self indulgence, and that huge tangent about how feeble and whiny the lyrics are is a touch overboard. But my aim isn't to condense everything all the time. If I can say the same thing in less words, I won't always take that route because that method is much less fun to write and personally for me, a lot less fun to read.

And a few other nitpicks, I actually remain generally critical of the album throughout the whole review, despite the overall good score. I spend time talking about the riff writing and catchiness, but spend more time talking about the haphazard cut-and-paste songwriting, poor production, and the poor lyric writing in addition to my qualms with the themes in general (which I spend a fair amount of the review on making my point with a long, silly way, I get it). If you don't like that part, then yes, it takes a while to get to the part of the review that you'd care about (the part where I joke less). If you did, then it was an entertaining segment of a larger piece. You don't like the kind of reviews I normally do, that's perfectly fine. Good friends of mine and people I respect have said they don't like them, that's okay. You don't think I'm as skilled or funny as Napero? Neither do I. You also seem to be hung up on how the story part is about me sleeping with the hypothetical Annabelle, when A) that's irrelevant to the point and B) not what happens in there anyway. Maybe not, but you bring that up three times and it's just odd to me. And you seem to imply that the only people who would like this review are shitty people, which is pretty presumptuous and insulting to people who have zero involvement in this whole thing. Am I enabling the existence of a shitty fandom? Uhh... sure?

Basically I'm sorry you think it's awful, but my feelings aren't hurt. I'm not going to change the way I write after nearly five years of doing this because you don't like how I do it, and I'm not going to change this Arsis one for the same reason. You and I just have different philosophies it seems. I aim to both entertain and inform, and inject personality into my reviews. You seem to aim for efficiency and/or attention, and that's how we differ and that's fine.

It speaks for the review as a whole, regardless of what happens in there, the review is more about yourself than about the music you're reviewing. I mentioned that three times - a nearly unrelated tangent to the subject at hand that could be passed off as comedic writing.

I'm not suggesting that you must write like I advocate, but your dismissal shows that you missed the point. Consider your recent All That Remains review - colorful, with the same features and analysis, but without dwelling on what is admittedly a minor point. Your reply, like that Arsis review, spends the first half talking about yourself, defining and exercising your identity. In a review, when half of the whole is on a separate tangent, it diminishes the other half. Do you write the latter half, the review, with your personality injected into it? Nobody would dispute that you do, so what purpose does the first half serve? Comedy? Entertainment? Does that serve the review, or does the review serve as an outlet for writing an entertainment piece?

Since we're used to writing a response to music, consider music as a response to writing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWKtrze79Ys

If you're going to keep using words like "more" and "half", I'm going to have to point out that the offending section is really closer to 1/4 of the review, if that. I'm sure that's still too much time to be focusing on a joke (however related it may be), but tone down the hyperbole if you're trying to make a point. If I would have gone with the original name of Jacques Testosterone, would it have annoyed you equally as much? The reason I changed the name to my own was because I thought it'd be funnier. Do I self reference too often? Not for my tastes, but you're not the first person to say I need to stop doing that. The point of that whole section was to illustrate how whiny and petty the lyrics come off. I'm sorry man but I think you're the one missing the point here if you're going to get all Freudian and tell me what my intentions are when it's pretty clear that I'm just making an extended joke about the lyrics.

Point is that I mathematically spend far more time talking about Arsis than myself, it's the method that you're seeming to take issue with. I strive to be entertaining while making my point, and I feel I did that. As long as the joke goes on, the entire body of it is related to a prominent part of the album.

You're missing the point here even worse than in that Arsis review.

Make it as stupidly clear as possible then. I focus too much on entertainment instead of actually reviewing the album in question?

Everyone likes a good fart joke. However, endlessly long and unfunny fart jokes cloaked in pseudointellectual banter are fucking terrible.

I think it's interesting seeing how other people write. Me, I like giving facts about the release and interjecting humor when necessary or when I see fit. I don't know if the peeps like it, but hopefully they do.

I enjoy BastardHead's work and think he has a funny way of describing music as comes up with some uncanny ways to trash crap. When I read Zodi's work, I feel it is way more in your face and something I could imagine watching on YouTube review. It's a good change of pace from other reviews. Just my 2 cents.

I'm tired of the petty arguments, this is getting a bit too personal and inflammatory. BH's last post is a good resume of Zodi's posts in one sentence, let's leave it there. Some respect, guys, please. I don't want any fistfights in the yard. This is a clash of two review schools and it's going nowhere basically, argue in PM if you want to continue. It seems to me that Zodi is very inclined to criticize others, but fail at receiving criticism like he was MA's Roger Ebert.

Oh for pete's sake, can this thread be anything other than Zodi undertaking a pissing contest with every other individual that makes mention of their review in this thread? Criticize reviews for what they're lacking in terms of an evaluation and in the content of their writing, not because you find the way they evaluate or the audience they seek to be against one's own sensibilities. There are some pretty dry reviews on the site, and some ridiculous ones, but they have their audiences and their fans; it makes little sense to discuss a review on those merits.

I just would like to throw in my two cents and say the 90% of the reviews I've read here are terrible. Most of them are either fanboys or black metal elitists reviewing As I lay Dying's new album. Half of the time they don't even describe the music.

Thanks for your pertinent input.

Thumbs up to MalignantThrone's Defeated Sanity review. He's evolved in his writing and he brought up pretty much all of my problems with that band that no one else seemed to get.

Go back to Metalstorm, Tanner.

Metalstorm, lol.

If there's reviews without musical description, feel free to notify us in the right thread. We don't accept these. The older reviews needs some cleanup though, I removed a lot of the 2003-2004 lame reviews, but there's so many of 'em and we simply don't have the task force to do it.

Also, funny that you use the "black metal elitists" expression since your black metal/shoegaze "band" released a 5 copies cd-r album.