Cost-consciousness towards supply meeting demand.

Where do I fit in the black metal elite/AILD fanboy thing? I think I'm in the middle of the venn diagram.

You're too extreme/radikult.

Well, Chances are I won't do that, unless they are really terrible. Also, How does releasing my demo in anyway make me a black metal elitest? That makes no sense what-so-ever.

What's wrong with Metalstorm, btw?

Capitalizing random words in your sentences doesn't make sense, but you still do it.

Is everyone a dickhead here or...?

Necro is an first class asshat, but kinda, yes. There's a dude with 33 000+ posts on Metalstorm and it's always in very "Bad English" (his name). We're not so lenient about that here. Ask dreadmeat, he probably hates me now I asked him to use capital letters.

Also, it might be best if you realize not everything I say is serious.

Well glad to see some sort of friendliness

Bad English is a cool dude, if you can understand him haha, he's the only on tehre that is allowed to type like that, just because it wouldn't be the same without him.

Any errors I make are just typos. My mind works faster than my hands.

Once you're on the site longer you'll get more accustomed to the snarkiness. We're certainly not round the clock assholes like pretty much everybody on Return to the Pit.

I really like Perplexed_Sjel, but calling Electric Wizard a crossover band? Uh, what?
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/E ... lexed_Sjel

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/M ... luminotron

This has to be some kind of insane parody of every Metallica hater ever. Why this was accepted I will never know.

That was hilarious.

Really? His writing is pretty terrible in my opinion, his preoccupation with certain things and his anti-true attitude are incredibly pretentious and annoying. Purple prose, annoying attitude, little to say. Not to mention there are obvious factual mistakes aswell.

Alright, I understand why people dislike him and I do admit his whole purple writing thing does go over the top. But I can't help to be biased by the fact that he's turned me on to countless good black metal records. And I do feel people give him a bit more shit than he deserves.

I'm wondering what other people think of this review: http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... DomDomMCMG

Does using a sole reference tell you what the band sounds like, or does it destroy the credibility of the writer when they can't find anything else to say than it sounds like another band? If you haven't heard of Oceano, are you inclined to believe that it is an accurate comparison? If you have heard Oceano but haven't heard IDW, are you inclined to believe that IGW sounds exactly like them? Does listing each instrument and saying it sounds like Oceano enhance the credibility of the review?

These two bands are similar, but beyond stating that and emphasizing it once and restating it at the end, I don't think it helpful. It could be written in the introduction and the conclusion, but I feel that re-using the same reference with each point is useless. Basic observations such as "chugga chugga and breakdowns with lots of double bass" would be better, even if that's the most vague description of any type of death metal/core.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/M ... 06/tylr322

Reading reviews like this, I suddenly feel vindicated in my "I don't usually start on bands with their debut" stance. If I had heard First Breath to start off, I probably would have just passed them by (as this guy seems to be doing), but I started with 11 Dreams and based on the strength of their middle albums, they're one of my Danish favourites.

While he overuses the comparison he does describe the basic template for the music present on the album. Of course I already know what Oceano and Whitechapel sound like (regrettably), but even so he manages to pass down a description of the elements. I've seen and read much worse when it comes to barebones.


This on the other hand is pretty bad. I'm left totally in the dark as to what the album actually sounds like or what the instruments do aside from it being "pussified metal".

Comparing both reviews makes the filter clog with one and not with the other, care to take a guess which is which?

Nuked.

"It honestly feels like they are stealing valuable time from you that you can't get back, I could be masturbating, looking at the ceiling or just doing anything but listening to this."

My thoughts about his review.

Yeah, that line in particular was... well, you know.

More than anything, he just comes off as lazy. His reviews are absurdly short and he often provides an extremely barebones description of the actual music. I also have almost polar opposite tastes in extreme metal, so yeah, I don't go out of my way to read his reviews.

Oooh, I found another naughty reviewer. Not saying to delete them (though please do so if you feel like it, you'll know why below), but just try reading through this garbage.

http://www.metal-archives.com/users/Axis_Corpsefucker

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/A ... rpsefucker


http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/S ... rpsefucker

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/P ... 12/metal22

This dude has the right idea. I was going to write a review myself along these lines, probably still will - but it's good to see I'm not alone in thinking this album is a work of art.

Perhaps Perplexed meant crossover as in spanning different audiences, as in the same sentence Perplexed refers to their popularity. If this were in fact the intention, what an awfully poor choice of words.

The new Master of Reality review is rather redundant. It reads like something I might have written when I first joined the site. Just praise and very vague description, no actual analysis of the music whatsoever. It's not a terrible review, but it's quite unnecessary considering the amount of reviews that there already is.

I think he uses too much hyperbole:





I agree that Master of Reality is a really great album, but come on. High art? Very meaningful and powerful lyrics? Obviously these are SirMetalGinger's opinions, but I hate it when people absolutely gush over albums. I just don't like the style.

For fucks sake, everyone in the fucking world has given the fucking world their fucking thoughts on Master of Fucking Reality, could anyone writing a new fucking review please provide a better fucking analysis than Rolling Fucking Stone magazine? It "dominated the [fucking] metal scene"? No fucking wonder the reviewer is fourteen fucking years old. Just because you can write a coherent sentence doesn't mean you have anything worthwhile to offer in a review - track three is named after your pathetic fucking opinions. Grow the fuck up and spend some time learning to form coherent fucking thoughts rather than parroting VH1 and regurgitating Wikipedia.

Serious response: If you are interested in improving your writing, please don't hesitate to ask for feedback. We don't bite (if you're polite). I wrote like that when I was 14 (I'm glad that part of the internet is long dead and buried).

BastardHead's Arsis review makes me think of him as someone who finds immense joy from PewDiePie videos.

Nobody likes PewDiePie videos.

I have no idea what PewDiePie is so I'll just assume that was an insult.

And SirMetalGinger is the quintessential noob. I haven't accepted any of his reviews yet, but I've rejected quite a few he'd written for Metallica. He's been a joke for a while with my friends. According to him, Load is a result of Metallica trying to capitalize on Nickelback's success, and one of the songs (don't remember which) was a ripoff of Creep by... Wait for it... Stone Temple Pilots. So yeah, he's a clueless kid who only knows the biggest of the big names and even then has no grasp of history or understanding of the bands in question.

He's a really loud, shrill Swedish Youtube Let's Player who mostly does manic Let's Plays of games like Amnesia and Happy Wheels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwYC-QfH9rE

This is him. I enjoy him every so often, but he's really not for everyone.

lol, after a cool 93% for Arch/Matheos, Twisted went crazy.
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/M ... Psychology

I'm beginning to get the impression that there's nothing Twisted_Psychology doesn't like.

Well what'd he give Illud if he reviewed it?

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/Lizzy_Borden/Master_of_Disguise/4634/wallernotweller

Sounds to me like this guy heard just one track from their first three albums and decided this was their first great album. Are you fucking kidding me? He obviously hasn't heard Visual Lies; and I don't just disagree with his opinion, either. The quality of the review is generally poor as well.

The p2p generation newbie approach - listen to everything that is considered great, like all of it, but have very little perspective on what makes music good, because while everything you have heard is pleasant and enjoyable, you haven't heard music that is decent, inconsistent, or just bad. Simple observations are easy to describe, but finding contrast on quality is grasping at nothing if you haven't heard it done at many levels of quality. People lose a lot of perspective when they rush through the essentials and don't listen to the mediocre and the terrible in addition to the great.

For example, this is the best song on the EP that it comes from, and only derives decency from ripping off the rhythm of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", yet it genuinely deserved a 0% review. Can you even imagine how the other three songs are worse?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCg_MI6d4y4

Twisted_Psychology might give a few too many positive reviews, but he's genuinely a nice guy from what I've seen on here and does seem to have a pretty good grip on his opinions and reasons why he likes things, which is more than some other reviewers can say.

Usually, I really don't have a problem with reviews by Empyreal even if many of his ratings appear pretty strange to me (98% for the last Edguy and Kamelot for example) and if quantity sometimes goes over quality. In opposition to many other reviewers, I'm also pretty much aware of the fact that my own reviews also display many unpopular ratings and are not always top notch, especially the first ones (English is in fact only the third language I've learnt) but this has been discussed over and over before.

Empyreal's review for Elvenking's "Era" is though probably his worst. It's okay if you don't like the band and you really don't have to. But describing them as "shit" and their fan basis as "eighth wonder of the world" is pretty silly and has nothing to do with the description of the band, its history, its music or whatsoever. This bad style is continous throughout the entire review. One record is described as being "ass". Other passages include intelligent passages such as "!?" and "AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!". The music is described as being "puke-worthy" and so on. What should someone who doesn't know the band actually think about that kind of description? This kind of vocabulary is appropriated for a South Park show but not for a review of an experienced user. Come on, this just feels like a hate review written by an angry teenager who doesn't like pop elements in his metal music and cries about it. I know Empyreal has some kind of pioneer bonus on here and that I'm probably going to get bashed for bringing up my opinion but I honestly don't think this kind of reviews meet the more and more elevated standards of this site and I am at least courageous enough to bring up my points and explain them. I think this review should be re-written.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/E ... 8/Empyreal

You can say what you will, but...

1. Quantity over quality? I write maybe 2 reviews a month for this site now. In fact I don't write more often because I am rarely inspired to go on very long about a lot of albums, so I just don't do it at all. Hardly quantity over quality at all...

2. If you think I'm complaining because of the pop elements then you're just plain wrong and should re-read the review. In fact the first paragraph after the introduction just proves you didn't really even read it through once. I explicitly talk about how I like poppier stuff and the pop-metal hybrid style.

Otherwise, well sure, judge it as you will.

"or if the drums sounded like trash cans being banged on in the next room over." Empyreal, this wasn't an issue with St. Anger. Just sayin... I think that review is actually well written and emphasizes the issues that we, who have reviewed a lot of material and listened to way too much music for our own sanity's sake, get worked up about, especially those of us that really have a liking of traditional metal and well written songs in general.

I don't even know if someone corrects the reviews but anyways I'll keep on writing the errors here

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... _Dei_Ameth

of course the In Flames single he cites is called "The Quiet Place" and not "The Quiet Room"

Don't be a martyr, it's childish and makes you come off as annoying and whiny. Empyreal happened to bash an album you apparently liked, but if you dislike profanity, hyperbole and stark insults in reviews, there are reviewers far more deserving of your criticism than Empy.