BH would give your reviews each a 45%.

Except for the Pantera one, this guy's reviews must be some of the shortest on the site:

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

Okay, those actually contain a good percentage of musical description. But c'mon, they are so unbearably short.

You call that short? Take a look at these:

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/B ... ilent/7882
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/B ... Devil/9648
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/B ... usio/38591

I haven't read them yet because I'm on my phone and the main site is unbearable via this medium, but description so far outweighs length in terms of priority in this field that it'd actually be unspeakably refreshing to get more short reviews that are very well written.

Some writers simply have a talent for writing adequately descriptive, brief reviews. Most writers, even good ones, may have to put considerably more work into rendering their reviews concise than leaving them long. Some serious trimming rarely hurts, either.

Those Plague reviews really are way too scant. I love short reviews and have been attempting to do them more myself, but those aren't good.

Those are actually longer than some of the ones by the user I linked to.

I won't quote anyone about my Pallbearer review (I was away for the weekend, sorry it's not like I've ignored the comments) but yeah, I know it was a kneejerk rant about them and I reckon it could have been better but I wrote it out of frustration!

Kudos to Acrobat for his excellent Paradise Lost review, good one!

Yeah, when I checked his profile I just read the first Pantera review and posted those. I then proceeded to check the others and I realized they were way shorter.

Nah, if I was going for symbolism I would've said the same thing for three or four pages.

Cheers, Tony!

Also, hail to the mighty Abominatrix for returning from the abyss. I hope he intends to cover Voivod's discography... or at least a good section of it.

I enjoyed Zodijackyl's review, very cool and evocative writing.

Re-reading it in relation to my previous reviews has driven me to delete my Fallujah review for now and re-write it at some point in the future. It just isn't up to the quality of my previous work.

Didn't think much of the three new Therion reviews by kluseba. Made the mistake of reviewing Of Darkness... as if it were expected to be trying to achieve the same things Theli and Vovin aimed to do. Instead of assessing it as the killer contribution to that era of Swedish death metal it is. There was also a comment about the production being raw. It's pretty damn meaty for the time, even if it isn't like, Sabbath's TYR. Listen to a Depravity (Fin) demo from the same year.

And, from the Symphony Masses review:



As if early Amorphis, Celtic Frost, Paradise Lost are somehow not amazing releases to be placed alongside! This point is actually true, I would definitely recommend it to people who like those albums, but it is phrased as if it's a bad or limiting thing somehow.

Thank you very much for your feedback. Actually, I'm a big fan of Therion and started some kind of rewind to honour one of my favourite bands. The thing is that Therion has released so many masterpieces that I had to give somewhat lower ratings to their early works. I mean, if I gave already 75% to Symphony Masses, how much would I give to Theli, Vovin, Lemuria, Sirius B and so on? 100% each? 110%? That's not possible and that's why I had to be a little bit more severe. Symphony Masses is not a disaster but in my opinion clearly the weakest release of the band. For its time and for Therion's career, this record is great but it hasn't aged as well as the other releases of the band. Obviously, I'm also a big fan of the other bands I've mentioned like Amorphis and Septicflesh. Amorphis is in fact simply my very favourite band. It's just that Symphony Masses is a more specific niche record for fans of this kind of genre while Theli and so on are masterpieces that any fan of any kind of music should experience in my opinion.

I'm sorry, but what does this phrase even mean?!

How is an album which is an epitome to post-86 Celtic Frost more of a niche sound than any of the albums of the band after they decided to play the same style (which is precisely what Theli and following albums are)? That doesn't even make sense! How can you say that when most extreme metal from that period in Europe has more than one foot in Celtic Frost's ground?! Again, I'm sorry, but I just can't understand that justification.

We are in grave danger of getting into another protracted debate about what 100% scores represent and what reviewers are thinking/ assessing when they give them, but I will say that this

makes no sense whatsoever.

I mean, all these here Runemagick albums are killer... I better give one of 'em like 50% just 'cause.

It makes sense to me in that Theli, with its more "classical" symphonic touches (as opposed to the haunting atmospheric sound of the symph elements in SM) and lack of death metal would be more easily appealing to metalheads less inclined toward extreme metal or general weirdness - I.e. I picked up Theli right after I got into metal but didn't appreciate SM until years later.

That said, I am a bit surprised k gave such a creative album a low/equivalent rating compared to the rather bland death metal that preceded it, but that's entirely my opinion.

Just to step away from any discussion on Therion's records for a moment, creative doesnt automatically mean good or better.

Fair point; I suppose a better way to word that would be that I find the new elements introduced to Therion's sound on that album to be both enjoyable and interesting in their uniqueness.

Well, this is probably nitpicking, but I'd always classify creative as positive. If you mean there are cases where something is original but executed poorly, I'd use some other term.

I can relate to that, but it still doesn't really go against what I said earlier. Kluseba said that Symphony Masses sounds more niche than anything post-Theli, and that doesn't make much sense when you consider that SM is pure Celtic Frost worship. Now if you mean to tell me that CF is more niche than post-Theli Therion... I'd very much say otherwise, that pure symphonic metal is much more niche than an album that bases itself on the most influential metal band ever. Anyone with an appetite for extreme metal can relate to SM, whereas in order to relate to Therion post-Theli you really need to like symphonic stuff.

Aside from the Therion discussion that's going on, kudos to Metantoine for his excellent Opeth review. I still have to check Pale Communion, I know it won't let me down.

Haha thanks, I've spent many hours on it yesterday. I had to review my favorite band one day!

Eh, I may be opening a shitstorm (like in the good old times) but this is bothering me:

The reviews for the new Arch Enemy, namely. To be precise, I haven't even heard ANY of their albums, but what gets on my nerves is that every one of the negative reviews in there seems to find it valid to spend 1/3 of the review on talking about Alissa and how she/the band is clearly trying to appeal to teenagers and hot frontwoman card omgomgomgomg. That the band is "deliberately exploiting that" is hardly convincing for me, particularly after I've stumbled onto their facebook and interviews and stuff and she seems to have far more of a "bro" (or more like "sis", I guess) status than anything else, and more than in most bands I've encountered.

I just can't help thinking that if it was a change from a John to a Mike or something instead of an Angela to Alissa no one would rant about that and would just review the damn album.

Well, I don't know much about the band, or the album. But it seems logical to me for people to criticize her if they don't like her, her vocals or her appearance. If she's a genuine irk (Musically or Personally) then reviews are bound to criticize her, aren't they? People tend to get really personal on those kind of things.

I agree with you that it's redundant, but that's just the way people are. Similar as to how people complain about deathcore imagery when it has absolutely 0 effect on the music you hear.

Could be wrong, but this sounds like another one of those "your opinions don't appeal to me" rants.

Nah, it's not about her vocals or her appearance specifically, it's more of a "they chose her because of looks to sell more albums" implication, which is completely baseless.

^^


There really isn't anything more to say. People hate the idea of her similar to how they hate deathcore imagery. Both have absolutely zero effect (actually it's usually the other way around) on the music (maybe the lyrics) but people are annoyed by it and some decide to mash it into their review. I have done it myself, it's indeed useless, but sometimes pretty refreshing to write down.

You'd be shocked to see how many reviewers actually do something similar, hell, even autothrall does it in a part of his latest Carnifex review. It's just random bashing for bashing purposes, and usually pretty fun to read.

Best thing to do is to just stop caring about any criticism on her and just focus on the musical part of the reviews, which is all that really matters to a review. The rest is just decoration or filler.

It has less to do with Alissa herself and way more with the marketing and band as a whole. This is one of those cases where calling a band out for a non musical move is completely reasonable considering how transparent and shameless the band was with this. You can call it baseless, but if you think about it even medium hard, it's pretty fucking obvious.

And you say you don't complain.

u wot m8?

Alissa is "cool" and all, sure, but you've got to be kidding me. Have you seen the video for you will know my name? Anyway, the music was so boring that I needed something else to dwell on to burn a paragraph or two.

Oh yeah and I finally get to use this pic, because with stage outfits like this, she isn't objectified or anything.

She's a vegan straight edge activist, gross.

Sure is a pretty lady though, and I'm not going to say that's the only reason - I don't think so, but she was kind of independently famous for being a hot metal chick...so there's no way it wasn't a BIG factor...

oh, he also gave high 90%s to Baroness, Conan and Pilgrim, all is explained.

Grave Wyrm's review is great though, he said what I wanted to with more eloquency and less rage:

Well, I wrote my impression was the exact opposite. Read a pretty long interview with them just recently and she sounded more like a musician and normal, equal-level band member than most female vocalists in metal bands I've encountered.

Please don't get on my fucking nerves with stuff like this. I'm doing the exact thing this thread is for and no different than the Pallbearer stuff. If you're going to dismiss everything I say that disagrees with you as "complaining" then I won't fucking bother replying.


Did not see that one, but I stumbled into these pics for example (was mainly interested in Decapitated's set, Arch Enemy is right up top), and while her style is quite extravagant or whatever, she definitely hardly looks like she's trying to do a "hot chick" kind of thing, to say the least. She looks like a damn Banshee from Warcraft 3.


Well, that's the thing I'm talking about basically - no one denies she's very pretty and everything, but as I said, if it was just a dude vocalist replacing another dude vocalist, no one would be talking about the change in any other context than vocals. I can SORT OF see where people are coming from with this, but the impression I'm getting is that the people who dislike the band/album blow it massively out of proportion.

ConorFynes review of the new Vintersorg is just wrong on so many levels. Like...

What the fuck? Crowd favourite? Does this guy realize that most fans of Vintersorg's classic stuff do not like that album? And in mentioning Vintersorg's classic material, not once in this review does he mention Till fjalls or Odemarkens son.

And yet he gives the new album a low score? This is the closest album to Cosmic Genesis that anything he's done since.

It seems to me that we have someone writing a review of a Vintersorg album that has not followed the man's career at all but just name dropped a few albums. After reading this review a few times more, I'm still scratching my head.

She sounds pretty good live....like a young Dani Filth....also, holy shit Amon Amarth sounds awesome on that set.

Yeah, what's with this trend of metal frontpeople baring their skin for publicity? I mean, just look at Matt Pike. I've never seen anybody more eager to bare their tits for attention than him. What an objectified slut.

Looks comfortable to me. What's up with the rest of the band wearing jackets while their singer is sleeveless? There's no way Swedish men could possibly be comfortable with sleeves on an August day in Germany. It can't be at all cold, because their singer has no sleeves and has plenty of rips for ventilation, which are great on hot days. The inconsistent levels of clothing remind me of that really awkward Dukatalon picture.

No thanks, Jeff.

@ TheLiberation - Look, I don't mean to bust your balls or anything like that, but the thing you're talking about was amply discussed in the thread for when War Eternal came out. For pages! Now, I'm one of those people that like BH sees this as a continuity move from the band. They've been better known in mainstream metal circles ever since the vocalist was female, so having one female replaced by another makes them retain their fanbase. That isn't rocket science, just good old marketing. If people want to judge the merits of the album on that alone then they're just dumb, since the songwriting/riffs can be good even with the marketing move. In this case however it really isn't (aren't, neither one nor the other)! War Eternal is just vapid recycled crap on auto-pilot, and picking up on my own terms, a clear continuity move in their careers.

Footnote, I'm a big fan of the band, even with Angela.

@ Mjollnir - Dear lord, does that Vintersorg review miss the point or what?! I find it amusing that someone would listen to Vintersorg without finding V.'s vocals the prime aspect to be heard. I mean, his music has always been based around his ability to sing like a viking! Ugh... way to miss the point there. And calling Vintersorg the "side-project" is hilarious, fucking hilarious.