Compared to last summer's challenge, this challenge has been awfully quiet and chill, and far from having the many, many reviews we would've gotten by now. Even some of the winter challenges had more reviews.

Anyway all of you have my respect….

Slater I think you only miss the best Vothana album

Well, I've managed to put out one review per day and I'm perfectly happy. Maybe I'll push myself harder next round.

I'm curious to know what your favorite Vothana releases are, Lee. Once I get from work, I'm gonna spend the evening covering more Vothana releases from the old era, as I've grown to love them, especially demos 4, 8, and 10.

Action now,Assured future.

I don’t know demo years sincerely,I have only the fulls….

I would recommend starting out with demos 3 and 4 since those demos are the more popular ones, as well as being very good.

Well, perhaps due to the fact it's a tad later in the year than usual. Nevermind, I've been enjoying the nice competition for the podium up to now.

My part is done, quota fulfilled Strictly speaking, I have another one half-way, but I'm afraid I'll just leave it for now and keep it for quieter times. Blame wife, kid, all that kind of pestilence

This has been an interesting challenge in that we have a good number of moderately prolific writers who have the potential to get more prolific in future challenges, which I think is the key to eventually topping that magic 609 number.

Speaking for my own output, a combination of illness and a bunch of scheduling issues has hampered my ability to write for more than a couple hours on a few of the past 6 days. I don’t know if it would have been different if we held it earlier in June as my whole month has been kinda crazy. Anyway, I may get a few in tonight, but this’ll be the first challenge in 10 years that I’ve come in under 20, oh well.

Great job all around on the reviews though, been enjoying Gas’s and Slater’s latest ones in particular.

Same here, man. Plus, I won't sleep right knowing that it was the one needed to reach a round number, hahaha. But I've come back home just now and it's kinda late, so I'm done for this edition. Somebody please take care of the queue for these final hours as well see ya tomorrow for the results! Good work everyone!

I can do the queue, I’ll be awake.

Just got done finishing my last review for the challenge. My output might not have been as huge as last years, but I'm still nonetheless proud of finally being able to talk about some albums that I've been wanting to check out in a while. Definitely looking forward to seeing the results next morning.

2 more to dethrone gas and establish a 6 review lead, just in case he hoarded 5 reviews pending for review

I really should have took the death/doom pill from the start instead of constantly listening to JP power metal and get burnt out by it

I have none in the queue, I'm the one approving the queue!

Goddamn, gas reviewing a JP power metal album?

Whelp, managed to write one more before the buzzer, though sadly my virgin count sits at 15 so it's not even old enough to drive, so I'll see you guys again after I get out of jail.

I think I missed gas' JP power metal review, I've got to read that one now.

First time doing this challenge and getting first place with gas

Should have been less lazy and wrote one more review on Wednesday

Hahaha that's my little gift to you. I know it's not the one you recommended, but I had a bit of trouble finding Minstrelix's most recent album. I was reading your last several reviews and your style has definitely improved a lot since the first ones you submitted here. Flows a lot better and gives an improved general picture of the album. You may want to go back and check the one for Saturnus, just because you said once that they didn't have much in common with the Peaceville 3, but then later said they did. Although that is kind of how I feel about them lol

Anyway, the week is over and I think I've narrowly miscalculated the numbers I needed to do today, but that's fine. With the competition being less intense it meant more time to listen carefully and think properly about some releases that I knew less well, as well as a chance to do justice to the albums I've listened to many times in the last months. Also it wasn't entirely exhausting and I was able to see friends on the 3 days at the end of the week, so at least I don't hate reviewing right now. Still so much stuff I didn't manage to write though!


Wait, are we the same? I thought you had one more. In fact, I kept checking the queue to see if you would submit one more right at the end.

I was riding high on insomnia and pulled an all nighter, the energy went away after submitting the last review and I had to rest a bit before my first uni class for the semester

Uhh... that's a spoiler.

Daily Tally for Jul 02 2023
Total Reviews: 49 / 314
Total Virgin Reviews: 43 / 282
Percentage (VIRGINS/TOTAL): 87.8% / 89.8%

Participant List for Jul 02 2023
Participants (TODAY/TOTAL): 15 / 32

Today's Totals per Individual:


Running Totals per Individual:


Compared to the seventh day of the last challenge, we are down 29 reviews and 8 participants.

Congrats to LawrenceStillman for being today's leader with 11 reviews!

TOTAL VIRGINS: 282

On average, 90% of all reviews from the week were virgins! This is lower than the last challenge, which was at 92%.

We were down 70 reviews and 21 participants from the last challenge.

There were a total of 233 bands reviewed, including 279 unique albums.

The 11th Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge has totaled our lowest amount of reviews since June 2015 (230 reviews).

Participant List GRAND TOTALS


There it is! We have the second joint win of the challenge in just as many editions hosted by yours truly! Once again Gas places the decisive review almost at the last minute, and once again he'll appear at the top for alphabetical reasons it's been a thrilling competition with Lawrence, who truly gave him a run for his money. Also, it was probably the best possible result as both Slater and I deserved a place on the podium... am I right? (Just kidding there.) It's been a rather quiet challenge if compared to most of the past editions, but I think it's been far from a boring one. Don't you agree?

To sum up, congratulations gasmask_colostomy and LawrenceStillman on 1st place, Slater922 on 2nd place, and TheBurningOfSodom on 3rd place!

This was gasmask_colostomy's 13th time placing, LawrenceStillman's 1st time, Slater922's 2nd time, and TheBurningOfSodom's 2nd time.

Individuals who participated for all 7 days:
gasmask_colostomy
hells_unicorn
LawrenceStillman
MorbidAtheist666
robotiq
Sean16
Slater922
TheBurningOfSodom
thePowermetalLynx

Individuals who participated for 6 days:
Demon Fang

Individuals who participated for 5 days:
CHAIRTHROWER
Lane
lukretion
Metantoine
NausikaDalazBlindaz

The Hall of Fame has been updated. See you at the next challenge in autumn 2023!

Some ulterior stats, just for fun:

Most reviewed bands:

9 reviews:
Vothana

5 reviews:
Enchant

4 reviews:
Dead Trooper
Moonblood
Valhalla Bound

Most reviewed releases:

2 reviews:
Dawn Ray'd - To Know the Light
Parish - Parish

Having gas and Lawrence tie for first place is crazy, considering they were going on a rapid fire in reviews last night. Was a pretty good challenge overall, even in spite of the lack of reviews, and I do congratulate everyone else for participating

Pretty cool to see a bunch of tied placements there. I may have to use this sort of model for these challenges going forward, it was quite nice to get around to checking out some 2023 releases that I was putting off while still getting to participate.

I'm glad I managed to roll my fat arse over and compete toward the end, even if it was just a handful of virgins. BurningofSodom, you're a legend for hosting and placing on the podium again!

I think the fact that the two of us live in Asia makes a big difference in regard to when we're writing, because it was lunchtime for us when the challenge finished. Every challenge I've done I've always been writing in the last 10 minutes, and just like last time I thought I left myself a bit too much to do on the last morning. But maybe Lawrence was being nice or just likes round numbers, because I was waiting for him to submit a final review in the last half hour that never came.

Do agree that both you and Slater deserve to be up there: a pretty large gap back to the next finishers, who all end up with 15 reviews for some random reason. There's something to be said for contests where people are pushing 100, but I think when I look back on individual reviews I'll be a lot more satisfied with the ones I did this time. Except for Monday when I was scrambling for time, I mostly didn't rush a lot, was able to choose carefully which albums were priorities for me, and didn't duplicate anyone else's choices (wanted to do Mystic Prophecy and Monolithe, but let them go once I saw others had finished). I have summer holiday in a few weeks, so maybe some of the extras will appear over that period too, since I have far too many leftover virgins to hoard them for next challenge.

This challenge actually makes me realize we could play teams if we wanted to spice things up: like a European, North American, Asian, and Rest of World team going for a good total. It obviously depends who takes part, but the split on this occasion would not be too far off equal I suppose. And something like 2 points for hitting someone's Secret Satan/Pool Party album. Just a thought.

Managed to get at least a couple of consolation prizes, particularly in giving a band the third-most reviews. As stated in the reviews, I definitely recommend Dead Trooper's full lengths (and their first EP is good too). Was definitely hoping to submit all seven days and either join the Dawn Ray'd gang or cover another new album (or both lmao), but hey, what are ya gonna do? Big thanks to TheBurningOfSodom for hosting this contest, and looking forward to the next one!

Fuckin' cringe not gonna lie.

Conbgrats to the reviewer crew and our organizers. Nice little challenge. I was out of energy but wanted to tackle Obsidian Gate and Malleus. Oh well, next time maybe.

Jesus. All those high scores. Pretty fucking sad...

I didn't get to a few King Gizzard ones and I also felt I needed more time to review the Moahni Moahna album I bought recently. Maybe next time.

Not really, the adrenaline in me was completely gone and I collapsed as soon as i hit submit for the last review. It did not help that I wasted a lot of time in the middle of the challenge looking for a killer Japanese metal album on par with Mogari or Karasu but couldn't find one so I went with the ol' reliable (death/doom)

I might be able to win the next challenge while subsisting on solely death/doom

love you guys.


Well, technically speaking, you've won this one already, lol.


I dig the additional teams thing – plus, I think lukretion and me could really be an impressive Italian squad I'm open to any kind of suggestions, I'm... far from the most creative person around, so I'm likely to struggle in the search for possible improvements to the formula.

Ready for a European team, let's just put DanielG06 back on track and we'll win the next one

Congrats to everyone who participated, and particularly to TheBurningOfSodom for the organization. Not that many reviews, but a competition interesting to follow. Could have lived without the Vietnamese nazi band, but to each their own I guess.

<3


I still find it amazing how he came out of nowhere, set the all-time record for the challenge, then proceeded to completely disappear shortly thereafter. Quite a feat, but must have taken its toll

I mean, if I had to write over a hundred reviews over a span of a week, I too would take a long-ass break just to recover.

I’m definitely down for teams, just hope I don’t let my fellow Rust Belter Twisted down by turning in another weak showing like I did here. Out of curiosity, would North and South America be their own separate teams, and if so, assuming we have anybody from Central America happen to participate, where would their allegiances lie?

P.S. - I’m once again late to the party on this one, but great job all around. I’m a bit surprised I actually managed to get myself in a 3-way tie for 4th place, my whole weekend was a wash on account of catching Dream Theater and Devin Townsend in Philly and then having family related stuff the next day. Not sure if we’ve had that happen before.

The fact that the most reviewed band for this challenge is an NSBM band never ceases to be ironic

If the Italians are in charge, let's rename the whole thing to The Gabagool challenge.

Tbf, the musicians are pretty likely to be virgins as well as their albums.

Regarding teams, it wouldn't have to be continents because it might end up a bit uneven. I'm sure we would have enough from USA alone to warrant splitting that from any other North/Central American competitors, while Europe may go the same way too. But doing it like that might necessitate writers to "sign up" in advance so we could balance the teams. Another alternative is just to get people to "sign up" and then they are divided into teams at random (maybe 4 teams), while any new writer would either be ignored or automatically assigned to one team on rotation. So even if they don't know about it they could compete.

Separately, and I know this is more work for the host, I'd be interested in a genre tally at the end of the week. We could take bets on which genre would end up with the most reviews, and that could also feed into any team competition based on the winning bets.

Neat I have 23/40 reviews in this challenge being albums from Japan

Guess the percentage would be higher next challenge now that I have found a good amount of JP death/doom virgin albums. Still feel bummed that I didn't give write more in the middle of the challenge



Shows up from nowhere
Sets all time high
Refuses to elaborate
Disappears

*Plays gigachad theme*

Sounds unironically killer. We might have the name, ladies and gents.


That's exactly what I was aiming for


Lmao at the first line.

As for the rest, yeah I'd considered the genre tally thing but I really can't seem to find an easier way to do so without, you know, clicking on every artist and writing down their genre. I can also imagine all of those bands filed under 'Black/Speed/Thrash Metal' and similar, 'hybrid' tags being a bit of a nightmare to deal with. Not closing the door to it, but I'll need to find a way to work the whole thing out. Both the team ones are intriguing though, the main difficulty will be balancing the teams indeed. The 'geographical' leaderboard, for its part, can be included as a statistic curiosity in any case, and it might even have its own hall of fame, if compared to teams which are randomly generated and thus different from one edition to another. These are some good ideas to think about...

...hoping I won't arrive to the next challenge while knee-deep in work and stuff again – I have a lot of upgrades to my frugal spreadsheet I sketched on day one (and barely changed since then) in my mind, and having some time to improve and speed up the whole thing wouldn't hurt.