Welcome to the 10th Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge!

Originally the "MA Virgin Reviews Challenge", this is a time-honored tradition among our reviewers here. Every spring and autumn, reviewers are encouraged to spend a week writing and submitting as many quality reviews as possible. The challenge is focused on virgin albums: those with no reviews so far. Every day, the reviews submitted and accepted are tallied, so that participants can see how they compare with one another and whether or not as a group we've been able to beat the accumulative totals. Previous challenges can be found here.

The challenge is named in memory of our friend Diamhea, a longtime contributor to this challenge and staff member here at Metal Archives, who sadly passed away on May 21, 2018. He was the first person to have ever written 100 reviews for a single challenge!

This challenge will run from Monday Nov 28 @ 12:00AM EST to Sunday Dec 4 @ 11:59PM EST.

The magic number to beat is 609. That was set in May 2009. It's high but we can beat it.
The second number to beat is 531. That was the total from the last challenge!

Challenge Rules

1. The focus is on virgin albums.
The only albums that count are those that had zero reviews prior to the challenge.

2. Every release listed on the main site is valid including singles, videos, boxed sets and so on.
However, please try to refrain from mass reviewing singles and 'best of' compilations for this challenge. That's lame.

3. Eligible releases have to be virgins at the beginning of the challenge.
Multiple people can review the same virgin. There’s no bonus for getting to it first, so no need to hurry – focus on quality instead.

4. Eligible reviews must have been written during the challenge.
Taking notes is fine, but avoid stockpiling already written reviews in advance.

5. Value quality over quantity!
Everyone is welcome to participate, but keep in mind that the mods won't be more lenient during the challenge.

6. The challenge abides by the default time of the site (Eastern Standard time or GMT-5).
Please ensure that you are submitting your review(s) within the right time frame in order for them to count.

7. The total number of reviews written will be tallied once a day (under normal circumstances).
I will do the tallying as soon as possible. Please don't nag me.

8. Stay cordial and respectful with one another.
Don't hijack this thread with petty arguments or whining. Remember that the mods are watching (and waiting)...

9. The only reward is our eternal appreciation.
The only prize is knowing that there is an album that previously didn't get any love... that now has a review to call its own.

Hall of Fame






What is SECRET SATAN? The gist of it is simple. People put their names forward. I randomly match those people with one another. They send each other a virgin to review. They both review one another's respective virgins for the challenge. SECRET SATAN is opt-in and totally optional to the review challenge. You have to put your name forward, either by mentioning it in this thread OR by sending me a PM on the forum. Once I have collected enough names, I'll notify people who their matches are a week before the challenge starts. I'll notify through a forum PM.

Once matched, you must do the following:

Step 1: You will exchange with one another a virgin album for review.
It MUST be an album on this site with no reviews at the time it is shared with the other person.

Step 2: You are required to provide to the other person a link to the album you want him/her to review.
It MUST be available for FREE online and in either a QUALITY DOWNLOAD or QUALITY STREAM. No self-promoting your own albums, thanks!

Step 3: You will review the virgin album you received from the other person for the challenge.
Be prepared for the possibility that it may be well outside your comfort zone. Please remember this is done in good faith!

If you have any problems with the person you're matched with, let me know. I have spare albums for review just in case it doesn't work out.

Signed up for Secret Satan (closed):


Have fun! Looking forward to your participation!

Hey guys, that's right, I'm incredibly honoured to announce that I will be the host for this challenge! I'll take care of the tally and of Secret Satan as well, so don't hesitate to contact me for any related issues.

Helping my favourite website to keep this beloved tradition alive and kicking is a wonderful feeling, especially since I'm one of the latecomers here, and I wouldn't even know how to describe it. Keeping this short, I'll do my best to measure up to my predecessors.

Can't wait for it to start! See you there

I own 32 releases from this year that I have barely listened to. Gonna be a fun few weeks until this one starts.

I've been eyeing up a few bands to do some reviews for, in addition to many new releases I've been digging that have yet to be reviewed. I'm moving at the top of November, so I should be settled and ready to crank out a few reviews.

I'll be there, of course. Can't predict for how many, but I'll aim at one virgin a day like last time.

Also, congrats to TheBurningOfSodom, our new Tabulator of Torn Hymens Have fun, hehe.

Thanks! Sounds... killer

Bah, I'm kidding. The only time I felt really exhausted was after we reached this crazy 609 mark back in 2009, but again we set up an all-time MA record so it was all for good The thing is, when I was in charge I used to do it the "hard" way manually checking whether every submitted review was really a virgin or not, then adding it to a big list etc. Couldn't even skip the seemingly "obvious" ones; let's say, you see a review for The Number of the Beast, it can't be a virgin right? Wrong - lo and behold, some special Japan-only single no-one had heard about, with no review so far... Now I guess that after years of practice Derigin has much optimized the process. I remember there was also sisters_of_merciless who developed some automatized tools to speed up everything, but he doesn't seem to be around any more.

Looking forward to having a good time anyway!

EDIT - There used to be an announcement on the main site's homepage for the previous editions, maybe you could have a mod post one for you? I'm not sure everyone checks this - very quiet - reviews subforum.

I worked quite a bit on quickening the process and I'm curious to see if everything will work as I imagined. At the moment there still seems to be the need for a manual check like you described. Maaaybe I'll try something different to improve it even more, but I'm cautiously confident in what I did so far. Can't wait either!

As for the announcement, I agree. Last time I spoke with Derigin (before opening this thread) it was up to him indeed. Guess he forgot or had some other life stuff in the meantime?

I'll make the announcement post tomorrow. Was waiting a bit to let the merch post have some coverage first, but it's now been two weeks.

That explains everything.

I forgot to say that I'm happy to do Secret Satan.

Looks like we have at least a proper pair, lol. Hoping for someone else to join or else there won't be much secrecy

Sign me up, Scotty.

Not quite satisfied with my performance during last challenge, so let's see if Secret Satan's present will get the motivation going.

Done! Good to see some more participation.

Exciting!!!!

hi im moloch616 and i want to join to secret satan ,someone can help me

sign me up

moloch616 is here

Moloch, don't worry, I'm sure BurningOfSodom will see it soon. There's plenty of time.

Hey man, sorry for the delay, I've been relying on e-mail notifications every time someone comments on this thread, but they somehow seem to have stopped working after Footless' comment(?).

Luckily, as gasmask said, there's still a good amount of time. You're in!

My bad.

Apparently you have such a strange superpower, lol. Don't worry though, they're working again after using the ever-so-advanced technique of turning them off and then on again...

If it's not too late (Pentagram style) I'd like to sign up for Satan Secret.

It's not! ~24 hours and I'll close the list and sort the couples

Didn't know it involved that kind of matching process

Well, here we usually say something along the lines of "when it's Christmas we're all nicer", first you exchange a review, then who knows...

Heheh.

Also, nobody suggest me any NS shit, please.

Yes, because the rest of us are big NS fans and want to convert you.

The pairings for Secret Satan were sorted and the list is now closed. Everyone please check their PMs and get in touch with their matches. Have a good one!

TheBurningOfSodom thanks dude

I'm not sure if I'll be able to pump as much reviews this time around like I did earlier in the summer, but I'll try and at least write up some reviews for albums that I've been wanting to review.

Is there a way to find virgin albums?

Just look at any band's page, and look for albums with no reviews.

More or less. There's no way to 'filter' virgin releases per se, if that's what you were wondering.

Keep in mind that all kinds of releases count - EPs, demos, etc. - although ideally a decent part of your reviews should be about full-lengths (kinda a question of common sense here ).

Thanks Footless and TheBurningofSodom

Awesome! I'm really excited to write a couple reviews for the challenge. I haven't written anything on MA for nearly two years now sadly. I'm working Monday to Wednesday but I should be able to write a couple decent reviews before the closing date. I hope we break the record this year!

Buckethead: Enter the chicken

Looking forward to participating throughout the week. Now to decide whether to review something new or something old...

Less than 6 hours to go! Good luck everyone!