So... after numerous attempts at bashing Master of Puppets someone decided to downplay Rust in Peace instead. Is Reign in Blood next? Or Spreading the Disease? Bonded by Blood?

it's ridiculous how so many edgy reviewers who bash well-known albums just for the sake of it use "this album has no memorable riffs/solos/EDM drops/whatever!!1!11!!2!11one" as an argument. I bet someone's gonna bash Peace Sells (which, by the way, hasn't been bashed yet) sometime soon and use that same argument. bonus points for calling the title song the worst offender in that regard.

Yeah dude, they're too misunderstood. Nobody knows what have they in their sophisticated tastes, don't worry, I will correct my RIP draft and send my review to the queue. I expect moderators don't banned me for spamming, because my peace sells review is still pendind

A 61% isn't too unreasonable really, not like he's calling it a pop album and giving it a 5%. No big deal.

I think the problem with that review is the arguments he used, not the score itself. He criticizes "the total lack of memorable riffs in a majority of the songs" which for most of us I'd say is completely baffling because the case is exactly the opposite. So I guess he must have a poor memory. And bashing the technical prowess of the album by reducing it to "vanity and self-indulgence" is just really off the mark. The songwriting and the "acrobatics" are enthralling and emotional in a lot of ways and not your typical guitar wankery or whatnot. Also comparing Megadeth with Metallica 3 times in such a short review just doesn't send the right message does it?

It's interesting to read a countercurrent review every now and then when the thoughts behind it are new or a refreshing take on what is usually perceived as being flawless, even if we don't agree. That's not the case here since the review is extremely superficial.

It's not that he's a blatant troll or anything but more like a snob who seems eager to start his review activity with a "different" opinion, which frankly can be quite annoying.

Those things are called opinions, though. I'd actually agree more with the review than with you guys. His review is pretty scanty on content but it's not a troll and doesn't seem like it's just pot-stirring things - he just doesn't agree with you. That's it.

unike and d1ff3r3nt.

Guys, that review is totally fine. I don't agree with it at all because Rust in Peace rules and he calls out Five Magics (which I think is the most underrated Megadeth song next to Devil's Island) but he explained everything just fine. It's really just a similar criticism people use when they don't like Reign in Blood. I don't agree with it at all but it's not invalid. It's not even like he's ruining the score or anything, it's the third review in the 60s and only Falco's old piece of shit (haven't reread it in a while but I assume it's good enough to stay) goes lower. Relax.

It's weird that people are for some reason expected to love classic albums. That makes no sense. By the same token, righteous indignation seems pointless. Not only are the hallowed rarely effectively maligned, it's not like they really even need the help.

I guess you are right but something about the way he presented his arguments got me triggered. That was this vibe I couldn't shake off that he was downplaying Rust in Peace just because he's part of Metallica's camp and all of that conclusive paragraph where he bashes the record for being bogged by vanity and self-indulgence and full of half-baked riff just didn't sit well with me. There are sentences in there that I can't help but roll my eyes at ("The lack of build-up and development of tension ultimately contributes to the record's failure both as a concept and as a vision by Dave to craft a worthy contender to James and Lars' MOP" ). However, as you said, people aren't forced to like classic albums or anything like that and I admit I might have posted under the influence of annoyance. That said, I respect his opinion but I'll have to disagree with it.

Does anybody else here feel like contemporary review culture has been dying out on MA over the last few years? I feel like nowadays, compared to when I first joined, it's much harder to find reviews on albums that were just recently released. Just as an example, Wędrujący Wiatr's album from last year made a huge impact on the underground BM scene, but almost a year later (and having been released through two review challenges explicitly dedicated to tackling albums with no reviews), nobody's written anything about it. I don't think this is really an isolated example - I just think we're genuinely seeing fewer and fewer reviews of new stuff. The virgin-centered review challenges somewhat help to counteract that, but not entirely. And it seems hard to find reviews expressing negative opinions on albums unless they're 10 years old or classics within their respective genre.

Maybe a list with albums that deserve to be reviewed should be compiled before each review challenge? That would also help the people who say they don't really know which albums to review, especially if the list was compiled a month or so before the actual challenge.

You may simply just be correct. I wish I could have been more help, and now that I'm about to start a new job, I'll probably be doing more of just that. However, a "balanced perspective" isn't nearly as likely. I find it really difficult to write reviews about albums I dislike because I can't be arsed to waste my time. They're like the Pajama People of music: "pack em up, move em out, get em out of my way."

The recent crop of submissions have been watered down by webzine-type reviewers mass-dumping their work onto the site, along with the departure of many distinctive writers from the heydey of 5+ years ago. The higher standard has also resulted in a climate change of sorts... whether or not that is good or bad depends on perspective.

It just seems like we have many technically-capable writers nowadays that simply fail to make much of an impact. Part of this is the fact that there are fewer and fewer "classic" albums that haven't had everything said about them, so further submissions come off as pointless.

Ultimately, I'm trying to review as many obscure and virgin releases as possible in order to provide more of a range of opinions on the site. The fact I do it all at what seems to be pure randomness probably doesn't help.

Guess I understand your concerns, but I don't think that we need a kind of steering committee or something like that. I really enjoy the freedom to review whatever I like. I agree that it is lame to focus only on big names or classic albums, but I would not go so far that reviewers, who write only about this stuff, should leave this side. It's their decision what they want to review. And I understand that a Metallica fan wants to tell us his point of view, althought MoP has already "thousands" of reviews.

In my humble opinion, more annoying is the fact that a few guys do not know that it is allowed to give less than 90%, because their inflationary ratings affect the entire system.

Paging Akerthorpe!

*cough*bayern*cough*

Seriously though, I have indeed discovered some gems due to his obscure tastes but the truth is that the vast majority of his reviews are above 90% so one tends to become suspicious. Then again, I completely understand some folks' lack of patience to listen to - much less review - something that they don't like.

I don't like bayern's reviews much but he does pick some interesting stuff.

I love RapeTheDead's new review of Rotting's "Crushed". His impartial dissection of its parts and his placement of it in DM's history is a great read. I've always loved this album, it's sweet to see a review do it such accurate and illuminating justice.

Wishing death on the band members.... stay classy 2004-era reviewers.



Was for : https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/S ... Came/31545

Another new Rust in Peace review and I'm still not sure where the idea of Five Magics being a filler is coming from. That intro alone is one of the best sequences on the album!

Honesty, I think Rust in Peace has just lately (I don't know if it was always like this but I'm seeing it more in recent years) been falling victim to a lesser form of what happens with Powerslave and Reign in Blood, where the first and last handful of songs are instantly iconic, time tested metal monoliths and the middle stretch just sort of gets forgotten. There's really no denying that the layman is going to know Holy Wars and Hangar 18 from RIP, and if they know anything more at all it'll be Tornado of Souls and the title track, just like how Angel of Death/Postmortem/Raining Blood go for Slayer and Aces High/2 Minutes to Midnight/Powerslave/Rime are for Iron Maiden. It's pure speculation here, but I think many younger metal fans may know of these big songs before they ever hear them, so when they run through the album for the first time they get blown away by the opening classics and then just wait impatiently with bated breath for the last songs that have reputations and therefore give absolutely no attention to the tracks in the middle*. Five Magics is a damn treasure, that's easily one of my favorite Megadeth songs, and I'll be damned if I'm going to live in a world where Take No Prisoners and Lucretia aren't known as some of the best damn songs to ever come out of 1990.


*- reiter once explained to me why he believes this happens with Reign in Blood at least. The whole album is good, but it's more of a contextual experience. It works when it's an all out assault on your senses and you get bashed over the head with riff after riff after riff, but Angel of Death and Raining Blood are the only songs that still work outside the context of the album. If you listening to standalone tracks on shuffle or something, Epidemic or Necrophobic is just gonna fly by and sound like nothing, whereas Angel of Death can come on at any time, any place and you'll want to rock the fuck out. I disagree entirely because I think the entire album is loaded with classics but it's at least an interesting way of looking at why people dismiss those songs as filler and level frankly incorrect criticism at them. I don't know if that's exactly the case with Powerslave and Rust in Peace, but it's something to think about, since all three albums have the iconic tracks at the beginning and end and therefore end up with the middle being mostly forgotten despite being chock full of classics.

hes right and the album would be worse if all the songs were as hit singley as angel of death etc.

This also reminds me of what i realised with the 2nd Kvelertak album. Usually we all love big epic songs and wonder why there arent more of those on albums. Well Kvelertak overloaded that album with epic songs and it gets really annoying.

Wow, thanks man! I kinda did that one on a whim and I've only been listening to it for a couple weeks now, so good to hear it's accurate from a longtime fan. Always love getting shout-outs (who doesn't?) and it inspires me to write more, so again, mad thanks!

Damn, zeingard's review of "Time Stands Still" is incredibly harsh. Well-written though. Colour me impressed.

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/Unleash_the_Archers/Time_Stands_Still/497409/zeingard/118750

Is there anything even remotely impressive about that review? Isn't there supposed to be some discussion of the actual music in a review? You can throw together a string of insults at anything, but it doesn't mean much if you don't back it up.

The review was well-worded and met our guidelines, hence why it was approved for the site.

That's a marvelous review. I think it describes the music just fine and has the level of vitriolic, pointed anger he intended.

I remember years ago when UtA were coming up and getting lots of undeserved attention... I called them out for being generic as fuck and everyone got all pissy about it. 0% is hyperbolic but yeah, that band sucks and their name is terrible.

Their name sounded like some trendy mallcore thing, so I just never bothered. But that review makes me want to do my own for them.

Yeah, seems like a pretty accurate assessment. It's pretty disheartening to see guys like TrooperEd review only the most obvious big name bands while not really adding anything new to the discussion. I try to at least make half my reviews of current stuff, and I know Tony reviews a lot of recent albums, too. Rapethedead does this as well, but I wish he was more prolific. It seems in general new releases don't get many reviews unless it's from a well known band.

idk based on songs of theirs i heard a 0% is pretty deserving. They do everything so by the numbers and in such a predictable "well done" manner. Its really bad. They would be a better band if they were more actively bad even.

Is it wrong if my newest review has more paragraphs than the EP in question has songs?

No, why?

I think Ed's only real problems are a tendency to wander too far away from actual musical description and having a bad attitude when called on it. Yeah he pretty exclusively sticks to mega popular bands and albums but he tends to look at things in a slightly different way and that makes him one of the only new guys doing old classics that's actually worth reading. Like, his review of Paranoid goes in depth about the jazz influence in Bill Ward's drumming and how the heaviness came from pure songwriting and atmosphere, whereas most noobs will just incorrectly cite "detuned" guitars and jizz forever about how it's one of the first and ergo one of the best by default. Ed has a lot more insight than people give him credit for, he just picks albums that makes everybody who has been into metal for more than a handful of years roll their eyes because we've all analyzed them to death by this point. He does bring new things to the table, I think most of us crusty old vets just don't notice or care because The Number of the Beast isn't new to us anymore.

Overall MC's complaint is fairly true though. There aren't a whole lot of prolific reviewers here focusing on newer and less known albums, and if there are, they're the soulless be-nice-to-everything promo machines that wouldn't dare to dip below 85% for anything. Then again, maybe I'm just not noticing because I'm not always looking at these underground bands to start with (in a weird catch 22, that in itself is probably because I'm not reading any reviews for them) and the review queue eventually all blurs together into a mash of noob reviews for Rust in Peace, completely unknown bedroom black metal from Chile, and typo-minefields courtesy of dismember_marcin.

I disagree--being more actively bad just makes them, well more actively bad. I prefer "competent" over "bad" 10 times out of 10.

I think he meant more in the sense that a band who tries new things, poorly, is at least admirable in their attempt. Cookie cutter bullshit is tedious and trite.

Sometimes doing reports is cool.
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/S ... ace/627504

I thought "haha wow. fucking awesome cover, oh look reviews." Turns out I really liked BastardHead's review for this. Exuberant and informative. The cover alone made me want to listen to it, but BH made me sure I wanted to do it as soon as inhumanly possible.

not even new things per se their stuff just as the character of a piece of cardboard left in a warehouse for 10 years