That newest Witchbanger review is so overladen with borderline thesaurus sexual assault it's actually painful to read. Is it an inside-joke I'm just missing?

If you check back a page or two, we told him not to abuse a thesaurus so he went and abused a thesaurus. He sure showed us.

Not even just that, he was also clearly parked on wikipedia since I got as far as the paragraph he spent awkwardly shoehorning random vaguely Texan things like the Astros' uniforms, the Alamo, or the Treaty Oak. Bonus points because none of those three things are from the same city (which is a big difference in a state like Texas which is roughly the size of France) and the Treaty Oak is an odd random thing to invoke sturdiness considering it's most famous nowadays for being poisoned in the 80s. This is what happens when you just pull random shit from online reference guides and try to Frankenstein a review out of it.

I'm convinced that Chair is secretly a Babelfish stuck on "English-to-methed-out-Monty-Python" gone rogue.

Aha! Newsflash! I didn't use a thesaurus AT ALL for this Duelbanger...although, to be fair, I did employ my Merriam Webster WOD (Word of Day), fugacious, as it simply felt...appropriate at the time of printing...
As for the Treaty Oak, fuck it, I like trees and shoe horns.

Metal Regards,

Cryptic Chair

Damn, hells_unicorn just blew me out of the water with that Into Eternity review. So succinct and precise, such an analytical delivery packed with knowledge is like going to class and coming out of it the better.

I'll have to check it out...Admittedly, I've been lagging in "supportive, as well as enlightening, entertaining and instructive/informative reading-gleaning-perusing of fellow reviewers' diligent work...Hell's U certainly has his succinct (as opposed to wooly and verbose...ho-hum...) style/technique down pat, and always enjoy his reads, as they often vary in tone.

Five_Nails, you've duly turned review writing into a professorial enterprise, for the betterment of mankind, let alone us fellow thrashing yeggs of course...

(btw, BH, I amended, with an asterix, my Treaty Oak Tree faux-pas...thanks for the input y'all!)

Oh, in all truthfullness, I did utilize the 'ol T-dog just once for the Duelling...(see "knurl"...haha! "gnarled", I'd already flogged that horse enough already...).

It just goes to show how my addled top has spun into its own twisted Thesaurus imbued World...

This might be my new favorite thing BastardHenn has ever said.

I think I'm in the middle of both of you guys, and definitely a middling writer when it comes down to it. I can be at times nearing the smarts of hells_unicorn but I'm so enamored with mind-altering substances and thesaurus rapage that I end up in CHAIRTHROWER territory. Not to knock either of you guys, you both have some serious merits about you but I know that when I put forth my voice I edit things too much to the point that I pontificate unnecessarily wordy angles and also end up playing too much with language rather than just getting the point across. I love alliterations, they seem so clean and can be very precise when put together in the right way but still, I've already exhausted that angle and really haven't grown much from it. It's a convention, nothing to really move mountains. My main idea is that I want to constantly improve in this sphere but I keep hanging myself up. I'm searching for my mind but don't know where to start. Can't find the key to fit the lock on this heart.

Either way both of you guys have kicked some serious writing ass over time. Hells_unicorn is just out of the park and CHAIRTHROWER you're syllabic spurge should overshadow someone but still, this is an apples and oranges issue. It seems to me hells_unicorn is an academic and CHAIRTHROWER is a very hyped up fan. I've wanted to be in the between area of those two styles in my writing since coming back to writing reviews and I know it's no career to base anything from but I think this sort of writing, or at least staying steady with it, can help in the long run with at some point getting published for something else.

Still, please tell me where I'm wrong, I need to know that and grow from it. Plus I'm wicked drunk atm, so maybe I'm just throwing unicorns through chairs. Either way, I just ruined my HDD by blasting music all day and now need a new one from the sub distortion. This HDD is screeching once in a while and ready to die any minute. Be back soon I guess.

I like the way you put that, Five_Nails: "It seems to me hells_unicorn is an academic and CHAIRTHROWER is a very hyped up fan.".

So true, but also, as I can't speak for Hells_Unicorn, I think I go nuts on the writes, even for mildly enthusing albums. because I'm so bottled up here in this shitty little Downtown Eastside (Vancouver) micro-cosmic bubble of gamy despondence revolving around a drug fueled economy and way of "un" or "anti" life that I can't help but lay in the sauce when funneling my energies/passions into the order of the day i.e. fetish album of the moment...(In other words, down here in this neck of the woods, any cultural discourse relating to the arts - music, literature, philosophy, etc - is vehemently met with ferocious disdain, overt hostility and good 'ol fashioned contumely (there I go again, eh!)...

I'd also like to fall somewhere between this loquacious hyper-mania and a drier, more detached and analytical approach. Right now, I'm really digging anything put out by Marcohateshipsters...not least of which his latest, super intriguing and inspiring Sacral Rage review. That's the thing: I find that if your review stirs at least one person into (excitedly) checking out any said album, regardless of prose or professionalism, it should be considered a success. Not only do his reviews particularly achieve this for me, but motivate me to tone down my writing quibbles and stick more to brass tacks - without fully giving up the jocose, at times, off-the-wall heavy metal camaraderie.

And yes, Bastard Head's "Frankenstein" line is awesome...definitely a swell observation considering Duel and Frankenstein, once you've heard either/or Fears of the Dead and Witchbanger, cannily make a fine, sordid pairing!

I'm not a very prolific or experienced reviewer, and I find it a little odd that at least two artists have contacted me through Facebook asking for a review. Not only that but they have asked me to "include links for our social media" and to "help them with their promotion." Obviously I don't want to write a review that isn't from the heart. Has anyone else had this experience?

Yeah, same. I got one from Seversun a couple of days ago. I appreciate their effort, but I'm not going to be writing a review for an album/band I've never heard of.

Not just this; the first time it happened I actually reviewed it and gave a pretty generous rating too, but the guy contacted me after reading it and told me I had my facts wrong and that the one thing I didn't like about the album was actually a "bug misunderstanding."

Yeah I generally don't do requests or promos either for exactly that reason. I can be an attention whore at times but I don't like the "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" type of promo reviewing. It quickly becomes a sick cycle of writing overly generous reviews of totally middling bands in exchange for a shoutout or them sharing a link on social media, which leads to more bands doing the same thing and it just snowballs from there. It's like paid promotion but even sadder because nobody is actually getting paid, just a feedback loop of egos jerking each other off, and before you know it you're a reviewer with no substance or standards.

Easy, guaranteed-positive promo reviewers are among my least favorite breed. Be real with yourself and write for yourself. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

I've been asked for a couple of promo reviews but I'm not that active on social media, so it tends to be people who know what I'm into and given me something I might like. These tend to turn out better because there's not so much pressure on me to produce a positive review. However, I'm also really slow at reviewing new stuff, which turns off any possible promotion-seekers.

Ezra, if he's criticizing your review after you've written it, that's exactly the reason you don't want to do other people's promotion. Only work with open-minded people who you like.

I guess Seversun got someone else to do promotion for them because the first set of reviews is from earlier this year, that's when I got my promo. They're probably doing another run of review requests because they have something planned to drop by next year.

Also, I just got a very templatey request yesterday.

"Hi there, I saw some of your reviews on Metal Archives, I noticed too you're runing a metal site, I wonder if you would like to writte a review for a specific release i'm promoting, and if you can edit a profile(which has some mistakes) on Metal Archives, I would be very thankful.

Thanks in advance, I'll be waiting for you answer.

Regards."

As for push back like you described Ezra, that's absurd. I've taken a bunch of requests and none have been that brash and ungrateful. Most have been happy with what I said, even if I tore into the band a bit or they just didn't get back to me. That's a shitty way to go about things if you're going to be so presumptuous as to tell a reviewer, that you went to first to ask their opinion, how they should present their opinion.

I totally agree with this. Ever since I started writing for IMV I do take on a lot of promos and requests, however I will still be extremely honest and I've given negative write ups more than a couple times. To me, sending me promos is fine, but it's a game of "if you ask me my opinion, I'm gonna be honest".

Part of the reason I do love promos is because it's basically free new music, haha.

On Mailman's latest Bloodbath review: How does an album earn 89% if two of the ten tracks are "tame" and only 56 seconds of the lead single are worth hearing?

Glad the topic came up; I was writing some for Grande-Rock in Greece (Athens/Attica's Sacral Rage kicks ass by the way) and no disrespect to Thanos should he glean this but I find it gets tough to review albums in a "cerebral", "can you write this up asap, as the label's impatiently stamping its foot here..." kind of vein as opposed to a "spur of the moment", "wholly inspirational and inspired, un-prodded and straight from the heart, passionate opinion/share with like-minded kin type of review", especially when you factor in the web master or "review suitor"'s genre proclivities, thus bending your will and creative value towards contrived, even wooden and dry, Mcwrites aimed to placate business engines...

Does that make sense? I think Bastard Head nailed it best when he boldly stated:

"It quickly becomes a sick cycle of writing overly generous reviews of totally middling bands in exchange for a shoutout or them sharing a link on social media, which leads to more bands doing the same thing and it just snowballs from there. It's like paid promotion but even sadder because nobody is actually getting paid, just a feedback loop of egos jerking each other off, and before you know it you're a reviewer with no substance or standards."

So true!

I discussed this issue at length with Gasmask_C and 5 Nails, but for myself, for now, I've agreed - and told Thanos so in a most humble and sanguine manner, as I dig the dude and most of his selections (plus he duly turned me on to power metal, proving it's not all whirly-giging keys and (broad) sword play) - to commit to two (2) GR reviews a month, one strictly of his choosing, the other, a "dual" selection we both settled on, as I don't mind deferring to him a little, within reason, and befitting his site seeing as he does send me lots of cool stuff, like Dream Troll and Knightmare, for example.

If a band is gracious, like Gas told me once, they won't so much as care about the % you ascribe their release but rather, its actual content and veneer of respectability. What do you do when you receive a request and aren't too enthused by said proffered material? I suppose either decline politely, blaming it on a busy schedule or home life, or go ahead and oblige, but without selling yourself out. Remember, they requested a review - they need to accept the good with the not-so-good!

(Oh, GC, thanks for indirectly pointing out, in your congenial Stormwitch review, that "woolly" takes two "l"'s...My Duel review is now whole! But how can you give both Stormwitch's latest, somewhat tepid production and Night Demon's lowbrow albeit slyly chill, as well as auspicious and competent, full-length debut, Curse of the Damned, the same lukewarm 70%? I know it's not an outright bad score, but the latter is gravestones beyond!!)

[the flummoxed and perplexed, mildly hurt coxcomb emoj goes right here!]

He has a very bad track record of stuff like this. Very seldom is anything he writes worth taking seriously.

A little late on this, but congratulations to SweetLeaf for hitting 200 reviews!

I appreciate Mr Matt's enthusiasm but I'm surprised that his Silver Talon review doesn't mention that Battle Angels is a Sanctuary cover (Especially since he highlighted Jeff Loomis's guest slot) or that most of the guys were in Spellcaster before starting this band.

Also nice to see reviews for Shadow Work starting to pop up. I should have mine up sometime soon.

Holy crap my Witchking review got approved! Hopefully I did a good job at reviewing this band no one cares about. Granted, that's probably why it got in--it's not the best review I'll admit.

2 things to say about this:

1. Seeing that it's your first review, (granted, I don't know if you've written for other sites before), it wasn't horrible, and even if it was, you have to start somewhere. In late 2014 I was one of the worst reviewers on here and caught so much shit in the forums. Now I write for two different websites and am a scribe here, so the key is to keep writing and take criticism constructively.

2. As for the review itself, it was a bit choppy but again, you're new. My only big suggestion is to avoid things like "this band only has 500 views" or "nobody cares about this band" in the first paragraph. Metal Archives is FULL of unknown and underground bands, and it's actually encouraged to tackle albums like that. So no need to go into how obscure the band is, because A. 98% of the bands here are (seeing there are over 100,000) and B. It sounds somewhat discrediting.

I see what you mean but as for your second point, I started off the review talking about Witchking's almost non-existent popularity because I felt that they're that weird kind of Deathcore band that straddles the lines both "trad" DM and -core that they appeal to an incredibly limited amount of people, and thus their low popularity is just sort of a thing they were doomed to from the start.

To CHAIR: didn't realize I was being helpful, but thanks for making it seem deliberate (coy, elbow-nudging, "cheers" (chairs) emoji here). I caught flak on The Metal Observer for snuggling up too much to the Stormwitch, but I find it strong enough and I'm hooked to keep coming back to it. Night Demon's sophomore is admittedly more spirited, but some of the tracks are pretty flat and it's not nearly as catchy. Swings and roundabouts, y'know?

About Tanuki: the Evil Invaders review was truly awesome! Snuck a penis joke into the first paragraph without going off topic and indulged in a host of useful and entertaining descriptive similes. Just the kind of review I like to read and converges with my thoughts about the band.

The new Benediction review is factually inaccurate. Barney only sang on the first album, not Transcend the Rubicon.

So we're now 18 reviews from hitting 100,000 reviews. Not too shabby!

Around 4:00 I'll make that 17 away

Not to be a buzzkill, but I'm getting a tiny bit sick of Superchard's hollow contrarian approach to reviewing classic albums. While there may be some debate as to just how classic the first Doro solo album was (it was intended to be the 5th Warlock album), his argumentation for it being a mediocre album is lame and directionless. Admittedly I haven't let him off the hook for his lousy Dio reviews, but I also couldn't help but notice that he titled this review like it was a response to mine. I'd be flattered by the attention if they guy wrote better.

I found it weird that a review so fixated on Bobby Rodinelli seems to think he's dead. As far as I know, he isn't "the late" anything.

He seems to have very little respect for metal history, or the fact that today's metal had to evolve from somewhere. Sure, some earlier albums aren't musically the most fun to listen to, but their influence alone should be enough to earn them at the very least a decent rating.

Cheers! I've had a hard time getting anything on paper lately, so I'm relieved to see the result's still decent. Your review of Grave Condition is extremely good. I was planning on tackling that album myself but now I'm glad I didn't. Musical comparisons are absolutely spot-on, the pros and cons of their dramatic weight-shedding to make room for blistering aggression neatly organized and well presented. Great stuff, man.

Tanuki, like most here (likely - if not, boo!), I absolutely dug your Satan's Hallow write-up; it essentially consolidates all the reviews which came before it (mine included of course) yet packages it all in a neat, tight, little bow easily palatable to the reader. You're not mistaken - yes, that "on hold" shniznitz is, most assuredly, confounding, distressing even!

(Just taking a break and a wee stroll here but am languishing at the library all day in order to churn out a female-fronted, Halloween conducive surprise. (Don't worry lads, I left the toys - i.e thesaurus, caviar and meths - at home today...(I've started literally "scribe-ing", that is, by hand/pen and paper, actual working paragraphs, like a holy writ transcribing cleric from the Vintage Age!)...(I have 4.5 more hours to reel in the excitement!).

Couple of formatting things to consider:

1) Use ellipses sparingly, preferably not at all. Those double hyphens should probably be either periods, semi-colons or colons.

2) Try not to capitalise genres. They're not proper nouns and it's distracting in paragraphs where you mention them like ten times.

Otherwise the review is pretty long for an EP, probably needs some editing and trimming around the edges. Where possible you should take up to a days break between finishing the review and re-reading it, gives you some space and makes errors stand out more. Saying sentences out loud also highlights whether they actually flow or not.

Ah, sweet victory! G-Butts looks to be on a collision course with 'ol # 100000!!

Hehe. Not quite.

Congrats, Felix 1666 on the 100,000th review.

Congrats everybody! What's his prize?

Our eternal love and adoration.

Thanks, Derigin, but honestly speaking, I was not aware of this. I just wanted to publish some reviews, because there were many fragments after I had ended my OHL-series in October. And I think, it's a very flexible thing due to the fact that some oven fodder reviews will be rejected again and then we have a new number 100.000.

I am just glad to be a part of this cool community and congrats to all those who wrote the other 99.000 reviews as well.