You know, I actually like Blaze quite a bit. Harris just didn't bother to integrate him naturally into the band at all. No wonder he's much better in his solo stuff.

Stained Class is good. Killers is fine. I'm not convinced I'll actually understand iconoclasm. Maybe I need to do more coke or something because I just don't have the energy to go that far out of my way to talk crap.

Yep. Likewise, I’d have to force myself to like Killers and like Gambler.

Yeah, he's great on his solo material. I mean maybe not if you're looking for a pitch perfect Daniel Heiman type who hits multiple octaves every few minutes, but he's got character and he works for what he's singing over. He wasn't a great fit for Maiden and he's evolved since then.



Yeah, it's bizarre to me because neither album, especially not a masterpiece like Stained Class, seems to deserve such a strong reaction. It feels like forced grandstanding for no real reason. Of course you don't have to love them or anything but even so.

That Nightbreed review was pretty solid. I wasn't aware they put out a second album. I reviewed their first one almost a year ago (scored it pretty low), but now I definitely need to check this one out.

Right. What's with the inflamed butts?

Being a sloth I can't feature getting worked up about overratedness as an injustice to begin with, let alone as regards legendary albums displaying high-quality performances. Moreover, I don't think I know enough about metal to justify slagging off legends. I'd have to do a lot of coke to get that impudent.

Why is it that every MutantClannFear review I end up reading has Spongebob references? I'm not 16 - I don't get them!

Hey Acrobat, thanks for sharing a very fine review for Rotting Christ's "Non Serviam" which pretty much all-around describes my own feelings for this album.

Discovered the band about 13 years ago and I can't really decide upon a favourite early Rotting Christ record (first three full-lengths) to this day, but reading your review, I could find some reasons why "Non Serviam" is up there.

Thumbs up!

Watch yourself. I'm 22 and I love Spongebob and all of the associated references!

Yeah, that was a lovely Non Serviam review, it really was.

And Killers and Stained Class are two of the best heavy metal albums in existence and the best work from their respective bands as well. No question. Rediscover life!

A bit of an irresistible non-sequitur here, but I just learned where Megadeth (likely) gleaned its inspiration for "Devil's Island", as I just picked up "Papillon", the true astonishing account told in person by Henri-Charriere, wrongly convicted of murdering a pimp in 1931 France, convicted to penal colonies off French Guyana - he's fortunate to have been spared the guillotine, mind - and after repeated escapes, tossed to the notorious "inescapable" prison on Devil's Island, a real place and islet of Iles du Salut, F-G....Anyhow, the story is supposedly "a treasured classic - the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who would not be defeated" (he escaped to Venezuela in '45 - by the same token, totally absconded on WWII!...

Perhaps this should have gone in the literary thread...ah, but the anecdote was too good! (Oh, btw, I believe "Iron Man" is a spoof on Herman Goring, that bloated, childish but oh-so-murderous Nazi oaf from days of yore...).

Obviously I'm all for giving your take on a classic album, no matter how many reviews it may have. But that Kill 'Em All review was literally 90% "History of this album and other bands associated with it", 10% "This is pretty punky but mostly metal"....

^ I guess I just can't see the appeal in even writing something for an album like KEA when you can literally see how many others there are already. I dunno.



Overratedness is probably the lowest bar possible for a review. On sites like these it ends up getting 30-40 points lower than what the reviewer actually thinks just because they don't like that other people like it.

Me every time someones reviews old albums by Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer or the likes:

I enjoy it because I personally enjoy getting my thoughts on things I'm passionate written down, so when it comes to stuff like that, I'm really doing it 100% for myself, rather insight for others (although, I got a LOT of positive feedback via the forums AND direct messages / emails for the Megadeth reviews, despite a few nay-sayers. So clearly I'm not alone). But at the end of the day, if nobody wants to read those, I get it.

When it comes to more obscure / less touched on stuff / new releases, that's when I submit things into the 'zine/site that I write for, and aim to get others to actually read it.

Luke Flail (the owner of Austenitized Records) praised my Machine Gun Reaper review on Facebook, and Ophicvs shared it. Not gonna lie, that feels pretty good.

As for umpteenth reviews for classic (or notorious) albums, I can understand getting fed up if you're the one having to approve them, but personally I'm not bothered, if they're written well. The fact that so many people share an opinion of an album reveals something that just having a few reviews wouldn't. Plus it provides a reference point for the reviewer's opinion of lesser known music. Then again, I'm probably just preemptively justifying my Severed Survival and Mental Funeral reviews. (I just looked it up and both those albums have 16 reviews with an average of 91%.).

Congrats on that, man! I always love when that happens too! And I agree with everything you said. I get why mods are frustrated by having to read them.

Nice 'stash, Metantoine!

Btw, special thanks for indirectly (via reviews) turning me on to Weird Light, Zaum and Mausoleum Gate, whose titular debut rocks in a most auspiciously cranked up "Captain Beyond meets Deep Purple" fashion...but %@$!, what is up with the sophomore...I can't even get past the first song's bromidic chanting and all-around aggravating platitudes!

Reviews for both are in order, I surmise.

(btw glad to announce I just acquired a new laptop, days after walking a friend's hound and tripping over myself, in the process, busting my flimsy HP to shit...suffice to say, chairs were harmed throughout...).

Ohhh yeah, three very good bands. Stoked to see Zaum again in September. Top blokes. Kyle recently sent me a hoodie since I apparently wrote their first ever review!

It's too bad about Mausoleum Gate's sophomore, yeah. It's really damn far from the epic debut.

I need to get back into reviewing and when I need to, I usually start a series! I'll start the Ice challenge soon and review the two Ice Queen releases and that epic Ice Sword album. Good job with your recent reviews, you even reviewed Randy! I remember when Borrowed Time covered one of the songs from their demo live, it was super nice.

Ah yes, I always like your series'!

Metantoine, I'm stoked by your mention of that Rand-y review! Thanks!

I had a blast covering that excitably coterie of Blackslash/Witchhammer/Randy releases...the fact the latter was initially called "Slip n' Slide" left me quivering in glee.

Otherwise, I really need/want to catch up on the current doom scene, be it local or in Timbuktu.

As for your Ice series, I dig your cozily amenable special projects, notably your studious (and stupendous) French Baguette introspection from a while back. Do you remember which Randy song BT so felicitously reprised?

Good stuff!

I'll make a concerted effort to slap a write-up on board over the coming weekend...

(allow me to quickly poke my scruffy head in once more...)

I feel the need to spread the word regarding a fairly new reviewer's impressive and auspicious, as well as introductory July/Aug string of "traditional heavy metal" reviews, as not only are they terrifically written - great congenial and down-to-Earth prose, in any event - while actually reaching out beyond the digital World and making a connection while reading. So far, I readily dug - like a Tonka truck smashing, sandbox ruffling whelp - his Tyrant_Too Late To Prey, Overlorde_Lord of the Snow(ed) Giant, Sign of the Jackal_Breaking the Spell (a "NWOTHM" top pick this month!) and notably, Traveler_(its short and oh-so-sweet 3 pronged demo) write-ups, as I hadn't yet officially/conclusively realized Jean-Paul Abboud (of Borrowed Time and Gatekeeper "f(l)ame") is at the helm of the (geographically none-too-distant) Calgary based side-venture. Apparently, he sounds better than ever!
(did you get that, Metantoine? - 3 cheers for Marcohateshipsters - bad ass moniker btw - and said sordid, space-faring octopus!)

n.b. In the above post, for the life of me, I don't understand how I could have erroneously blurted out "Witchhammer"! It's Witchtower (power), dang-nab-bit!
Please excuse such unforgivable heresy...

oh, sorry about the sure-as-shit shitty syntax dudes, I screwed my head in backwards this morn...

TBH I agree with Diesel11's opinons on Killers. I regard it as a decent record, but it's the worst Maiden album for me for two reasons:

1) Lack of a true epic song a la Phantom Of The Opera on the debut.

2) Harris has admitted that the first two Maiden albums are basically the band's repertoire up to that point, and that most of the stronger songs went on the debut (which is in my top 5 Maiden records most of the time). And TBH, you can tell. I count a few songs (Wrathchild, title track) which could go toe to toe with anything else on the s/t, and a couple of others which are decent (Prodigal Son is pure Jethro Tull worship and it works), but the other songs to me sound like B-side material.

Fantastic cover art and good production, though.

I wouldn't though go as far as Diesel11 and give it 45% - it's in the 60-70% range for me. Probably about the same rating I gave to Rust In Peace, a record which is so chronically overrated it's bizarre.

Iron Maiden > Killers

I believe Where No Life Dwells deserves at least longer reviews in general. Were I not the sluggish, procrastinatory type I'd write my own.

One day...

Kudos to BloodIronBeer for his review of Nocturnal Rites Phoenix. I've not been able to get all the way through the album for all the reasons he mentioned. The riffs are gone an replaced by downtuned chuggy shit that just bores the fuck outta me. Sad. Shadowland is the only really good album of the Lindgvist era. They are capable of so much more.

Now, whether or not Marcohateshipsters is the fellow who unduly ruffled, or rather, plucked feathers (from quivering hides) a while back here at the reviews discussions forum, without yet having contributed any scrolls to the (World's very best heavy metal) repository, but wow! I'd already latched on to a handful of his excellent, well-balanced write-ups but his latest for Santa's Reencarnationis a gift indeed!

See, I'd asked my Mum if she could hunt down Rebel's The Wild Hunt on her and my father's Wintry Spanish sojourn to Alicante (Southeast, on the Med. Coast) but apparently, it was only stocked in Madrid...(I couldn't expect them to motor the long day drive just to glean it! While it would have certainly been "metal" on their part, it was also have been a tad unreasonable and petulant on mine!).

As compensation, the fellow at the store in Alicante suggested Baron Rojo's Volumen Brutal, which Marco so portentously and auspiciously referred to in said rock & sock 'em review...awesome! It's as if he weas somehow hip to my Summer fetish for Spanish trad (and old school, 1980s) metal...talk about tailor-made!

Funnily though,I haven't even been to play it as,although it came wrapped in new packaging , there is a shitload of scuff marks on the CDs udnerside - I'm suspecting the "nice fellow" at the record shop pulled a fast one, but I'd prefer the cause to be a banal and innocuous one...All the same, I'm off to hijack/usurp some BR asap (at zulutube).

Chairs!

Oh, and props/congrats to psychoticnicholai for raucously hitting the 250 mark, a killer milestone indeed!

Suffice to say, review # 350 feels mountains away right now for this sluggish and languishing, as well as mildly - but not tragically or morbidly - despondent riVethead!

So triggered by that Novembers Doom review. Riffier slam, really?

Yeah, that review didn't make sense at all. I remember that album being super melodic and somber, if just different from their old material. He makes it sound like they turned into early Death or something.

Yeah, that's a shit review, dude has no idea what he's taking about. I mean, I agree that the songwriting did take a step down and become more streamlined and predictable following the guitarist/songwriter's (forget his name) departure before that album, but it wasn't until a few albums later on Into the Night's Requiem Infernal that their music suffered a notable drop in quality. And even then, it was more like "heavier Opeth" and of course at no point in their entire career have ND sounded anything like something that could even be confused with brutal death...

"They don’t just apply one unique quality hovering about, but more flavors than Willie Wonka’s fucking wallpaper, minus the shenanigans. It’s raunchy, dirty, and downright genius."
- GuntherTheUndying, in his Bible of the Devil_Freedom Metal write-up (November 30th, 2008).

oh, btw, nice Infrared review, Gas!

Could you critique it a bit? I'm currently asking for advice on the Review Workshop thread because I feel like the life has gone out of my writing.

Psych's Demolition Hammer review was a pretty solid read, some really great descriptions in there. Sorta put me in the mood for that now!

SweetLeaf95, great job on the Warfield reviews. They are fast becoming my favorite modern thrash band.

Hey GC!

I totally get what you mean...at the moment, anything I write flies off the handle into a bombastic miasma of convoluted clap trap!

I've been struggling big time yesterday and today with a Bible of the Devil review, for its sixth, and possibly best, release, Freedom Metal. Aside from its cumbersome and admittedly jejune moniker, it has a flavorful and gritty, "high n' dry" melody and inherently sleazy catchy-ness I simply can't get enough of. Although, truthfully, I'm more or less stuck on three or four tracks in particular, out of a congenial eight. Their obscure but dazzling cover of Thin Lizzy's "'Ol Girl" is absolutely incredible, warranting more words than I can muster.

But yes, thank you for your insight. I need to go easy-peasey - how the #$@! do you spell that?!? - on the adverbs and avoid tripping myself (and readers) with overly fancy werds...

btw for some snazzy, hard-driving and comprehensively rocking Spanish NWOTHM, dig the new Witchfyre_Grimorium Verum, and, for some killer female fronted fare a la Satan's Hallow and Warlock, look no further than Sign of the Beast_Breaking the Spell!

I'll get back to you otherwise on the appropriate, workshop thread.

Thank you kindly! They're definitely one of mine as well!!

So did Janick Gers kill Superchard's entire family or something?

I don't know but he really does not like him. Oh well, this guy's credibility was shot the moment I read "Cum on Feel the Noize" by.....Twisted Sister!!