How anyone ever took him seriously is just tragic as fuck.

Did like the bit about turning underground metal into AC/DC though.

What or who are Hessians? Does anybody know?

Hessians were German soldiers who served as auxiliaries to the British Army during the American Revolutionary War.

LARM was great. I mean, some of the reviews were utterly terrible (remember the guy that reviewed Atrocity's Todesensucht in about two lines and just called it a Napalm Death ripoff?), but it was still great. The guy who ran the site brought it back for a little while, not adding any new content but just so that folks could browse the reviews again.

Anyway, the main difference between sites like SSmT (and, in fact, even LARM) and Anus was that they never had an agenda other than being a site for reviews. They didn't have any over-arching vision or desire to promulgate anything specific. I don't know how many guys wrote for Anus back in the day but SSMT had at least a dozen staff members, including guys I used to talk to a lot back then. not everyone was on the same page nor had the same opinions about music, metal or otherwise.

Agree on Larm. Used to read it a lot circa 01 - 02.

The old ANUS reviews were weird in that they actually made sense when you thought about them and described the songwriting qualities pretty well, but they were just incredibly circumlocutory for some bizarre reason. I haven't read much of the other old ANUS content, but I once stumbled upon an article where the author went to a gay pride parade and commented on it, and I thought it was surprisingly pretty interesting and insightful.

deathmetal.org is a cesspool of pure, unadulterated stupidity though.

ANUS, Satan Stole My Teddybear. Were those names even funny the first time they were said?

Hardly brilliant, but it's not bad (seems ill-fitting for ABitNS, though).

I'd heard the rumors of this fellow, but hadn't read any reviews until now. His bio made me think it was a joke, but 55 reviews is a lot of effort to put into trolling. What a clown.

I think it was that site where I saw I Shalt Become mentioned for the first time. If I'm remembring that right, that's about as much value as I can give it. Most of the reviews I bothered to read were vapid verbal wankery, with more than a few detours into factually inaccurate nonsense (I know how opinions work, but calling Aspera Hiems Symfonia "gleeful radio rock with cartoonish vocals", or however it was phrased, is so off the mark it hurts my brain).
Their attitude was also shitty, with many forum threads used by posters to boast about online IM conversations with random sixth graders where they bullied and mocked them for not being metal enough (I'm sure they werer all rocking out to Triumph of Death when they were 11-12); I remember one instance where someone started a thread to ask for details about the authenticity of a Burzum cd, and one of the moderators replied "go fuck your mother" and closed the thread.
The final straw, of course, were the e-mails sent to Chuck Schuldiner's mother, not to mention the whole retarded narrative about him being a causalty of aids (because AIDS = GHEY BUTTSECKS LOLOLOL GET IT?? GET IT???). Harassing a parent who just lost her young son to a horrifying illness is way beyond anything I may consider acceptable, whether it's a groundbreaking artist or Joe Sixpack from three blocks from my place.

Satan Stole My Teddybear introduced me to way more interesting acts, both metal and from other genres. They have their share of bad reviews (those Marilyn Manson ones are absolutely putrid), but most of the time I'd gather at least some useful info.

And yes, deathmetal.org is sublimated retardation. Their "reviews" posts say enough: a list of albums with the same buzzword or unfunny catchphrase copied and pasted beneath each entry. I hope nobody gets paid to write that shit at least.

Hits home a bit (or a lot).

Probably the biggest trap, in the opinion, of a former major user (read that in its intended ironic meaning if you want), is the promotion/encouragement to be close minded.

It's a shame, that in itself, wasted more years than most.

Not that it was the only alternative at the time to be as such.

It all was not doom and gloom, it did encourage more analytical ways of listening to music, and that maybe just not in the prescribed sense alone, have stayed with me (not to say Prozak and his crew were the only people espousing such a thing).

Thank you.

No, I couldn't.

Exactly. Was a good source when I was getting into metal circa 2002 in discovering stuff, but I left them behind rather quickly. I hate the alt-right, pseudo-intellectual bullshit they are a front for and push these attitudes in their reviews and other commentary.

No, I couldn't.[/quote]

I could, easily. Case in point: the metal archives, so much bullshit within these reviews, you could build the Chinese wall all over again with the amount of crap these reviews contain. So?

I wonder, how anyone discerns between pseudo-intellectual bullshit and genuine intellectual non-bullshit, when it comes to reviewing metal albums?

Its pretty obvious when someone uses obfuscatory language to ascribe a more noble intention to music that was most likely created by a bunch of stoned teenage metal heads who were just trying to sound brutal or evil.

I have read plenty of critical music writing and outside of heavier musical theory the best writers do not feel the need to use the most purposefully oblique and exclusionary language, best way to make yourself look like an elitist try hard twat so I guess anus was at least apt.

I could, easily. Case in point: the metal archives, so much bullshit within these reviews, you could build the Chinese wall all over again with the amount of crap these reviews contain. So?[/quote]

Care to give me examples?

There's tons of shitty reviews on this site that are full of shitty, strange and weird opinions. So long as it appears to be a genuine opinion - and the review does a good enough job focusing on describing the music of the album above all else - we'll accept it. That is, of course, if it's written well and in English.

The difference between a site like ANUS (as well as other review-oriented sites) and MA is that, with the exception of our own reviews as mods, none of these reviews belong to us. It's always kinda funny when people speak about "Metal Archives reviews" as though the reviews hosted on this site are either written by us, endorsed by us, or somehow represent the point of view of the site and its staff and users as a whole. They don't. The only reviews that represent our own point of views are our own personal reviews, and even then that doesn't represent the site whatsoever. Compare that to a site like ANUS (and others) where the reviews are written and endorsed by the site or they are written by authors hired by the site. We do none of that.

When I judge your reviews, I'm really only looking for three things: if it's written well, if it focuses on describing the music of the album, and if you're genuine about what you gotta say (ie. you're not just trying to troll people for the sake of trolling). The latter isn't always obvious, but usually a person wanting to troll doesn't tend to invest much in a review they don't really care about. But as far as your opinion goes, you could write the most scathing review of my favorite album and I would not give a damn. You would get the same treatment as everyone else.

(That said, if you do that, I will consider your opinion 'dumb as fuck')

I remember reading some of the reviews on that site and I just never could understand what the fuck they were talking about.

For example: "The produndancy of the effligerating tempos rise and slather in cadence to umbiculate a retendancy to disungulate the lorax. Like the lassward Equidemius in Chevie Cadaullauc's the "La Francais Homme Intoxique Sur L'Estage Du Dimmous Borgeur" the cadaxulating melodies saunter towards an effliguous pendency of perverse retaptation, yet never quite deluxurate without nodding. Primal grinning reduxes in the somnambulant disrhytmia convey a sense of solward ebbitudinal moray."

This is literally what reading an ANUS metal review was like. So I naturally quit reading them- and drifted towards other metal related sites (like Vibrations of Doom, and of course this one) So I was unaware of all the controversial bullshit about that site. Kind of fits, though. Seemed like a bunch of pretentious assholes trying to be edgy for sake of being edgy.

Except that is actual nonsense with made up words, whereas the ANUS reviews are actually coherent.

into_the_pit's signature is this quote:

I always assumed that was a jab at ANUS.

What's up with Spinoza Ray Prozak becoming suddenly neo-nazi of sorts while adopting a name of a Jewish philosopher? I always wondered. And what's with his obsession over the Hessians? In what context did he use the latter?

These guys like the term Hessian because it's an old historical reference that's a bit obscure, because it's German and they are enamored of German history because of Hitler, and because the Hessians were considered elite soldiers who worked in the service of reactionary forces during the revolutionary period of the 18th century, against the liberal revolution in America and against the Jacobites who sought to restore Catholic rule in England. They see the Hessians as romantic free warriors opposed to the enlightenment values and as a social strike force for reactionary thought, which is what they want heavy metal subculture to be. It's quite the fantasy, don't you think?

Thnx for the explanation. A bit out there, but whatever. All metal and its subculture is an escapist worldview of sorts, so I guess ANUS fit into that rubric. Listening to metal music is entering a fantasy world, don't you think?

I do, but it is usually taken to be a fantasy world which exists in parallel to the one we inhabit, whereas this does the Manowar thing of heavily romanticizing the real world metal community to an unusual degree.

Anyway, that example of a gibberish review *is* an exaggeration of the old DLA review style. The text was dense, but it was entirely comprehensible if you have a decent vocabulary (I understand most people spent their high school years learning how to french kiss and not reading the dictionary like I did). Some turns of phrase there have stayed with me over the years, such as describing Cryptopsy as "rhythmically similar to a police beating". They did make an effort to analyze the songwriting in metal to a greater degree than a lot of other review sources of the time which focused a lot more on the surface aesthetic elements or were unable to examine the music deeply due to the limitations of not wanting to upset labels/bands or not having much print space. In the early 2000's the DLA was a pretty good resource on the internet for discovering good death and black metal bands from the 90's at a time when there were not many such resources available. Others in this thread have mentioned many of the other good review sources, LARM, voices from the dark side, etc.

The politics was always part of the site, ANUS, but they weren't present to a degree which was distracting in most of the reviews, except on certain key bands which they made a big deal about, such as Burzum. You could ignore the political articles and just focus on the DLA if you wanted. I guess their hope was that people would come for the reviews, stay for the philosophy, which some people did end up doing... As stated before by others, some reviews were also marred by their insistence on some stupid ideas about metal they wouldn't let go of, like that Chuck Schuldiner was a bad person, or that "thrash" actually means "crossover" and "speed" actually means "thrash". That stuff reminds me of how some people, to this day, insist on writing band names in ALLCAPS. Just a dumbass tradition that some people hang onto.

Nowadays the reviews and other articles on deathmetal.org don't challenge the vocabulary as much, nor do they describe the music as well. The main focus in the writing now is to throw in as many trendy alt-right terms as possible in order to appeal to the /pol/ / the_donald demographic and to try to get the whole metalgate non-controversy to actually happen. And yes, to the person who asked before, these are the guys who have tried to push metalgate over and over the last few years.

well that's actually not a bit "out there", but far out and beyond really. as usually, mr sunlight is 100% spot on here about their use of the term "hessians", because at the end of the day that's what all that anus shit was mainly about: turning away from real life towards regressive, ultimately failing romanticism hidden behind a facade of big, empty words (that does not deny the markedly analytical approach they had to writing reviews, which definitely had its advantages - if only they hadn't overdone it so excessively ideologically.



yep. of course this referred to ANUS and their pretentious elevation of everything black metal (according to their definition of course).

btw for those who don't know, ANUS was actually an acronym of "American Nihilist Underground Society". which points further to their crippled sense of (self-)irony.

What are your opinions on Erebus Magazine? I'm curious...

But that's what sometimes WAS the problem - they didn't focus on the music at all. The Marilyn Manson reviews Lord_Jotun mentioned are a great example of that. Anyway, I'm sick of this discussion.

You're more than free to submit reviews you don't feel should have been approved in this thread. There's over 95000 reviews on this site; it's inevitable that some stinkers slip by.

bitterman is hilarious. His shtick of giving everything a 0% score serves to mock the entire concept of rating music on a numerical scale (let alone 100 points). I will say his descriptions are a lot funnier than they are accurate, although the bit about Satyricon opening their self titled record with a riff that sounds like "Queens of the Stone Age playing 'When the Saints Go Marching In'" is timeless.

Also for what it's worth, DMU has made a concerted effort to drop the irrelevant political posturing in the last couple of months, and focus almost entirely on music. The site was ruled for some time by idiots with a plastic axe to grind, but they've brought on some pretty solid writers who try to explore this music from a more objective standpoint. Even if their grasp on music theory has errors at times, it's still a big step in the right direction.

I highly recommend revisiting deathmetal.org, for the past month now there has been a wealth of good reviews and even some great musical theory pieces. A recent change in editors has left most of the alt-lite baggage behind.

http://www.deathmetal.org/tag/analysis/

http://www.deathmetal.org/lifestyle/why-heavy-metal-lost-the-culture-war/

Alt-right nonsense aside, this is a spot on assessment of the state of metal.

The internet proved a challenge to their model however because it decentralized music delivery. Instead of radio and albums, the new consumer model appears to be streaming audio and video services that operate like radio, but with more choice for the consumer. The paradox is that too much choice has been delivered, and because of the lack of “gatekeepers” like zines, radio and record stores, consumers find themselves adrift in a sea of music that mostly sounds the same, because the market pressure on those bands is to “stand out” by delivering novelty, not quality. For example, the democratic nature of Youtube diffuses the viewership of metal by distributing the views among thousands and thousands of bands where MTV had once effectively spotlighted a handful of bands, which was actually counter-intuitionally better for the genre. Bottlenecks of that nature tend to pick the most popular out of any style, and then others follow suit, developing the genres.

They are forgetting though that Record companies/promotors jumped on trends and many second rate bands were pushed just because they played 'x' style, and if you didn't play that style, chances were you were overlooked.

The ANUS reviews penned by SRP largely consisted of a cocktail of stoned logorrhea and thesaurus-humping, with the occasional trace admixture of insightful observations. It's nice to see a more analytical take on metal from time to time and I will admit to learning of a few albums through their band list, which remains (as far as I can recall) the only useful part of the Prozak ecosystem. Overall though the site contains little of worth as best as I can remember and I don't care to check in for an update.

Around the same time I joined Metal Archives I also joined one of the old ANUS/deathmetal.org/Black Legions forums. I sought, as most members of music forums do, more and better albums to listen to and conversation devoted to them. I quietly left when I realized the atmosphere there entirely conflicted with that goal. They venerate a microscopic pantheon of albums and castigate nearly everything else as a kind of heresy against their idea of metal. The forum (when I joined it---perhaps it's different now) largely consisted of the belittlement of all whose music listening habits strayed from their established orthopraxy. Needless to say, this environment was not conducive to discovering additional music one might enjoy.

Even the way dedicated ANUSites talked amongst themselves was weirdly religious; they posed questions in a way not dissimilar to a layperson asking a priest for a ruling, a sort of "does Pope Prozak bless this album I like?" Posters would profess to enjoy an album until Prozak handed down a ruling, whereupon they would reverse themselves. For a local example, the recently-banned Cynical did a complete 180 in his review for an Immolation album because the high priests of ANUS said it was actually a mediocre album.

The underlying argument of this article is wrong and utter nonsense, though. It's correct that rock was born out of a cultural revolution, as was most good art that people like. But this idea that mainstream culture sort of forced rock out by portraying white people as idiots is ludicrous. The idea that black music like hip hop was substanceless and voyeuristic but rock/metal was somehow more substantial and "true" as a rule, is garbage - both metal and hip hop offer that kind of escapism for listeners, and hip hop has actually evolved a lot more beyond that and many rappers actually lived those sorts of lives they talk about. And like rock from the 80s talking about fast cars and girls was any better. Trends change and stuff becomes popular and other stuff fades out. That's about it.

That article shows a fundamental lack of understanding of a lot of 20th century musical movements and, unsurprisingly, says nothing of Europe where metal still does very well. I think it's the "thick kids posturing as intellectual" that is the most irksome aspect of ANUS.

"Rock would still be the most popular music ever if TV hadn't shown white guys being dumb for several years! That's the ONLY reason it faded out! Not a general unwillingness to change or the inevitable rising of different, other trends regardless!"

This prompted me to have a look (I wasn't aware this site had updated in over a decade).

So all the music reviews have been removed?! Is that what this deathmetal.org is? Does metal no longer have any place within their (his) "philosophy"?

You are fucking insufferable, Empyreal.

Nah, he's pretty sufferable.