TheHumanChair's profile

A key note to make about me, if you read my reviews. Lyrics are very close to meaningless to me. I judge songs/albums based on their musical qualities and competence, not by the words sung around them. You will only see lyrics EVER mentioned in my reviews if there's a specific point I need to make about them, or in the sense of how a song's lyrics might add to an overall album's theming.

***NOTE. I said LYRICS and not VOCALS. A singer is like a musical instrument for me. While I couldn't care less 99 times out of 100 about the words coming out of their mouth, how they SING those words can be extremely important.

Another thing that I personally despise is comparing bands to other bands that came before them. Every single band that has ever existed in every genre of music ever has influences. Every band can be traced back to those influences. Saying "Band A sounds like Band B" is moot to me, because you can then say "...But Band B sounds like Band C," and that rabbit hole can go as far as you can dig. I will only make references to other bands if I feel there is a direct, very intentional tribute.

In terms of how I rate albums, I only rate on scales of 5% (So 50%, 65%, 80%, etc.). I think things start to get irrelevant after that. I rate albums with a similar mindset of test scores. So, as examples:

95-100% are albums that I think are near perfect. These are albums I can listen to anytime.
85-90% are quality records. Albums I can't listen to on a daily basis, but that I come back to frequently.
80% are enjoyable albums. I can listen to these albums several times a year easily.
70-75% are solid enough albums. Definitely could use some improvement, but decent enough listens to come back to now and then for sure.
65% are albums that I'm not really fully happy with, but definitely not terrible.
60% are albums that I'd start to call 'bad.' They still might have enjoyable moments in there, but not albums I can listen to for more than once or twice a year at most.
40-55%. Bad albums. These albums aren't wholly unlistenable, but I didn't enjoy very much of it at all.
0-35%. Horrible albums. These albums are a struggle for me to listen to, and I pretty much only do so for reviewing purposes.

As one final note, I try very hard to only review albums/bands that I feel I have a good opinion on (even if that opinion is different/controversial). Since my main sources of enjoyment are power metal, doom metal, and traditional metal, you are not really going to see me review many/any thrash, death, or black metal records. Since these genres are just not for me, I feel it would be very unfair of me to just start giving albums average/bad reviews when I don't feel I really have good standing in saying such things.

Favorite Bands:
- Ningen Isu
- Black Sabbath (Dio)
- Rainbow (Dio)
- Candlemass
- Stratovarius
- Blind Guardian
- Judas Priest
- Dio
- Helloween
- Dark Moor
- Solitude Aeturnus
- Edguy
- Death
- Isole
- Hell
- Avantasia
- Versailles
- Brothers of Metal

Live Shows:
- Ningen Isu (During their 2019 tour)
- Black Sabbath (During "The End" tour)
- Candlemass (Twice. At Maryland Deathfest 2014, and their 2022 tour.)
- Helloween (Twice. During both the "My God Given Right" tour and the "Pumpkins United" tour)
- Blind Guardian (During the "Beyond the Red Mirror" tour)
- Judas Priest (During the "Firepower" tour)
- Avantasia (During the "Ghostlights" tour)
- Sabaton (During "The Last Stand" tour)