- It's been at once an interesting and uninteresting year. The usual suspects continue to ride high in my estimation, yet I'll admit to having changed my mind in a couple of places - I gave Mastodon's latest 90/100 for some reason, despite it dropping considerably in my estimation soon after, especially after discovering Minsk. Time to admit it: Blood Mountain was way better. Otherwise, Napalm Death and Nile just missed out on the top 15 list, as did Steve Wilson, Ulcerate, Voivod, Sonic Youth, She Said Destroy and Ava Inferi - would that it was the top 25. Alas, it isn't, and as much pleasure as those bands gave me, the numbers just didn't add up. Shed a tear for them, dear reader, and don't forget to listen hard - I'll be exploring further into Sonic Youth's back catalogue, for definite.
Metalreviews.com as an institution continues to grow and flourish, although not always in the way that one would expect; I received my first ever death threat this year, for example, which shows that I'm doing something right, whatever it may be. The site is a curious organism; we add new reviewers to the team and watch helpless as certain older ones detach themselves and float away, rather like some kind of host to hordes of alien parasites. New writers are always welcome, assuming they want to do more than make sure their favourite band are covered; even if you've never written more than an email in your life, the process of describing music to an audience is a fascinating one, and who knows? The talent may be lying latent in you like some kind of psychic ability - why not drop us a line with a sample review? It's hardly as dangerous as other leaps into the unknown can be.
In the meantime, I look forward to writing for MR in the new year, which actually heralds a decade of this good site. The world may burn as fanatics set themselves aflame, but metal and good music abides, and as long as my fingers remain unbroken by the massive, sinister right-wing conspiracy (what, you haven't heard?) I'll continue to write about the good stuff and whine about everything else. It's an honour to be part of this site, here's to the next ten years.
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