Metal Reviews

Y’all need to comment more on the reviews, and try the albums we write about. I know a few of you do, but the majority sit there, mouths agape, mindlessly relistening to their favourite Death/Blind Guardian album or whatever’s a comfort in these dark days, but we the review team write about some pretty interesting stuff and a “this sounds real swell, ah’m givin’ it a go right darn now and it sounds like liddle ole evil angels singin’ praises to Satan” from time to time would be great. Writing about music needs an audience to slurp up all these hard-written words, and from the current state of things the majority of people are only comfortable commenting on stuff they already know about or if it’s a Dragonforce thread or the equivalent.

Next time you read a review and you have a comment, put it down in a post ffs, even if it’s just a Kennesque ‘why didn’t you mention this obscure producer’ moan. I know you’re a conservative bunch when it comes to checking music out, but that doesn’t mean the status quo is set hard and fast. Michael Jackson popping his clogs has more posts than the new Isis, for example… why? Check out something new, for a change. Change. Yes we can.

(This was going to be the nucleus for an editorial, but I thought I’d turn it into a Goatesque rant, add a mean-spirited dig at Kenneph, and stick it in Helheim instead. Have at thee.)

I've got Skyclad, Sonic Youth and Chariot sitting there waiting for me to listen to em. But I've got a shitload of other stuff to listen to first.

Oh and by the way, you don't just write reviews for the people on the forum, do you? I'm sure a shitload of people who don't post on the boards here regularly read the reviews.

True, true, but it's an old complaint of mine that the actual forumites seem more interested in Fridge-liking-Nickleback jokes than they are in c00l n3w mu5ic. I'm sure you understand this.

Oh absolutely, but the forum is a community with it's own jokes and eventual purposes, so it's to be expected that things go off on tangents that garner more attention than the original purpose of the forum. You think we talk overwhelmingly about Richard Dawkins on the Dawkins forum? Hah.

I'm sure he gets more time than the reviews do here, though.

Srsly. I know it's an old thing that I bring up every so often, and I'm not complaining about the sprots threads or saying we can't make jokes any more, but a bit more attention for the reviews, hmm?

Am I allowed to vote? I checked two or more out, but obviously I had to as I wrote four.

Too late, I did.

Oh, sure; being serious, I should have said, I try and check out the more interesting-looking Power Metal bands around, and anything avant-garde and cool like what Minty or you review. Anything with a 'Progressive' at the start of it warrants attention, too, but I don't always post comments and I hereby resolve to do so in the future. Ideally you should be checking out what you write about anyways. Two zingers in one day on the same subject! NP - Darkthrone - Goatlord.

I check out new bands when I'm interested. Lately, nothing looked interesting.

I completely understand and sympathize with this complaint, but you do have to realize that in nearly all forums the main posters always spend more time in the General chat forums than the forums for which the forum was created. Still, I haven't been checking out much new music these days, and I should be paying more attention to reviews.

I'll be honest and say none of them cos it has been a busy week for me. I usually go through the reviews, but I cannot always post a comment saying, " Yeah, this band seems to be cool. I'll check them out." It becomes repetitive. I understand the concern of no one posting in reviews and the forums having more posts. But, in the case of forums, the topics posted most of the time are topics in which most people have a say. That's why they post. Even the reviews. A review of a Maiden, Metallica or Megadeth will have more posts than a review of a band like say, Dawn Of Relic or Hades cos more people have listened to them. Now, I will go and read the reviews with the little free time I have.

With a few exceptions, reviews from this site havent been my source for metal discovery in a very long time, i do read most of the reviews and the majority of them are really well written but they're mostly about bands that i already know about or bands that i couldnt care less, this and the fact that i know most of the reviewers very well since they are posters themselves makes it harder for me to take your opinions on albums objectively.

I do think that we should talk more about music in the forums, there was a time when i posted reguraly about bands that i recently discovered and even if i didnt get as many replies as i would like i shouldnt have stoped so i do admit that i have been very lazy lately, i will try to change that but about posting more on the reviews threads unless you want me to start posting "This shit sucks" more often i think i will just stand back.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. But bare in mind that many of us only have the time and money for so much music at once. May be you should consider posting Myspace links in your reviews, where we can listen to some of the bands' songs and see how we like'em.

Finally, something helpful! I despair of this place sometimes. Many thanks, Seinie, I'll put it to the Board and we'll see what we can do.

Most of them do have some kind of links in. If a band I review has an official myspace I put that in 95% of the time as opposed to their actual main website.

Yeah, if you can link straight to a song I'd check out a lot more definantly.

Wait... you guys aren't being sarcastic/ironic, as I was?

I actually was trying to wind you up...

Heh, y'all ganging up on me. See my avatar for my first facial response.

Pretty much this. Like from this week I checked out Believer, Code, Isis, Darkness, and Culted but my reaction to them was basically "nah" and posting that in the thread would make me kind of a jerk. I do plan on listening to Wolf's Ravenous eventually and Nihilitia seem interesting.