Metal Reviews

Obviously, Kayla, Afeigel and myself are active on the forums, but the team wants to try outside reviewers.

What do you think would happen if noodles—the only one who posts reviews on the forum—became a reviewer here? People would shit on his reviews just because. We've seen it happen with my reviews in the past.

hmmmm, you, Misha, Kayla, Adam........ pretty much half the reviews each week are from forum members!

Misha reviews once or twice a month, hardly an "each week" reviewer. And Dee was also an active forum member, where'd he go?

Neither matters, of course, because even before I became a reviewer they didn't like forum members to become reviewers. They've made exceptions because they need reviewers, and those exceptions were made after a lot of thought.

I'm a pretty good writer, but I know nothing about metal...at least compared to you guys. It's weird being around my friends and knowing a hundred times more than any of them and then coming here and being a frickin' n00b.

Just saying....

I wouldnt hire me either

And you're willing to accept such a state of affairs? Noodles isn't the only one on the forum willing to review, surely? I know The Gods have never exactly loved the forum, but that's hardly our fault.

Just to back Ken up on this.

Firstly the whole matter is not concretely decided yet as not every member of the team has voiced their opinion (as far as I know) But the majority of the team has leant towards looking outside of the Forums first.

We each have our own but my personal reasons for backing this are:

1) The community is rather small as it is, if we start making loads of you guys reviewers then things become even more incestuos and we end up with a community of reviewers discussing each others stuff. There's not much point in that. If we look to outside, we can bring new people and fresh perspectives to the table

2) Previous relationships between you guys (the forumites). As Ken said, reviews would be judged too much on the person. E.G. if Noodles became a reviewer, I shudder to think of the influx of 'Metalreviews goes Emo!!one11!one' threads.

3) Arguments along the lines of say (and this is just an example) Zad, Noodles, Radagast and Kathy apply to be reviewers. One of them gets hired, the rest rejected, will the rest than start with 'OMFG that's so unfair, this site's gone to hell, I'm leaving etc etc.' or 'I only didn't get it cos I pissed Ken / Al / etc off back in 1999 *sulk*'? Not very likely but could still happen and create bad feeling.

I have no doubt that there's some deserving candidates among you and like I said this issue is not finalised as far as I know. But this is my stance on it and I hope the above explains the rational behind it.

Fair points. I suppose I was just thinking that there are enough "Can I be a reviewer?" posts around...

100% agree. What I wanted to say with my post was: "Don't be negative with ALL the forum members, they are some that can be good reviewers."
I'm not one of them, of course.

wow, you took the words right off my... keyboard?

I would allow myself to politely interject and say that how this thread took this turn is beyond me. This discussion is completely premature and unfounded. We have to allow Mike to gather his thoughts in somewhat turbulent times for him, and first officially declare the fact that MR is looking for reviewers. I am sure Mike will go over requirements of what MR is looking for. Until then, let's not discuss what is not there yet.

Agreed, I said a few times that it hadn't been decided yet. I just wanted to voice my opinion and stance on the matter as the discussion had already turned towards that topic.

I think at some point, for some people, metalreviews.com became a forum, and only a forum. Thus, I think, some forum members have this false sense of entitlement, or say, when it comes to the site.

Obviously I'm a reviewer that came from the forum, as did Kayla and Adam, so I am not against forum members becoming reviewers. At this point, however, I don't really see any forum member showing enough interest in music here on the forum that would make me think they'd be a good reviewer for the site.

I think that the site & the forum are complementaries, metalreviews is more than a forum and more than a site of reviews. The interaction of reviewers and community in the threads of the reviews make the site more and more interesting. What I tryed to say is "don't ban members of the forum just for being members of the forum, some perhaps could be valious reviewers". But of course, the gods decide who can be a reviewer and who not.




Well, I'll say just one name, one of my favourites by far posters here, someone's that show a lot of interest in music, for example.
I'm talking about The Voice.

And there's more people there.

Of course they compliment each other, the main site complimenting the forum more than the opposite, of course. I read this site for years before even taking a look at the forum. The thing is, we've already seen how a forumites popularity can adversely affect the responses a review gets. That negativity affects the bands that we're trying to promote and support. Just look at the review forum now, how many replies are there from forum members that don't post often. People that aren't active here do read the forum. Do you not think those negative comments that are posted simply because the person doesn't like the reviewer doesn't have any effect on readers that don't post often? Of course it does!

The site needs new blood, new perspectives. And completely new, outside people; people that don't have their alliances drawn, and whatnot.


Oh, don't doubt, there are quite a few people here that take the time to articulate their thoughts, The Voice being one of them; EpicMetal30, Trans-Siberian Outcast being some others. Shit, even leee! But that doesn't meant they want to be reviewers. They've never mentioned it at all, nor have I ever gotten that impression. I did ask TSO once, but he's too busy.

Anyway, I was simply saying that a good number of forumites tend to reply mostly one-liners; all day, every day. The pool to pick from is full of bad choices (no offense).

well, music-wise, if you're not going to sum up your thoughts in a couple of lines you might as well right reviews.

edit - um, a reviewers reputation/popularity ends up affecting the reaction to the review?

and i don't comment on most reviews because melodic death metal and symphonic power metal aren't my cup of tea. if it's something else and it gets a good score i check it out even if i don't comment..

Huh? That doesn't make any sense. A person does need to know how to write, you know.


You don't think so? You think someone reviewing a nu-metal album and people just jumping in there slamming it because they don't like the reviewer, and they don't like nu-metal, doesn't have any greater effect? Especially when they're acting as if they've listened to the music and clearly did not.

So someone reads that review, then checks out the forum and reads those scathing replies that the album sucks, etc., you don't think that's a bad thing? That person may be a fan of nu-metal, but he's now reading replies saying it sucks, but those replies are not based on the music, but on the reviewer/style! Sure, people should listen for themselves before making a judgement, but if that is what happened always then the point of reviewing is now pointless.

Words are powerful, even if ill-informed and childish.


Well, we review many more genres than just those two.

yeah, but i'll only comment if it's really really good (in my ears). i'm lazy.

what i meant with the "sum up your thoughts" thing is this:
in the extreme metal forum you see a lot of short posts, some discussion of the style and the favourite albums/songs and all.

you said


this a forum, we talk about music (and hot cartoon women) in a conversation-ish way, no one is asking anyone to elaborate or anything.

That's fine, but some people seem incapable of doing any more than that. You can't look at the forum and pick anyone that truly seems to fit the bill of "reviewer." To me, anyone who has that drive to be a reviewer would be elaborating in their posts, showing a greater interest beyond just one-liners!