Metal Reviews

Under the new weekly reviews you can see the genre. Why bother saying 'funky, yet still melodic pre 2000 melo-death with a hint of punk' when it could just have a static genre which allows the review to be easily found with the site's search engine? I'd rather see a review for 'Death Metal' with elaboration within the review. Just something that's been annoying me is all.

You are right.
Keep it simple = keep it clear.

You definitely have a point, but how broad would you want to make it? Is "blackened thrash", for example, too specific?

Sometimes it's tricky when bands don't seem to fit into one place.

If it isn't a genre in the search thing then no.

I'm with the bastard, sometimes reviewers invent some silly names, some with like ten words . It's absurd.

I personally like to keep genres simple.

I'm okay with "Blackened Thrash Metal" or "Progressive Death Metal" or something, because "Blackened" or "Progressive" helps define the genre a little more. My general rule of thumb is no more than three words... There might be a few exceptions, but I can't think of any right now.

And it does sound a little silly when people get too overboard with genre names. There's no reason to say "Post-Black Industrial Progressive Melodic Black Metal" when "Progressive Black Metal" or something more simple would do just fine.

I think the best solution is a mixed one. First, the main (o mains, but never more than two) genre, as figure in the Search page. After than, zero, one or two tag-subgenres between parenthesis, to make more clear the differential factor.

things like:

Black (Sci-fi Symphonic)
Black
Hard Rock (Bluesly)
Death
Melodic Death (Folky)
Melodic Death (Epic)
Nu- Metal
Stoner Doom
Post-Hardcore (Technical Progressive)
Heavy
Heavy (Experimental Symphonic)
Melodic Death
Stoner Doom
Folk Metal
Death

Couldn't we file the bands that have elements of different genres under several tags?
For example, Blackened Thrash would be Black Metal + Thrash.

I can find that getting confusing pretty quickly. There's no point in changing the system, it works just fine as it is. Just keep genre labels simple, and it'll all be just fine.

Well it seems that the actual name of the genre given in the review is not necessarily what category it would fall under in the search function. For example, if you select Avant-Garde, do a search, and then click on the first review (!T.O.O.H.! - Rad a Trest) the genre given in the review is "Progressive Death/Grind." So it really wouldn't matter what the reviewer writes for the genre as long as it's tagged correctly with one of the existing categories in the search database.

So from the search function perspective the whole weird genre description doesn't really matter but I totally understand if people wanted them not to be written like that and just be simplified.

Or just black/thrash metal?

Yeah... That way the album would show if you search for one genre or the other...

I don't think the search thing is put together like that.. When a reviewer adds an artist to the archive he shall always select the genre . So when you search for a specific genre all the bands that is stored in the archive with that genre-tag is shown. The problem however, is that not all reviewers do/did this. So if you search for black for example, Carpathian Forest wont show up because they aren't stored with the proper tag.

Yeah, the search thing works differently. I don't know, I try and keep genres simple but there's a real difference between Progressive Black and Post-Black/Industrial, and that extra word can make all the difference.

I kind of like it the way it is. I actually look forward to how random they can get.

Man what's wrong with labeling something like "Blacken Death w/ Funky Pop And Country mixed with 90's Grunge and 20's Radio Easy Listening"

Truth is, that hardly ever happens.

You are right. Regardless of what crazy genre description the actual review shows, the search engine only cares about what genre(s) the artist was tagged with when it was put into the database. For example, if I post a review by an artist that hasn't been reviewed before, I then need to go into their link in the database to add their homepage URL and genre tag. The following list is all we have to choose from at this point:

Avant-Garde
Black
Christian
Dark
Death
Doom
Doom Death
Folk Metal
Funeral Doom
Gothic
Guitar Hero
Hard Rock
Heavy Metal
Industrial
Melodic Death
Metalcore
Modern Metal
Nu-Metal
Power/True Metal
Progressive
Progressive Doom
Speed Metal
Stoner Doom
Stoner Metal
Thrash
Viking

We can also select more than one of these at a time. Unfortunately, sometimes we forget to do this in the haste of posting a review. If anybody notices an artist that belongs in a genre, but doesn't show up when you search for that genre, let me know and I'll fix it.

What's the difference between Stoner Doom and Stoner Metal, prithee?

Well duh, one's not doom.

Think of it as the difference between Electric Wizard and High on Fire.