Did Coastline write this?

I asked myself the same question. Sometimes... when you wake up at midnight and the bats are all in a flap and the hairs grow on your back... and then the morning after... well, you know how the story goes.

Seriously, apart from the obvious non-metal elements in Virgin Steele, I think there have always been non-metal elements in places where you wouldn't expect them, e.g. riff types or chord choices, e.g. the riff in "Prometheus" from 1:18 onwards (no, not the gallop!) that is more 80s pomp rock (Magnum, Simple Minds in their stadium rock phase etc. etc.) than metal.

Take Overkill. Undoubtedly a thrash band but, in the early days, there were so many NWOBHM and power metal elements in their songs that nobody would be surprised if they cropped up again on their next album.

So I've listened to this for the awhile now and my thoughts are this. I like some parts and other parts not so much. It has this stop start thing where you think the song is about to take off(parts I like) and then the next section just stops the momentum dead and the song drags.(parts I don't like) Every song is like this. With that kind of review you would think I would give it a 50% rating right? However I think that the sum of all the good parts is worth a rating more than that. Anyone else have similar feelings?

^yep, pretty much. Like, it's easy to say the production's crap and DeFeis uses more autotune than the average rapper and RNB singer from 10-15 years ago ever did... about as easy as it is to say that it's also the best Virgin Steele album in like 15 years, with sections that half-recall that glorious edge their best material had. The issue is how a lot of the melodies aren't so much unified by a grand scale as much as they are just sections that he came up with. The good ones have roughly what makes a melody good, but it just seems as if none of them are given time to flesh themselves out as they just tend to happen and that's it. That often exasperates why the songs feel a smidge too long, especially as you get towards the end of the album with more and more uninteresting ones. The exceptions often come from his piano melodies, which often fill in that atmospheric and sometimes epic aura across the board.

Much of what I'm getting is much of what I got from Eucharist's We Are the Void from last year - a bunch of ideas mishmashed together and things just kinda happen... and that's it.

Another low-effort negative review from colin040. Who still reviews albums with pathetic analyses such as these lol....

Yeah that did not really tell me anything about the album at all.

I've just read Colin's full review and he's spot on with his analysis. The fact it's getting reviews in the 90% range is hilarious and that it's even sitting on 69% at the moment is amazing.
Anyway I've finally come to the conclusion that modern Virgin Steeles just not for me at all but that's OK, still got all those classics from the 80's and 90's to enjoy.

RIP Virgin Steele 1982 - 2006.

I'm sure you'd rather read those reviews of GodOfWar99's, RockPaperMetal and iron_potato instead; even if they surprisingly enough have no other reviews written or anything - but why care about integrity if you could just say something positive about a band huh?

And don't worry, I won't review any upcoming Virgin Steele stuff in the future anymore.



Thanks.

My apologies upfront for the slightly off topic post. I haven't posted many times but I've used this site and been a fan of this site for over 10 years. I don't post much as I'm not well informed on most of the topics/bands here and don't want to make ill informed comments on things I don't know a lot about.

With that being said I've never understood some of the review scores here and the one posted to this VS album is a perfect example. If I were to do a review I would never give a band anything less than 50%. I mean I'm of the opinion that a lot of effort was put into the writing, recording and promotion of an album that deserves consideration when reviewing. But when the scores start dipping below 50% and for example the review that gave this VS a 15% I believe it starts to get a bit disrespectful. No offense intended to the reviewer just something I've been thinking about for a while now.

Video from their latest concert (12.08.23):



Gotta be honest, MUCH better than I anticipated! Certainly better than all the live videos from the last 15 years or so.

I don't subscribe to this - you put art out in the world and you risk critiques that come after it. Sometimes scathing ones. Like just because effort was put into something doesn't mean we have to respect it to any degree. Just how it goes.

Some critique is also pretty shallow and based on surface gloss, but that's also how it goes.

One thing that fascinating me is how David DeFeis is so proud of his new material, yet he rarely plays anything from TBLB and onward.

Also, who the hell is that guitarist in this video? The fact that Edward Pursino has been absent many times live, gives me the idea that his heart is no longer into the band.

As an artist, I’d rather be told what I’m doing wrong on a given album than just get pity support for trying. Hard work deserves to be acknowledged but some projects are just better executed than others by virtue of differing strengths and weaknesses. I’m good with people saying anything about my work as long as it’s constructive but even that hasn’t been much worse than what I say to myself in my head on a regular basis.

Fair enough. I totally get your side on this.



Another good take on this. Thank you both of your reponses.

I'm guessing Pursino has a full-time job or something. He plays all the guitars on the new one except for the last song (which is Josh Block).

GodOfWar99's review is actually spot-on though I don't know how you can't hear hooks all over this thing. More hooks in one song than most entire albums. Every melody is sing-along-with-able. And yeah, I was really hoping to hear a Dionysus song or two live (via Youtube anyway, they're not coming to Michigan any time soon).

Yeah some of these songs have been stuck in my head almost against my will actually.

It's funny how subjective catchiness is. I got shit for not really finding Eternal Champion catchy, but that's just what it was for me; didn't really stick.

Harsh critique is fine when it is warranted. I just find statements like "so and so sounds like a dying rat that stepped on broken glass" to be silly and laughably meaningless.

No offence, mate - but maybe you should get used to the idea that tastes can differ

I've listened to stuff you rated over 90% - and wouldn't listen to it a second time because I find it boring, amateurish and just plain cheap. Does that mean it's objectively bad? No. Anyone who thinks they can judge music like that hasn't understood a lot of things.

And yes, it was my first review. I didn't really know this site before, and when I saw that I could rate and review an album that I really liked, I did. Many of the points that bother you about the album sound perfectly reasonable. But I just don't care about them as much as you do, it's as simple as that. I was amused that you seriously rated it 15 percent and wrote an edgy review about it. Is that why I'm getting upset? Absolutely not. Tastes are different.