HERE'S a review that gets it:
https://soundsfromthedarkside.com/2023/ ... ment-13440

Some would say the album also lacks in the guitar department, but people tend to forget that Virgin Steele is not a metal band per se.

Did Coastline write this?

Whispering his way through the record and alternating with strained distorted and aimless falsettos, David DeFeis either sounds like an old man who’s experiencing a stroke or an irritating cat that's in desperate need for some euthanasia. With vocal lines all over the place, you can forget about any potential hooks – and while this guy used to write choruses that would make the gods proud, the choruses of ‘You’ll Never See the Sun Again’ and ‘I Will Fear No Man for I Am a God’ sound so wimpy that even your average musical kid could come up with something better.

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

I've just read Colin's full review and he's spot on with his analysis.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?