Welcome to the 1st Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge!

Originally the "MA Virgin Reviews Challenge," this is a time-honored tradition among our reviewers here. Every spring and every autumn, reviewers are encouraged to spend a week writing and submitting as many quality reviews as possible, with the aim to focus on albums with no reviews so far (i.e. virgin albums). Every day, the reviews submitted and accepted are tallied, so that participants can see how they compare with one another and whether or not, altogether, we've been able to surpass previous challenges' totals.

The challenge is named in memory of our friend Diamhea, a long-time contributor to this challenge and staff member here at Metal Archives, who sadly passed away on May 21, 2018. He was the first (and remains the only) person to have ever written 100 reviews for a single challenge!

This challenge will run from Monday June 11 @ 12:00AM EST to Sunday June 17 @ 11:59PM EST.

The magic number to beat is 609. That was set in May 2009. It's high but we can beat it.
The second magic number to beat is 353. That was the total from the last challenge!

Challenge Rules

1. The focus is on virgin albums.
The only albums that count are those that had zero reviews prior to the challenge.

2. Every release listed on the main site is valid including singles, videos, boxed sets and so on.
However please try to refrain from mass reviewing singles for this challenge. That's lame.

3. Eligible releases have to be virgins at the beginning of the challenge.
Multiple people can review the same virgin. There’s no bonus for getting to it first, so no need to hurry – focus on quality instead.

4. Value quality over quantity!
Everyone is welcome to participate, but keep in mind that the mods won't be more lenient during the challenge.

5. The challenge abides by the default time of the site (Eastern Standard time or GMT-5).
Please ensure that you are posting your review(s) within the right time frame in order for them to count.

6. The total number of reviews written will be tallied once a day (under normal circumstances).
Derigin (myself) will kindly do the tallying as soon as possible. Please don't nag him (me).

7. Stay cordial and respectful with one another.
Don't hijack this thread with petty arguments or whining. Remember that the mods are watching (and waiting)...

8. The only reward is our eternal appreciation.
The only prize is knowing that there is an album that previously didn't get any love... that now has a review to call its own.

Hall of Fame





What is SECRET SATAN? The gist of it is simple. People put their names forward. I randomly match those people with one another. They send each other a virgin to review. They both review one another's respective virgins for the challenge. SECRET SATAN is opt-in and totally optional to the review challenge. You have to put your name forward, either by mentioning it in this thread OR by sending me a PM on the forum. Once I have collected enough names, I'll notify people who their matches are at least a few days before the challenge starts. I'll notify through a forum PM.

Once matched, you must do the following:

Step 1: You will exchange with one another a virgin album for review.
It MUST be an album on this site with no reviews at the time it is shared with the other person.

Step 2: You are required to provide to the other person a link to the album you want him/her to review.
It MUST be available for FREE online and in either a QUALITY DOWNLOAD or QUALITY STREAM. No self-promoting your own albums, thanks!

Step 3: You will review the virgin album you received from the other person for the challenge.
Be prepared for the possibility that it may be well outside your comfort zone. Please remember this is done in good faith!

If you have any problems with the person you're matched with, let me know. I have spare albums for review just in case it doesn't work out.

Signed up for Secret Satan (as of June 3, 2018):


Have fun! Looking forward to your participation!

Sign me up for secret satan. I guess I need to get my list of virgin sacrifices ready.

I'm in for the challenge, per usual, but I'll be opting out of secret satan, my schedule that week will be kinda touch and go so I don't want to commit to something and not be able to deliver.

Cool, was thinking the other day that this couldn't be too far around the corner. Count me in for Secret Satan.

I'm in for SS.

I've been picking up the pace again (and finally have the ability to listen to music more often again) so I'm game for Secret Satan this time.

I'll be travelling in June; will have to miss it again... Damn.

secret satan me up

I'm ready. In on Secret Satan too.

I'll do win the Winter one but count me out from this again, didn't really have time to prepare properly and I haven't recovered from exhausting my reserves before. Maybe h_u and myself can prepare for some sort of epic showdown.

No Secret Satan for me, but I do look forward to reviewing some virgins. Here's hoping I can beat my top score of 2.

I'm up for it if you are, I'm not sure how much I'll put into this upcoming one, but either way I'll have enough of a well to draw upon between my various band contacts and The Metal Observer promo pool come winter.

Yeah, we'll tentatively go with that for now.

I have participated before but have only gotten up to 2 reviews, mostly because seeking out the virgin ones and force-feeding the music to myself makes for very forced and rushed reviews, which turn out bad when I try that. Yes, I know I could prepare for it, but it's just not as much my thing. The album has to come to me at the right time, not the other way around.

I'm going to do this this year. Also, I pledge my soul to Secret Satan. Let's see how this goes.

It's a shame you can't put your money where your mouth is for this challenge, because it's far from being a foregone conclusion. I'm not quite sure how you managed to find time to write the 100 from the challenge the year before last, but - work permitting - I'll try to write up all of the 70+ albums I've listened to so far in the last month. Anyway, if you're planning some kind of "epic showdown", you can bet it won't only contain the players you've picked.

I normally only do the Winter challenges. You are welcome to join the fray but do realize that I did 100 without anybody really pushing me.

I understand that it was not a very close race in December 2016, though I'm still interested to know what other plans you had the week of that challenge. Anyway, if you are implying that you need some pushing to exceed that total, I'm more than happy to be the one applying the pressure. I'll remember this conversation come December.

Other plans? Ha.

Like, no work and stuff? If I didn't have to spend challenge week at work, I think both our totals might exceed 100.

Nope. Barring death or jail, I'll be down for the entire week.

Damn.

Well, I think the result of this conversation is really down to how often my boss checks up on me at my desk. Which, considering I'm the only foreigner in the company, might not be that often, although even she might notice a totally black website absorbing a lot of my time, accompanied by occasional spasmodic movements of the head and neck.

lol One of the benefits of being self-employed is that I don't have anyone looking over my shoulder when I'm on the computer. The downside is that I'm subject to spontaneous changes in my schedule if something comes up since I'm where the buck stops, so I could plan to do 50 or 60 and only get around to 30 or so at the last minute. Back in the late 2000s when I was flirting with 100 territory I had a more predictable schedule, though I often ended up broke due to not having access to the Metal Observer promo pool or Spotify and guitar teachers having shit for income.

Right now is the "slow season" of my job so I've put out more than usual in the past week, however I still can't be on it TOO often. My job is heavy in the winter because that's when many big bands plan tours for the coming summer, and we have to have all of the stage designs done and manufactured. As it's now summer, most of the bands are on tour now and we only get small projects. It's nice, because then the workweeks aren't super long during the summer, and in the winter when I'm doing basically nothing anyway, the work weeks are busy.

...

Well this turned into a complete and utter downer.

Diamhea holds the current all-time record for the review challenge, guys. Anyone think they can try to beat 100 in his honor?

I'm contemplating giving it a shot, and regardless of whether or not I succeed, I'm attaching a dedication at the bottom of every review I write for this next challenge to him.

Wait what? I've been out of the loop for a while but the individual record stands at 100 reviews in a week? Could you even submit that many these days with the 5 review cap?

Mods/scribes bypass the queue, but also usually mods know that the challenge is a big tradition here so we stay on top of the queue extra hard during that week.

I figured that the mods put extra effort into the review queue that week, but I didn't know about the bypass system. I was envisioning you guys frantically checking the review queue to see if you could upload more entries.

I think that's a wonderful idea; wishing you and everyone else luck in this review challenge. Diamhea's record is astounding, I know I could never beat it.

(Quick sidenote, I've been writing reviews for a bunch of virgin Tokyo Blade albums, but because most of them are actually re-writes, I'll just be submitting them all before the challenge starts. Feels like cheating otherwise.)

I'm signing up for Secret Satan, hope it's not too late.

Maybe I'll finally participate in this for once. Although I doubt it.

The added motivation to participate to try to (with futility) fill the void of Diamhea's absence might finally get me to write a few.

Definitely not too late to sign up for "Secret Satan."

TSIR has suggested that we change the name of the challenge to the Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge to keep his memory alive. Since this challenge belongs to you, the community, I would like to know your thoughts on that. I think it would be a nice way of honoring him, myself.

I was thinking something like this might be appropriate

Do it. Not just for this one, but for them all. I know that every review I write I'll be thinking about him, because he would have been writing twice as fast at the other end.

I'm pretty sure that's the idea.

And while I'm not really part of the reviewing community, I think it would be quite fitting.

Do it, more than appropriate given his exemplary contributions to this site as a whole, and specifically his review work.

Do it, for sure. I was already planning on writing a dedication to him at the end of each review anyway.

I'm totally in support of that. Diamhea was such a great reviewer, it's only fitting. I'm also going to end my reviews with a dedication to him.

I'm in the challenge and the Secret Satan. I totally support dedicating the challenge to Diamhea