What about it? I have sworn off reviewing Buckethead for a while, but you are getting me interested again.

Goodness gracious gasmask, you're absolutely killing it so far, both quantity and quality. I've been totally asleep at the wheel for the new Witchery and Hatriot, I had absolutely no idea either existed. Cheers for the great write-ups, keep it up man.

I won't be able to contribute much to this challenge, but this is still the best way to discover new and weird stuff. Thanks for organizing and keeping score, BurningOfSodom!

My output is going to be moderate this go around, had a lot going on during the lead up to this challenge and I'll only have a few free hours each day, but I play on trying to help get our cumulative score up as much as I can.

Heh, don't really have much I'm ready to review but might drop a couple.

Love you man! While we're at it, many thanks for making me impossible to unsee the wojak on the Xentrix cover, haha.

Got 3 reviews done today so far. If you submit them during the challenge but they're not accepted until after the challenge, do they still count?

They don't, but I'm pretty sure the mods will do everything possible to examine every review sent to the queue before the deadline, so hopefully the issue won't present itself.

Working on my third review. My first one was a spur of the moment review of an album I had been listening to, the second a rewrite of one I attempted to submit way back in 2018...

Going to focus on... what else... fun0realz deewmz. maybe some raw vampyric black metal as well since I like vampires and I like it raw.

Was only able to get in one review today. Hopefully I can pump out more tomorrow.

Whelp, first day and already I inadvertently duplicated something that was already hit, albeit less than an hour before mine. To be fair, I think VictimOfScience and my takes on Masters Of Disguise's second LP were somewhat different. lol

I might be able to sneak one more in before I crash, we'll see.

Daily Tally for Nov 28 2022
Total Reviews: 56 / 56
Total Virgin Reviews: 51 / 51
Percentage (VIRGINS/TOTAL): 91.1% / 91.1%

Participant List for Nov 28 2022
Participants (TODAY/TOTAL): 27 / 27

Today's Totals per Individual:


Running Totals per Individual:


Compared to the first day of the last challenge, we are down 14 reviews and up 9 participants.

Congrats to gasmask_colostomy for being today's leader with 9 reviews!

gasmask's lead is already a declaration of intents, while nobody seems willing to stand out as the main contender for the moment, with hells timidly taking 2nd place. There are already a lot of participants this time around, hopefully it'll come in handy for the collective total!

People, we've got a choice morsel here: Metallica's new single! The blushing virgin already found someone to honor her, mind you.

Joke aside, nice little start. Not as high as last time, but this isn't surprising - it often goes a bit down after a succesful edition.

Nice to see you around for this! This time I'm mostly writing on things that I couldn't cover during this year, so lots of new releases will get their due I hope. I also haven't taken many notes on the albums I'm writing for, but I've put more time into listening to this kind of recent output, since I was deciding whether to review them at release date or not, and these are the bunch that I saved for later. Witchery especially I wanted to do at the beginning because they are a very special band to me, even if their current style doesn't give me quite the boner that their old stuff did.

I've been spinning the original Master of Disguise a lot this month, and will have to check out the Masters of Disguise now thanks to these reviews.

haha


Seriously though, I don't know how people crank out so many reviews. I feel like I've hit a wall after just 7. Granted, part of that was due to IRL fucking bullshit driving my anxiety levels to the point where my head felt like it wanted to explode.

Managed to polish off 5 today before the buzzer, and decided to take Sean16's bait and reviewed the new Metallica single. I was a bit more forgiving than BuriedUnborn was, but I generally agree that despite it being a clear thrasher, it is extremely flawed.

Everybody is doing great thus far, and it's looking like gasmask is going to run away with this one. I'd be putting up more of a fight but honestly I had almost no time to do any preparatory listening before this challenge began.

Daily Tally for Nov 29 2022
Total Reviews: 77 / 133
Total Virgin Reviews: 71 / 122
Percentage (VIRGINS/TOTAL): 92.2% / 91.7%

Participant List for Nov 29 2022
Participants (TODAY/TOTAL): 30 / 39

Today's Totals per Individual:


Running Totals per Individual:


Compared to the second day of the last challenge, we are down 9 reviews but up 3 participants.

Congrats to TheBurningOfSodom for being today's leader with 12 reviews!

Man, in order to finally read the sentence above, I've had to type it myself lol. gasmask is still leading, but some form of opposition seems to have appeared...

lol



You're doing well though, a lot of people are. I think it's tough to suddenly review loads of stuff at once, especially for people who aren't used to putting their thoughts into words all the time. I find writing easier than speaking most of the time, and have just written reviews constantly for about 8 years now, so it's not too hard to get into the habit. All the same, I couldn't do that if I wasn't at home by myself a lot. Real life stuff stressing you out is no atmosphere to concentrate on a detailed analysis of music, so I sympathize.


Very happy to read that too! It's interesting that we have so many people writing this time, although not many people have written lots and lots yet. I don't have the ability to write more than about 10 a day because I haven't got any notes for most of the releases, and this afternoon will mostly be taken up doing housework and grading assignments. You have a good window to steal the lead I reckon.

Word. Reviewing during the challenge week is definitely something more than the usual hobby we all have, and requires a combination of serious dedication to it and... the least possible amount of outside issues. Hope your real life eases up a bit man!


<3

So, I thought I wasn't going to have time these days and that's why I didn't sign up, but it turns out I have more free time than I thought and I have a couple of virgin releases I would like to review, is it still possible to enter the challenge? I don't think I'll contribute much but something is something.

Of course, there's no obligation to start on the first day! Just submit your reviews and I will count them in the daily total.

Nice to see Iowa's Lord of The Pit get some love, following a menu change. Great timing too, as they've just opened up a brand new, if not none too subtle, BBQ joint here in Bangford, BC:

https://jonesgotmeat.com/

(D Fang in da house!)

So far, I've only tried the brisket sammie and fries. The former was more of an oversauced pickle 'which whilst the fries were okay; their Alabama sauce really kicks ass, has a great after bite to it. I'll still return and try the actual grill fare to proffer a fair impression. All things considered, they deserve a second chance, even if I felt shorted the first time on Sunday.

As I've a 9 hour playdate with Big Red today and tomorrow (ye ole mechanical rust bucket reserved for part-time order pickers), am not sure I'll be able to jam more in until Friday and le weekend, including a token Jowita request - she of timely email solicitation.

I'm also thrilled to see caspian back in action, as well as twist's Mourn The Light EP review, a release I was actually listening to during the loser cruiser ride back from downtown yesterday as it came through, even musing about potentially joining in the fray, only to realize he (and fellow mourner sweetie) did too good of a job, hence making such participation moot and unnecessary. Worth noting though, I've been checking out and reading stuff by various contributors, and even if our total output is less than in June (usually is!), it's nice to see everyone in the spirit of things.

I'm finishing up my NaNoWriMo right now and catching up on bug-work, then I plan on hamming out some more reviews today. Hopefully no real life bullshit props up today. I want to relax.

I have work tomorrow though, and a fairly busy weekend, but if I keep up the pace I might be able to hit 20.

I'm kinda alternating between obscure black metal stuff, and obscure funeral doom stuff. I might do more funeral doom stuff just because I have a lot more experience with it and can compare it easily when describing what I am listening to. With black metal sometimes all that comes to me is, "this is black metal, it is blackened black and it is raw as black metal because it is black. Black black black black black"

Dude, those are two of what I consider to be the most creatively potent genres of metal. Packed with feeling and atmosphere. Do you have any favorite funeral doom and black projects? I could go on and on about mine, haha.

My two favorite releases from these genres are The Call of the Wretched Sea by Ahab for funeral doom, and Diadem of 12 Stars by WITTR for black.

Good luck with the reviewing! I've been meaning to get more done this week, but school has kind of gotten in the way.

Damn, Caspian beat me to Bird Eater. Good review, though.

Congrats indeed! Way to go man, you're doing a great job with these write-ups. I was laughing my ass off at the first line of your Schindler's Pissed review, and your entire Thrashfire review is solid gold. I totally see the King of the Hill characters in the album art.

Also wanted to mention Goatfang's review of Mycorrhizae, for both a splendid Commander Keen reference, as well as - in general - introducing me to mushroom black metal. That makes me happy that it exists. Interesting review buddy, nice work.

Haha, thanks man! Appreciate so much that you have found time to read them. You just don't get out of the challenge week alive if you don't try a joke or two every now and then, I guess...

Daily Tally for Nov 30 2022
Total Reviews: 50 / 183
Total Virgin Reviews: 47 / 169
Percentage (VIRGINS/TOTAL): 94.0% / 92.3%

Participant List for Nov 30 2022
Participants (TODAY/TOTAL): 26 / 45

Today's Totals per Individual:


Running Totals per Individual:


Compared to the third day of the last challenge, we are down 30 reviews but up 4 participants.

Congrats to TheBurningOfSodom for being today's leader with 5 reviews!

It has been a quiet day, with new faces continuing to show, but no huge numbers. gasmask was kind enough to let me take the lead for a day, but the challenge appears open to all kind of results.

Well done everyone! It's exciting to see a challenge that is still so open 4 days in.

I was hoping to get closer to my personal best (25) but it seems increasingly unlikely as the week turned out much busier than I expected! Will give it a shot, though!

Hehe. I was actually expecting we'd see a crowd of one-review-wonders eager to comment on the first 'true' novelty released in, what, five years, from arguably the most famous metal band on Earth. Turns out I was wrong. After all Lars and co. took everyone by surprise with that one.

I've played in a lot of these review challenges, but not all of them by far, and I wonder if it already happened a big band - I mean, really big, Metallica / Maiden style - released a full-length album precisely on a Challenge week.

Otherwise we keep on doing nicely. We must be pretty much in the average number for a 3rd day, perhaps slightly above. May write another one this afternoon.

Rabbit, Rabbit y'all! (Happy reviewing!)

*I've also just come across a novel soundbite for any ole doomy opening:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... ounds-like

Judicator releases their first album without Cordisco, presents a rather different approach altogether that can go either way, a scant few days before the challenge, potentially ready to be the most reviewed album for it.

Metallica: "Now this looks like a job for me"

___

@CHAIRTHROWER mmm would love to give them a go. If they can smoke meats like they can smoke some groovy death metal, it'd be a treat at any rate!

That did look great, what a super load of puns in one album too.


Had a horrid day yesterday, it's suddenly got really freezing (-5 with the windchill) and I had to do housework, tutoring, grading, and then started feeling ill. By the evening I didn't really want to write much. Today's been better but I won't push it until I'm feeling good. Broke my promise about reviewing Buckethead though.

Dude, you've earned the right to take it easy for a couple days. Your reviews are classic! Regenerate some brain power!

That sucks man, hoping for a quick full recovery!

Agreed, I was expecting to be the 4th or 5th person to get a crack at it, I think MA's culture has changed a bit since the days of Penis Metal and Wintersun's sparse studio outings and we only occasionally get a whole brigade of reviewers hitting a single release in a short period of time (Megadeth's latest comes to mind).

I think the closest we got to a really big band releasing a full length during the challenge was back in 2013 when Amon Amarth put out "Deceiver Of The Gods", which ended up getting 4 or 5 reviews during the challenge. A lot of the people competing at the time were complaining about the fact because they though it defeated one of the key purposes of the challenge, which is to promote lesser known bands. I'm pretty sure I remember BastardHead reaming myself and a few others that actually did review that album for the challenge while it was going on. lol

For me this has been a fairly average output for my first 3 days, at least since I re-entered the challenges after taking a 2 year hiatus in the early 2010s. My current work schedule has been very different since I switched careers and especially in the past year since I began doing freelance concert reviews, so my days of churning out review totals in the 80-95 range are pretty far behind now. If all goes well, I might get into the high 30s or possibly hit 40 this time around, we'll see how the weekend shapes up for me. Everybody's doing great though, I'm happy to see that we're still managing a respectable output despite less output from the heavy-hitters., and the quality of what is being submitted is definitely there.

I fondly remember Kreator and Helloween putting out their respective newest albums in the later two challenges, though. Each one got at least 7 reviews if I'm not mistaken.

For now, as Demon Fang mentioned, Judicator's latest seems to be the leading man with 3 reviews, as far as I've seen during the daily tallies.

Damn, if you're going for 40 might just tap out for being competitive for third. Just don't have it in me anymore.

Wait, when Time II will be out, the subsequent shockwave it will cause will have all of us rise from our graves to create a special Challenge for it.

Thanks for your wishes guys, I'm not that sick but I guess it's just the body's reaction to the temperature dropping about 15 degrees in a day. I'm back on it today, but a few commitments later still.

From the discussion above, the album I especially remember everyone jumping on last time was Kreator, though in my earlier challenges I didn't review that much that was up to date and probably didn't even know what was being released at the time.

I have to say my favourite thing about doing this challenge (and why I'm enjoying not going too fast this time) is when I listen to an album I had sort of written off as middling and generic, but then find it's really great when reviewing it. That's happening right now with Torn Fabriks, a pretty unknown thrash band that I've listened to a few times without getting a strong impression.