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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Wed Nov 08, 2017 6:32 pm 
 

PaganiusI wrote:
You mean I should compress it more? Like "less words is more" or like I should take more time to phrase the ideas better and make "pauses" instead of "shooting" them out all at once?

Think about the books you like to read. There are lots of words in those! Some books are fucking awesome and you don't want to put them down (as in my current compulsion to read Red Mars). How do they do that!?

Less isn't necessarily more. Sometimes less fucks it up. I'm not necessarily recommending pauses. Let each sentence do a single job, not demanding that any one of them cover more ground than can reasonably be expected. They'll weaken under strain or bloat painfully. Rephrase for clarity.
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PaganiusI
Zee Bombelecher

Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:49 pm
Posts: 3276
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 2:13 am 
 

Grave_Wyrm wrote:
PaganiusI wrote:
You mean I should compress it more? Like "less words is more" or like I should take more time to phrase the ideas better and make "pauses" instead of "shooting" them out all at once?

Think about the books you like to read. There are lots of words in those! Some books are fucking awesome and you don't want to put them down (as in my current compulsion to read Red Mars). How do they do that!?

Less isn't necessarily more. Sometimes less fucks it up. I'm not necessarily recommending pauses. Let each sentence do a single job, not demanding that any one of them cover more ground than can reasonably be expected. They'll weaken under strain or bloat painfully. Rephrase for clarity.


Ahh, got it. Sounds fair, gonna try it! :)
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albanvortex
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2017 4:17 am
Posts: 3
Location: France
PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 pm 
 

Grave_Wyrm wrote:
PaganiusI wrote:
Feel free to read through my reviews, I'd love to hear your thoughts about them.

Editing, I think, is where you might put focus in the future; economy of language. You have a good collection of information, references, context, musical description, etc. (in short, "substance") but I find myself skimming them instead of reading them through. Next time you're working on one write until you're ready to submit it. Then don't, and treat it like a first draft. Revise it a couple of times while asking yourself "Can I put this more simply? Am I muddying this idea?"

Next time you have something ready to submit, post it here and remind me that we had this conversation.


Okay. im shit at this i know.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 7:12 pm 
 

Editing self-perception is as important (arguably more so) as editing review drafts.
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cranial crusher
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 11:39 pm
Posts: 209
Location: Brazil
PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:56 am 
 

My review for Cerberus Attack's album From East with Hate is rejected due to "Poor grammar. Needs to be proofread by a native English speaker."

I wasn't able to find any mistakes by myself, but I suppose a native English speaker will find them.

Review title/summary: East side thrash with hate
Rating (out of 100): 90%

Spoiler: show
In comparison to its also great previous release (split with Cranial Crusher – Cranial Attack), Cerberus Attack shows clear signs of musical evolution on its first full length album. With this in mind, let’s go through the album itself.

First of all, the duration time of almost 40 minutes fits perfectly when it comes to nowaday releases and satisfies perfectly those who were “born and raised” listening to tapes, LPs and CDs and also those who’d rather listen music through digital platforms.

First track starts with a nice and beautiful clear guitar intro, which reminds some of the classical thrash metal bands of the 80s. This certainly excites the listener and invites one to continue listening to the songs with expectations of a great album.

Said intro is followed by pure agressivity distilled in great riffs, lyrics and velocity, i.e. thrash metal at its best. It is clear that the band knows what feelings – of anger, hatred and revolt – it wants to transmit and knows exactly how to do it with mastery. Fast alternate picking is present in almost every songs of the album, demonstrating that both guitar players have technique and dominion over their instruments. Riffs were carefully composed and are executed precisely and classy, reminding a lot some old Dark Angel and Slayer. Regarding the guitar solos, it is pretty clear that those are executed with also great accuracy, with precise sweeps and licks. Guitar tones are also great, presenting an organic sound and adding an 80s-like feeling to the album.

One special characteristic of the album that must be highlighted is the bass lines for all tracks, full of pizzicatos and also some slaps here and there. When it comes to bass playing, Marcelo “Maskote” manages to fill the songs with creative bass phrases that differ in the best way from what the others are playing, specially the guitars. This characteristic shows huge influence of other musical styles and bands of different genres applied perfectly in a thrash metal album. It should be highlighted that the bass tone is also great, making the bass pretty audible along the whole album, although I personally feel like a little more volume or gain should be added.

When it comes to drumming, it should be mentioned that Bruno keeps up in great velocity the whole album, also with a nice tone specially when it comes to the snare and cymbals sounds. Great drumming is to be found here.

The lyrics are basically about problems faced by Brazilian population, regarding social issues, working class exploration, society and so on. Last, all tracks are in English, with exception of “East Side Thrashers”. This song is their first one to be sang in Portuguese and particularly presents a nice chorus with classical “<i>gang vocals</i>” (additional and backing ones). Great way to finish the album, leaving that “<i>I-wanna-listen-to-it-again</i>” feeling.
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Spider_X
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:48 pm
Posts: 175
PostPosted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:05 am 
 

O.k., this may seem like an odd question/request here, but here goes... of all the reviews that I have done so far, I have never done an album/ split review. Now, this may seem pretty easy to do, to 'most' people. However, I think I'm thinking far more into this; but want to make sure I try and so this right as I possibly can, without it all coming off looking stupid. Now, given there are alot of splits with bands that I happen to like both bands on an album.... let's say if I (were) to do a review for the split from Sarkrista / Sielunvihollinen, that would not even be a problem, as I LOVE both bands.

Here's what my problem is... Hermóðr, alot of you may know is the band that means alot to me, and that I am writing reviews on. I eventually want to have all albums and EPs covered, at some point. Enter in the (split) albums... take for example the Kalmankantaja / Hermóðr split. I have this album, I have listened to it... obviously, goes without saying I love Hermóðr's music on the disc; BUT Kalmankantaja's music honestly grates my nerves to no end. I've honestly listened to it, and I just cannot tolerate it. So, when I listen to this album, I only listen to the Hermóðr part, now.

In what I am needing advice on, or my question rather, is... if you go to my profile, you will see what I say about my reasoning for 'why' I give all my reviews 100%. Obviously, with a split album where I love one band but honestly have listened to the music all the way and just cannot stand the other band's music, I cannot give a 100%; and I do understand that. However, unsure how to even go about this correctly, I mean, Hermóðr's music in all honesty is just so damn good, it truly overshadows Kalmankantaja's music by a longshot, that I feel I could at least maybe give it an 85% or maybe a 90%? Going by just how much Hermóðr's part truly moves me so.

But, at the same time, about actually writing my review.... obviously I know how to write pretty decently well positive aspects about what album I review, because so far, whatever I have reviewed I have never have had anything bad to say... until wanting to review one of Hermóðr's splits. So, I want to write my dislike for Kalmankantaja's music, but I want to do it in a tasteful manner. Again, I have never written negatively about a band before in a review, cause I only have written about albums that I "love"...... so, unsure what the best way to go about doing this is!?

Thoughts? Ideas? Help? I mean, how or what would the be the best way to go about writing negatively about the music on that split, if I just do not like anything at all about it? And, I mean nothing. Would love to hear if anyone has anything that might/ would help me out here, thanks! :)
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Spider_X
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:48 pm
Posts: 175
PostPosted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:19 pm 
 

Or.......... do I just maybe make a note at the beginning of my review indicating maybe in a way of my dislike for the music of Kalmankantaja; and only write about Hermóðr's music? I was talking to one of my friends about this a short while ago, and he mentioned this idea. Unsure if this is a good approach to writing the review for it though? But, if it were to be, giving it a 100% still would not be a good idea, I would be presuming?
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tahu157
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:22 pm
Posts: 1002
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:08 pm 
 

I can see a few ways to go about reviewing a split. The first one would be to treat both sides of the split as individual releases.You would write two miniature reviews, one for each side/band, and then combine them. In that case you could write a totally positive review for Hermodr without considering the presence of Kalmankantaja on the split, and then write a negative review for Kalmankantaja without considering Hermodr. I think in this approach though you'd have to split the score evenly between the two bands. So if Hermodr got a 50/50 but Kalmankantaja gets a 0/50 the split ends up with a 50/100. I think this is the easier approach but it doesn't sound like you want to give the split a 50%.

I think if you genuinely can't stand half the music on a split you'd have to write more holistically in order to justify giving it a passing/good score. In that case you could talk about how well the two bands work together on this split in particular. Do the two bands make a good pair? Do the songs build on each other or do they just clash? Does one band outshine the other? Should this have been a split or would the songs have been better off as standalone singles for their respective bands? If one band is particularly weak does the other band pick up the slack? You can still say Hermodr is good and Kalmankantaja is bad but you'll need to devote some portion of your writing to considering them together in order to justify a good score.

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Spider_X
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:48 pm
Posts: 175
PostPosted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 6:41 pm 
 

tahu157 wrote:
I can see a few ways to go about reviewing a split. The first one would be to treat both sides of the split as individual releases.You would write two miniature reviews, one for each side/band, and then combine them. In that case you could write a totally positive review for Hermodr without considering the presence of Kalmankantaja on the split, and then write a negative review for Kalmankantaja without considering Hermodr. I think in this approach though you'd have to split the score evenly between the two bands. So if Hermodr got a 50/50 but Kalmankantaja gets a 0/50 the split ends up with a 50/100. I think this is the easier approach but it doesn't sound like you want to give the split a 50%.

I think if you genuinely can't stand half the music on a split you'd have to write more holistically in order to justify giving it a passing/good score. In that case you could talk about how well the two bands work together on this split in particular. Do the two bands make a good pair? Do the songs build on each other or do they just clash? Does one band outshine the other? Should this have been a split or would the songs have been better off as standalone singles for their respective bands? If one band is particularly weak does the other band pick up the slack? You can still say Hermodr is good and Kalmankantaja is bad but you'll need to devote some portion of your writing to considering them together in order to justify a good score.


Thank you so much for your detailed advice! I honestly appreciate it. Gives me alot to think about, and how I may want to go about doing this. I really need to think about this now. Thank you again, tahu157 :)
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TrachomaSlayer
Metal newbie

Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:59 pm
Posts: 52
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:59 pm 
 

Hey cranialcrusherabc I just did a quick proofread of your review, underlining the mistakes and following them with my corrections in parentheses. Hope it helps!
Spoiler: show
In comparison to its also great (personal choice, but I’d replace with “their great”) previous release (split with Cranial Crusher – Cranial Attack), Cerberus Attack shows clear signs of musical evolution on its(“their”) first full length(should be “full-length”) album. With this in mind, let’s go through the album itself.

First of all, the duration time of almost 40 minutes fits perfectly when it comes to nowaday(could be “nowadays” or replace with a synonym like “current”) releases and satisfies perfectly those who were “born and raised” listening to tapes, LPs and CDs and also(personal choice, but I’d replace with “as well as”) those who’d rather listen music(“listen to music”) through digital platforms.

First(“The first”) track starts with a nice and beautiful(“beautifully”) clear guitar intro, which reminds some(“reminds me of some”) of the classical thrash metal bands of the 80s. This certainly excites the listener and invites one to continue listening to the songs with expectations of a great album.

Said intro is followed by pure agressivity(“aggression”) distilled in great riffs, lyrics and velocity, i.e. thrash metal at its best. It is clear that the band knows what feelings – of anger, hatred and revolt – it wants to transmit and knows exactly how to do it with mastery. Fast alternate picking is present in almost every songs of(“song on”) the album, demonstrating that both guitar players have technique and dominion over their instruments. Riffs were carefully composed and are executed precisely and classy(I would just cut this), reminding a lot some(“me a lot of some”) old Dark Angel and Slayer. Regarding the guitar solos, it is pretty clear that those are executed with also(cut) great accuracy, with precise sweeps and licks. Guitar tones are also great, presenting an organic sound and adding an 80s-like feeling to the album.

One special characteristic of the album that must be highlighted is the bass lines for all tracks, full of pizzicatos and also some slaps here and there. When it comes to bass playing, Marcelo “Maskote” manages to fill the songs with creative bass phrases that differ in the best way from what the others are playing, specially(“especially”) the guitars. This characteristic shows huge influence of other musical styles and bands of different genres applied perfectly in(“to”) a thrash metal album. It should be highlighted that the bass tone is also great, making the bass pretty audible along(“throughout”) the whole album, although I personally feel like a little more volume or gain should be added.

When it comes to drumming, it should be mentioned that Bruno keeps up in great velocity the(“the velocity through the”) whole album, also with a nice tone specially(. He also has a nice tone, especially”) when it comes to the snare and cymbals sounds. Great drumming is to be found here.

The lyrics are basically about problems faced by Brazilian population(“the Brazilian population”), regarding social issues, working class exploration(“exploitation”?), society and so on. Last(“Lastly”), all tracks(“of the tracks”) are in English, with exception(“the exception”) of “East Side Thrashers”. This song is their first one to be sang(“sung”) in Portuguese and particularly presents a nice chorus with classical “<i>gang vocals</i>” (additional and backing ones). Great way to finish the album, leaving that “<i>I-wanna-listen-to-it-again</i>” feeling.


I should mention that this is my first time editing someones work on here, so if anyone else notices something I missed please let me know. Cranialcrusherabc if anything is unclear feel free to message me.

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cranial crusher
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 11:39 pm
Posts: 209
Location: Brazil
PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:05 pm 
 

TrachomaSlayer wrote:
Hey cranialcrusherabc I just did a quick proofread of your review, underlining the mistakes and following them with my corrections in parentheses. Hope it helps!
Spoiler: show
In comparison to its also great (personal choice, but I’d replace with “their great”) previous release (split with Cranial Crusher – Cranial Attack), Cerberus Attack shows clear signs of musical evolution on its(“their”) first full length(should be “full-length”) album. With this in mind, let’s go through the album itself.

First of all, the duration time of almost 40 minutes fits perfectly when it comes to nowaday(could be “nowadays” or replace with a synonym like “current”) releases and satisfies perfectly those who were “born and raised” listening to tapes, LPs and CDs and also(personal choice, but I’d replace with “as well as”) those who’d rather listen music(“listen to music”) through digital platforms.

First(“The first”) track starts with a nice and beautiful(“beautifully”) clear guitar intro, which reminds some(“reminds me of some”) of the classical thrash metal bands of the 80s. This certainly excites the listener and invites one to continue listening to the songs with expectations of a great album.

Said intro is followed by pure agressivity(“aggression”) distilled in great riffs, lyrics and velocity, i.e. thrash metal at its best. It is clear that the band knows what feelings – of anger, hatred and revolt – it wants to transmit and knows exactly how to do it with mastery. Fast alternate picking is present in almost every songs of(“song on”) the album, demonstrating that both guitar players have technique and dominion over their instruments. Riffs were carefully composed and are executed precisely and classy(I would just cut this), reminding a lot some(“me a lot of some”) old Dark Angel and Slayer. Regarding the guitar solos, it is pretty clear that those are executed with also(cut) great accuracy, with precise sweeps and licks. Guitar tones are also great, presenting an organic sound and adding an 80s-like feeling to the album.

One special characteristic of the album that must be highlighted is the bass lines for all tracks, full of pizzicatos and also some slaps here and there. When it comes to bass playing, Marcelo “Maskote” manages to fill the songs with creative bass phrases that differ in the best way from what the others are playing, specially(“especially”) the guitars. This characteristic shows huge influence of other musical styles and bands of different genres applied perfectly in(“to”) a thrash metal album. It should be highlighted that the bass tone is also great, making the bass pretty audible along(“throughout”) the whole album, although I personally feel like a little more volume or gain should be added.

When it comes to drumming, it should be mentioned that Bruno keeps up in great velocity the(“the velocity through the”) whole album, also with a nice tone specially(. He also has a nice tone, especially”) when it comes to the snare and cymbals sounds. Great drumming is to be found here.

The lyrics are basically about problems faced by Brazilian population(“the Brazilian population”), regarding social issues, working class exploration(“exploitation”?), society and so on. Last(“Lastly”), all tracks(“of the tracks”) are in English, with exception(“the exception”) of “East Side Thrashers”. This song is their first one to be sang(“sung”) in Portuguese and particularly presents a nice chorus with classical “<i>gang vocals</i>” (additional and backing ones). Great way to finish the album, leaving that “<i>I-wanna-listen-to-it-again</i>” feeling.


I should mention that this is my first time editing someones work on here, so if anyone else notices something I missed please let me know. Cranialcrusherabc if anything is unclear feel free to message me.


Hey man, great job of yours! I appreciate it and I'm surelly considering your comments when submitting my review again.

As this is your first time editing someones work on here, I should mention that this is my very first review :)

Thanks a lot!
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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 2:10 pm 
 

Spider_X wrote:
I love Hermóðr's music on the disc; BUT Kalmankantaja's music honestly grates my nerves to no end.

This has come up in the past, and the guideline is to review the whole split. Writing a "negative" review doesn't box you into cutting it to ribbons, and I can see why that would make you uncomfortable. I don't see any reason that you can't write a respectful criticism that's fair to the artists. The score is less important than the reasons given for it in the review. For instance, describing what it seems like they're going for and how they fall short of their goals, what about the music grates on your nerves in particular, comparing the two sides of the split to each other, etc. Writing it in halves is probably your best bet, and you don't have to spend any more time on the parts you dislike than you feel is necessary to meet the minimum standards. That said, it's more interesting when we hear about *why* a selection in lacking, not just the GMO/transfat/Coloring Red4 Yellow2 ingredients list. I'm sure you'll be even-handed and truthful when it comes down to it, so don't agonize over it. Trust in your feelings! Let go, Spider-X!
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Woolie_Wool
Facets of Predictability

Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:56 pm
Posts: 2119
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:51 pm 
 

I originally wrote this for another site for $$$ a few months ago and got permission to repost it here. I dislike Master of Puppets but I find most of the negative Master of Puppets reviews incredibly unsatisfying, all invective and no analysis--they remind me of what Phil Sandifer said about Red Letter Media's reviews of the prequels being worse at being criticism than the prequels were at being movies, so I decided to do a very thorough breakdown of what I think is wrong with the album and why (though I occasionally indulge in some invective, just not all the time). Warning: this review is long and goes into absolutely exhaustive detail.

Spoiler: show
Killing Your Idols Vol. 1: Mediocritallica - 50%

Master of Puppets is probably at this point remembered less as a music recording than as a cultural institution, a collective memory among white Gen Xers, disaffected teenagers then and 45-year-old dads with “crossover utility vehicles” and mortgages now, and, thus disconnected from the historical and musical context it originated from, it became perhaps the most overblown, overhyped, and overrated album of the entire 1980s. If you are to believe the cultural narrative surrounding the possibly billion-dollar gravy train that is Metallica, that they invented thrash metal and that this album was some kind of massive leap forward in sophistication for heavy metal. Anthrax guitarist/bandleader Scott Ian, who really should know better considering he was there at the time, talked about Metallica having “taken Beethoven pills or something” in a recent article.

Never mind that Metallica were just a part of a musical movement that emerged organically in both the US and Europe in the early 1980s, itself the inexorable confluence of other heavy music genres that were already well established by the time Metallica got started in 1981; never mind that bands like Manilla Road, Queensryche, Fates Warning and Watchtower had already been pursuing aggressive yet complex “thinking man’s metal” for years before this album came out and doing it better; never mind the incredibly limited musical vocabulary of this music (none of which even remotely resembles anything Beethoven wrote or would have considered writing); never mind that their cast-off lead guitarist Dave Mustaine’s band Megadeth wrote better songs, played faster, and worked harder at every turn up until the middle 1990s. Metallica got to the top by selling the impression of taking their fundamentally simplistic blues-based music to a higher compositional plane, but unlike albums like The Spectre Within or Energetic Disassembly, Master of Puppets (and its successor ...And Justice For All, although that one was slightly more adventurous) wouldn’t challenge the expectations of rock listeners or introduce any truly novel ideas. If you’ve heard a decent amount of hard rock music written between 1970 and 1990, even if you’ve heard nothing besides that before in your entire life, you will “get” Master of Puppets straight away.

The white American rock audience are probably the most incurious audience of music listeners in the world, so it’s no surprise Master of Puppets made Metallica superstars, as what Metallica were selling, perhaps even from day one, was thrash metal rock music that eliminated things that could challenge or alienate Joe Middle America, a heavy metal Elvis Presley in the worst possible sense. In lieu of the terrifying irrational chaos of Slayer, the toweringly complicated rhythmic architectures of Watchtower, the virtuosic showmanship of Megadeth, or the relentless hammering brutality of Kreator, Metallica had comfortably familiar blues-rock scales and riffs and the sheer energy of four alienated, genuinely pissed-off teenagers. But by 1985 Metallica weren’t teenagers anymore, and their real-world troubles had dissolved in torrents of money, attention, and alcohol as they now lived full-time in the fucked-up, ass-backwards anti-reality of show business. Another “Whiplash” or “Fight Fire with Fire” wasn’t going to happen, and Slayer and the Germans had them massively outgunned both in terms of both sonic violence and musical ingenuity. So in come the blues rock licks, and some jam band noodling when they want to calm things down a bit, because Uncle Ron’s jazz and classical records were so boring so they never absorbed any of it (and, thus, neither could they absorb Rainbow or Fates Warning), and their mothers didn’t let them listen to “urban” music. The mediocrity of Metallica resonated with the mediocrity of white America and made them one of the most powerful cultural forces of the end of the 20th century (at least until the rise of Nirvana, an even more quintessential white mediocrity band, in whose orbit mainstream rock trends revolve to this day).

The mediocrity extends to the performers themselves. Much has been written, of course, about Lars Ulrich’s numerous shortcomings as a drummer, but a lot of those issue arose in the ‘90s and his performance here is quite competent, if not very imaginative and peppered with gratuitous, awkward fills. It’s Kirk Hammett who is the worst performer here—a shreddy, noodly nonentity who plays pentatonic scales and blues licks fast, but not that fast, and sometimes he trips over himself, botching runs and including clams that sound horrible against the underlying chords. Sometimes he uses the wah-wah pedal to conceal a sloppy ornament or inject artificial pathos into his solos, a habit that would get worse in later albums. His solos worked, more or less, on their first two albums, both because his simplistic “ME ANGRY” shredding bursts worked with the youthful, punkish rage of the music instead of against it, and also because many of the solos were written by Dave Mustaine and he was just doing his own take on Mustaine’s originals, but his playing is woefully inadequate for an album with calm melodic interludes and eight-minute songs.

Cliff Burton’s talent is nearly as overrated as Metallica itself, Burton having ascended after his untimely death to the pantheon of bass gods having done little, if anything, to justify being put in the same company as Bootsy Collins, Stanley Clarke, Steve DiGiorgio, or even second-tier godlings like Chris Squire or Michael Grosskopf. He was a quite adequate root hammerer, but adequate was all he was at the bass’s central job of holding down the rhythmic foundation, when he wasn’t abdicating it entirely to James Hetfield’s curiously bass-like palm muting technique. His (extremely rare) solos don’t have the sort of dual function of rhythm and melody great bass solos usually have, and instead are essentially guitar solos transposed down an octave for the bass. Since he was playing licks and melodies written to sound good on an instrument of a completely different register, timbre, agility, and character from his own, these solos sound extremely forced and don’t complement any of the music around them. Contrast his playing to the subtle yet devilishly intricate combined counterpoint and rhythm David Ellefson plays on Megadeth’s Peace Sells (also from 1986) and Ellefson’s superiority is obvious. Burton did have much better lead phrasing than Hammett and knew a few classical melodic ideas but as Hetfield and Ulrich were writing the vast majority of the music and Burton was rarely even audible, very few of them were used well.

So it fell to James Hetfield, raised on bourbon-soaked hard rock, punk, and crusty old British metal albums that were ancient history by the time the recording sessions came along, to do most of the heavy lifting. His speed, stamina, and precision really were quite formidable, especially live, but he had and still has a very limited musical understanding and imagination, and his interesting melodies were mostly used up writing the first two albums. His trademark chugga-chugga jackhammer pattern that is now the most well-worn cliché in the heavy metal songwriting toolkit gets much more insistent and repetitive in this album, to the point where it gets outright annoying, especially in the directionless riff salad of “Disposable Heroes”. Hetfield, as usual, also handles the singing and it...exists; it’s a very plain, vaguely melodic shout that you’re not likely to embarrass yourself too much trying to imitate at karaoke night, lacking both the feral screeching aggression of his singing on the first two albums and the gravitas and genuine melodicism of the next two.

But, if you’re a sheltered Middle American white kid raised entirely on your parents’ rock music, it sure looks like an advance in sophistication. Metallica have eight-minute songs! There’s an instrumental! But because it’s not really that complex or harsh or dissonant, it didn’t push such kids out of their comfort zone like genuinely advanced metal bands of the era. And sure, this album did lead many of them to explore heavy metal (and other musical genres) more deeply, but just as many were happy to have Metallica as an easier-to-swallow substitute. Metallica were safe; they didn’t have any alien chromatic solos or confusing counterpoint or deliberate dissonance or truly breakneck tempos or belting high-pitched singing that could make a virulently homophobic ‘80s boy insecure about both his sexuality and his singing talents, and led to a flood of other watered-down albums that were like it but managed to be worse by being an imitation of put-on heavy metal rather than the actual put-on.

The lyrics on this album try to delve into weightier, more real-world-relevant topics with songs discussing drug addiction (“Battery” and “Master of Puppets”), the inhumane treatment of the mentally ill by society (“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”), anti-war themes (“Disposable Heroes”, which says absolutely nothing “For Whom the Bell Tolls” hadn’t said on the previous album), and the ‘80s metal standard anti-televangelist rant (“Leper Messiah”—what did leprosy sufferers ever do to deserve being compared to Creflo Dollar?) but all of them fail at adequately handling their subject matter. First of all, this is Metallica, and everything Metallica does is mixed with constant vainglorious, macho swaggering, so a song like “Master of Puppets” is perpetually confused about whether it’s about how insidious drug addiction is or how badass Metallica are—you always get the feeling that like Donald Trump, the only thing Metallica really want to talk about is themselves. “Sanitarium” is particularly dreadful—nobody in Metallica has a goddamn clue what mental illness is like, and even if they did their money would shelter them from any institutional abuses, and the whiny, petulant refrain of “just leave me alone” sounds like James Hetfield talking back to his mother after being told to clean his room instead of an assertion of his humanity in the face of authorities vested with the power to incarcerate him, drug him, and surgically mutilate his brain. From this unconvincing sullen dreariness, the song then takes a complete about-face and is suddenly an equally unconvincing anthem about how the patients are going to overpower the staff (with what weapons?) and escape, because of course Metallica would never submit to the directives of a mental institution (yes, yes they would, if their childish meltdowns in front of their overpaid kiss-ass counselor in 2004’s melodramatic “documentary” Some Kind of Monster are any indication). In light of this yawning intellectual void it’s no surprise that the least objectionable lyrics are those to “The Thing That Should Not Be” (Cthulhu is really scary, booga-booga-booga) and “Damage Inc.” (literally just Metallica bragging about themselves for five minutes), where they forego any attempt at putting on sophisticated airs and just let their troglodytic macho-man schtick run free. Turn off your brain, throw up the horns, forget that you could be listening to something better instead.

I purchased this album on vinyl from Metallica’s own new record label Blackened Recordings, supposedly an independent company owned by the band themselves, but my hopes that a self-financed and self-owned label might treat the music recording with more respect than the multi-headed corporate Hydra of Warner Music Group did, but this has got one of those awful, lazy remasters that have been standard issue with every reissue of an old recording since around 1997—intrusive punched-up kick drums and a heaping helping of dynamic range compression to bury all the fine details of the original mix in noise, because it sounds “better” on $12 gas-station earbuds. As usual with heavily compressed metal albums, it sounds worse the heavier it gets, and only in the quiet sections do you get an impression of the original mix, which was pretty good by Atlantic’s low standards, but not great, very clear and with plenty of space between the instruments, but with a weak bass and muddy, uncontrolled snare drum reverb.

“Battery” starts the record off with essentially a rehash of Ride the Lightning’s opener “Fight Fire with Fire” with new riffs, but the pace is about 50 beats per minute short of the original and the musicians’ playing is far more relaxed, and it comes off as more of an angry uptempo boogie than a raging thrasher. The dainty acoustic intro thing had been a bit of amusing irony to juxtapose against the nihilistic, apocalyptic frenzy of “Fight Fire with Fire”, but “Battery” tries it again, and this time it’s a complete waste of time. When the thrash riffs finally take over, it’s less a shock to the system than a relief that a transparent attempt to dress up this song as something it is not is over. The riffs aren’t as dark or as interesting either, and the Iron Maiden-like dual harmony guitar part from “Fight Fire with Fire” was axed and replaced with more blues scale noodling from Hammett—the guitars go meedley meedley mee and wow wow wooooow and I completely check out because I can predict his next notes before he plays them.

The first half of “Master of Puppets” has by far the best set of riffs on the album, and would have been an excellent simple midpaced thrasher if it had been kept short and concise, but the verses are padded out with riff repetition and endless bridges, and then the metal stops and they bring in really dull bluesy Grateful Dead-ish noodling—normally quieter interludes in metal are supposed to retain and transform some of the momentum from the earlier part, but this essentially functions as a giant “reset” button for the whole song, a total anticlimax, and really, I find it inexcusable—even Manowar could figure out how to do dynamic changes without deflating the tension in their longer songs, and they teetered on the ragged edge of idiotic, childish self-parody through the entire ‘80s (naturally, they fell right into the darkest, cheesiest depths once the ‘90s came around). The heavy riffs come back to close the song with a last go-around of the chorus (always with the chroruses, Metallica), but since the middle of the song was a complete disaster the recapitulation feels less like a triumphant return than yet more repetition of a song that should have been over four minutes ago.

“The Thing That Should Not Be” was initially a song I was willing to defend against metalhead charges of being a dullard groove-metal song of the type Pantera would later shit out by the dozen, and while I still think it has a bit more class than Pantera with its subtle (subtlety! In Metallica!) transformations of the main riff in various ways, the entire song is nonetheless built around just one midpaced mosh riff and derivatives, with no variation in tempo, mood, or overall rhythm at all. This is the sort of song that becomes more and more tedious the more you listen to it and realize how little content there really is, it kind of reminds me (and bear with me here, I’m going out on a limb) Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia, which at first listen seems quite clever in its juxtaposition and transformation of two contrasting melodic themes, but that’s it, that’s all there is to the piece (well aside from Orientalist racism, but that’s another subject for another review…), and as you listen to it a few more times, you’ll see through its simplistic construction and trite emotional appeals and get completely sick of it. So it is with this, it is way less clever than it originally looks and is actually quite a cheap and nasty piece of music.

I’ve already taken “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” to task for its lyrics, but the music only contributes to the onslaught of absurd bathos that is almost certainly the worst song on the album. This is a typical remake of Judas Priest’s “Beyond the Realms of Death” like a thousand metal ballads before it, but even more derivative than usual because Metallica couldn’t write an “epic” melody to save themselves and just reach into their bag of recycled blues rock ideas instead. This completely ruins the form because the original song and all the derivatives that are any good work by using imaginative lead guitar playing and a powerful, convincing singer to create a contrast between the bleak, borderline self-annihilating depression of the verses and a chorus that boldly, defiantly reasserts one’s autonomy and subjectivity, culminating in a hysterical, virtuosic guitar solo, thereby dragging a listener who has the right sort of alienation to buy into it through an emotional wringer, Metallica just suceeded in writing a mawkish hard rock ballad that wallows in the pettiest of teenage resentment and doesn’t even begin to approach its supposed subject matter with the seriousness it deserves. Kirk Hammett’s solos are especially awful here, with his execrable “weeping” blue notes bent in the most generic possible way at the most generic possible times. The ballad eventually gives way to some quite respectable thrash riffs and even dual harmonized leads that sound straight off (a reject from) Ride the Lightning, but it’s far too late to redeem all the garbage that came before it, and Kirk Hammett plays two more solos, blowing his blooze load all over the music just as it was getting mildly interesting. There are at least five guitar solos in this song and they’re all terrible.

Though “Sanitarium” got my pick for the worst due to its wretchedly childish sentimental angst, “Disposable Heroes” gives it a run for its money through sheer, unrelenting boredom. The bulk of this song is built on amelodic single-chord bashing on repetitive triplet patterns, and ceaseless, tuneless Yorkshire Terrier barking from Hetfield. “BACK TO THE FRONT! BACK TO THE FRONT! BACK TO THE FRONT!” For the love of Christ, someone send him to the front so he’ll shut the fuck up already! Until he blew his voice out in the ‘90s and developed that fake redneck accent, this was the single worst performance of his entire career, and yes, I’m including his “nine-year-old’s Paul Di’Anno impression” clean singing voice from the 1982 demos in that assessment. It just goes on and on for eight nearly unbearable minutes, with the only respite being a faceless blues solo from Hammett (so, not a respite at all). “Leper Messiah” is very similar, only it bashes a bit slower and there’s a slightly more melodic B-section in the middle—I’ve heard it compared to (and sometimes accused of being a plagiarism of) Dave Mustaine, but Dave Mustaine tried harder than this.

And then comes “Orion”. The instrumental coat rack that late ‘80s Metallica’s reputation as a “progressive” band is hung on. “Orion” is Cliff Burton’s baby, and he actually puts in a very impressive performance...that you cannot fucking hear aside from a couple of gimmicky guitar-like leads. Seriously, I had to go to YouTube and listen to a fan remix with the bass cranked up, and he actually does some pretty cool stuff on here. And nobody else does. The rest of the band, the only thing you hear in Flemming Rasmussen’s original mix, all follow the path of least resistance, and Kirk Hammett vomits out two of the most flatulent, derivative, hollow, shoddy, manipulative, obvious blues-rock solos ever recorded. Everything in these solos is done the laziest and most shopworn way possible, and then, instead of orchestrating the skeleton Cliff Burton provided with his bass line in the melodic middle section, they all double him. They just mindlessly trail after Burton like kids following the Pied Piper, because counterpoint might scare the stupid people or something, and you can’t even hear Burton much in the original mix, so the whole thing comes off as a pointless noodlefest. With a second root canal of Kirk Hammett’s guitar dentistry as a segue, they bring back the best riff from the heavy part of the song and run it into the ground by repeating it constantly as it slowly fades out. They don’t even do something like Rainbow’s “Stargazer” where they layer more and more florid ornamentation over it as it fades out to keep it interesting, you just get Hetfield chugging and chugging and chugging some more until silence mercifully overtakes them.

“Damage, Inc.” is the only real full-throttle thrasher on this album, so of course it does the same sort of atmospheric bass chords as the mellow diet-prog song before it, for no reason whatsoever. Just like Battery, this intro feels completely disconnected from the actual song and a complete waste of space, and it’s compounded by being the same gimmick used to introduce two songs in a row (and then, with Burton being dead, James Hetfield imitates it on guitar for the intro to “Blackened” on the next album, so if you listen to the albums in order you get the same gimmick intro three times in a row. Even Disturbed aren’t this lazy). The song proper sounds like a timid, hesitant dry run for the harrowing “Dyers Eve” on ...And Justice for All, but the genuine hatred and bitterness that ran through that song and gave its triplet-based palm muting exercises life are absent here, both because the lyrics are Metallica waving their dicks around instead of James Hetfield confessing a real anger in his life, and they put far more effort into both the songwriting and the performances on the later song. Sure, it’s heavy, and you can bang your head all day to it, but “being pretty heavy” wasn’t good enough by 1986, not with bands like Kreator, Bathory, Sepultura, and Possessed running around. It was mediocre. Metallica were mediocre. A mediocre rock band for a mediocre rock audience, convinced that nothing outside their suburban bubble mattered at all.
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Lolpah
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:56 pm 
 

Woolie_Wool wrote:
First of all, this is Metallica, and everything Metallica does is mixed with constant vainglorious, macho swaggering, so a song like “Master of Puppets” is perpetually confused about whether it’s about how insidious drug addiction is or how badass Metallica are—you always get the feeling that like Donald Trump, the only thing Metallica really want to talk about is themselves.
:???:

I'm not sure what you are talking about, I mean I get this feeling on Kill'em All but not at all on the subsequent 3 albums.

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Woolie_Wool
Facets of Predictability

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:15 pm 
 

Read the lyrics carefully--they're completely fixed on the personified drug addiction (the "master of puppets") while the perspective of the addict is completely elided. They want to have it both ways--they want to look more complex and introspective, but they don't want to risk their self-constructed image as unstoppable badasses, both for the obvious commercial reasons and because I think they partially "ate their own dog food" so to speak, believed in their own image, and didn't want to face their own weaknesses honestly. They more or less punt on every emotional song up they write up until "Dyers' Eve". I don't buy what they're selling.
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Lolpah
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:41 pm 
 

Fade to Black?
I agree that they don't usually handle their dark themes though the victim's/sufferer's perspective, or at least not from the perspective of personal weakness, and I also agree they definitely did seek to cultivate a certain kind of "cool" image in their music. But beyond Kill'em All they don't really sound to me like they are singing from the perspective of personal badassery/machoness either. Rather they tap into the negative/dark/evil themes common in metal at the time(the "cool" image is related to these), not that these ideas are necessarily very deep, but they don't really came across as badass to me. The music is a factor too, if MOP's title track sounded like Ample Destruction I maybe could see it as macho posturing, but MOP just sounds too bleak and dark.

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~Guest 282118
Argentinian Asado Supremacy

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:48 pm 
 

I do think that one bit of lyrical analysis is looking a bit too much into something that I doubt was intended or really even there. Other than that though, I can't say much I object to in that review. I mean, I like MoP, but that's probably the best negative review of it I've seen here. Far, far better than pretty much any other attempt at the same in this site, and yes, that's including Boris' hyperbolic diatribe. It also might not be necessary for it to be a track by track, as that's kind of exactly what it is, but it's still amazingly composed and in depth for such, so I didn't really mind.

Congrats on writing something I almost entirely disagree with yet can admire from a purely analytical perspective, Wools!

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Woolie_Wool
Facets of Predictability

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 6:46 pm 
 

Heh, maybe it's just all the Marxist and critical theory I've read ever since He Who Shall Not Be Named knocked my entire political worldview out from under me by winning the 2016 election--there "reading too much into things" is the whole point. It's fun to read things into things, and compare them to the things other people have read into those things. Glad you enjoyed it, though!
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Apteronotus
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:26 pm 
 

Nice work Woolie_Wool! It's always interesting to see reviews that bring a larger context to albums and this one does that both with references to other bands and to the wider cultural setting. Also, I'd like for everyone to notice the excellent made-up word choice in "Kirk Hammett plays two more solos, blowing his blooze load all over the music just as it was getting mildly interesting"

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Woolie_Wool
Facets of Predictability

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:10 pm 
 

"Blooze" was made up around 40 years ago, dude. :P
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:42 am 
 

Woolie_Wool wrote:
Read the lyrics carefully--they're completely fixed on the personified drug addiction (the "master of puppets") while the perspective of the addict is completely elided. They want to have it both ways--they want to look more complex and introspective, but they don't want to risk their self-constructed image as unstoppable badasses, both for the obvious commercial reasons and because I think they partially "ate their own dog food" so to speak, believed in their own image, and didn't want to face their own weaknesses honestly. They more or less punt on every emotional song up they write up until "Dyers' Eve". I don't buy what they're selling.


Fuck! Your MoP review is long, but captivating; you nailed it–congrats.

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Grave_Wyrm
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:56 pm 
 

The review is .. half good, but it's a disappointing essay. It should be good. I want it to be, and I'm sure you did, too. The first half shows preparation and promise, but it softens as it goes, wandering dangerously close to becoming a bulbous, pushy track-by-track. And all the while the wheels of our war wagons grow clogged with the gathering mud, our linguistic infantry trudge stop-and-go through the bog of invective.

I support your intent to lay siege to the album. But after mobilizing a significant army and getting it all disposed around the Marble Citadel, instead of mortars or even horse corpses you hucked poop and vegetables over the walls. You had a plan, a mission, a vision! As by now should hopefully be tediously obvious I have a problem with writers spending their opportunities on wan admonishments. Effective abuse relies on precision and craft. Resist tangential branching into pat mockery, asides, and needless qualifiers. Don't weaken your stranglehold when you've invested so much in getting there. Choke it out. Break its back, and move on.
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:03 pm 
 

Woolie_Wool wrote:
I originally wrote this for another site for $$$ a few months ago and got permission to repost it here. I dislike Master of Puppets but I find most of the negative Master of Puppets reviews incredibly unsatisfying, all invective and no analysis--they remind me of what Phil Sandifer said about Red Letter Media's reviews of the prequels being worse at being criticism than the prequels were at being movies, so I decided to do a very thorough breakdown of what I think is wrong with the album and why (though I occasionally indulge in some invective, just not all the time). Warning: this review is long and goes into absolutely exhaustive detail.

Spoiler: show
Killing Your Idols Vol. 1: Mediocritallica - 50%

Master of Puppets is probably at this point remembered less as a music recording than as a cultural institution, a collective memory among white Gen Xers, disaffected teenagers then and 45-year-old dads with “crossover utility vehicles” and mortgages now, and, thus disconnected from the historical and musical context it originated from, it became perhaps the most overblown, overhyped, and overrated album of the entire 1980s. If you are to believe the cultural narrative surrounding the possibly billion-dollar gravy train that is Metallica, that they invented thrash metal and that this album was some kind of massive leap forward in sophistication for heavy metal. Anthrax guitarist/bandleader Scott Ian, who really should know better considering he was there at the time, talked about Metallica having “taken Beethoven pills or something” in a recent article.

Never mind that Metallica were just a part of a musical movement that emerged organically in both the US and Europe in the early 1980s, itself the inexorable confluence of other heavy music genres that were already well established by the time Metallica got started in 1981; never mind that bands like Manilla Road, Queensryche, Fates Warning and Watchtower had already been pursuing aggressive yet complex “thinking man’s metal” for years before this album came out and doing it better; never mind the incredibly limited musical vocabulary of this music (none of which even remotely resembles anything Beethoven wrote or would have considered writing); never mind that their cast-off lead guitarist Dave Mustaine’s band Megadeth wrote better songs, played faster, and worked harder at every turn up until the middle 1990s. Metallica got to the top by selling the impression of taking their fundamentally simplistic blues-based music to a higher compositional plane, but unlike albums like The Spectre Within or Energetic Disassembly, Master of Puppets (and its successor ...And Justice For All, although that one was slightly more adventurous) wouldn’t challenge the expectations of rock listeners or introduce any truly novel ideas. If you’ve heard a decent amount of hard rock music written between 1970 and 1990, even if you’ve heard nothing besides that before in your entire life, you will “get” Master of Puppets straight away.

The white American rock audience are probably the most incurious audience of music listeners in the world, so it’s no surprise Master of Puppets made Metallica superstars, as what Metallica were selling, perhaps even from day one, was thrash metal rock music that eliminated things that could challenge or alienate Joe Middle America, a heavy metal Elvis Presley in the worst possible sense. In lieu of the terrifying irrational chaos of Slayer, the toweringly complicated rhythmic architectures of Watchtower, the virtuosic showmanship of Megadeth, or the relentless hammering brutality of Kreator, Metallica had comfortably familiar blues-rock scales and riffs and the sheer energy of four alienated, genuinely pissed-off teenagers. But by 1985 Metallica weren’t teenagers anymore, and their real-world troubles had dissolved in torrents of money, attention, and alcohol as they now lived full-time in the fucked-up, ass-backwards anti-reality of show business. Another “Whiplash” or “Fight Fire with Fire” wasn’t going to happen, and Slayer and the Germans had them massively outgunned both in terms of both sonic violence and musical ingenuity. So in come the blues rock licks, and some jam band noodling when they want to calm things down a bit, because Uncle Ron’s jazz and classical records were so boring so they never absorbed any of it (and, thus, neither could they absorb Rainbow or Fates Warning), and their mothers didn’t let them listen to “urban” music. The mediocrity of Metallica resonated with the mediocrity of white America and made them one of the most powerful cultural forces of the end of the 20th century (at least until the rise of Nirvana, an even more quintessential white mediocrity band, in whose orbit mainstream rock trends revolve to this day).

The mediocrity extends to the performers themselves. Much has been written, of course, about Lars Ulrich’s numerous shortcomings as a drummer, but a lot of those issue arose in the ‘90s and his performance here is quite competent, if not very imaginative and peppered with gratuitous, awkward fills. It’s Kirk Hammett who is the worst performer here—a shreddy, noodly nonentity who plays pentatonic scales and blues licks fast, but not that fast, and sometimes he trips over himself, botching runs and including clams that sound horrible against the underlying chords. Sometimes he uses the wah-wah pedal to conceal a sloppy ornament or inject artificial pathos into his solos, a habit that would get worse in later albums. His solos worked, more or less, on their first two albums, both because his simplistic “ME ANGRY” shredding bursts worked with the youthful, punkish rage of the music instead of against it, and also because many of the solos were written by Dave Mustaine and he was just doing his own take on Mustaine’s originals, but his playing is woefully inadequate for an album with calm melodic interludes and eight-minute songs.

Cliff Burton’s talent is nearly as overrated as Metallica itself, Burton having ascended after his untimely death to the pantheon of bass gods having done little, if anything, to justify being put in the same company as Bootsy Collins, Stanley Clarke, Steve DiGiorgio, or even second-tier godlings like Chris Squire or Michael Grosskopf. He was a quite adequate root hammerer, but adequate was all he was at the bass’s central job of holding down the rhythmic foundation, when he wasn’t abdicating it entirely to James Hetfield’s curiously bass-like palm muting technique. His (extremely rare) solos don’t have the sort of dual function of rhythm and melody great bass solos usually have, and instead are essentially guitar solos transposed down an octave for the bass. Since he was playing licks and melodies written to sound good on an instrument of a completely different register, timbre, agility, and character from his own, these solos sound extremely forced and don’t complement any of the music around them. Contrast his playing to the subtle yet devilishly intricate combined counterpoint and rhythm David Ellefson plays on Megadeth’s Peace Sells (also from 1986) and Ellefson’s superiority is obvious. Burton did have much better lead phrasing than Hammett and knew a few classical melodic ideas but as Hetfield and Ulrich were writing the vast majority of the music and Burton was rarely even audible, very few of them were used well.

So it fell to James Hetfield, raised on bourbon-soaked hard rock, punk, and crusty old British metal albums that were ancient history by the time the recording sessions came along, to do most of the heavy lifting. His speed, stamina, and precision really were quite formidable, especially live, but he had and still has a very limited musical understanding and imagination, and his interesting melodies were mostly used up writing the first two albums. His trademark chugga-chugga jackhammer pattern that is now the most well-worn cliché in the heavy metal songwriting toolkit gets much more insistent and repetitive in this album, to the point where it gets outright annoying, especially in the directionless riff salad of “Disposable Heroes”. Hetfield, as usual, also handles the singing and it...exists; it’s a very plain, vaguely melodic shout that you’re not likely to embarrass yourself too much trying to imitate at karaoke night, lacking both the feral screeching aggression of his singing on the first two albums and the gravitas and genuine melodicism of the next two.

But, if you’re a sheltered Middle American white kid raised entirely on your parents’ rock music, it sure looks like an advance in sophistication. Metallica have eight-minute songs! There’s an instrumental! But because it’s not really that complex or harsh or dissonant, it didn’t push such kids out of their comfort zone like genuinely advanced metal bands of the era. And sure, this album did lead many of them to explore heavy metal (and other musical genres) more deeply, but just as many were happy to have Metallica as an easier-to-swallow substitute. Metallica were safe; they didn’t have any alien chromatic solos or confusing counterpoint or deliberate dissonance or truly breakneck tempos or belting high-pitched singing that could make a virulently homophobic ‘80s boy insecure about both his sexuality and his singing talents, and led to a flood of other watered-down albums that were like it but managed to be worse by being an imitation of put-on heavy metal rather than the actual put-on.

The lyrics on this album try to delve into weightier, more real-world-relevant topics with songs discussing drug addiction (“Battery” and “Master of Puppets”), the inhumane treatment of the mentally ill by society (“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”), anti-war themes (“Disposable Heroes”, which says absolutely nothing “For Whom the Bell Tolls” hadn’t said on the previous album), and the ‘80s metal standard anti-televangelist rant (“Leper Messiah”—what did leprosy sufferers ever do to deserve being compared to Creflo Dollar?) but all of them fail at adequately handling their subject matter. First of all, this is Metallica, and everything Metallica does is mixed with constant vainglorious, macho swaggering, so a song like “Master of Puppets” is perpetually confused about whether it’s about how insidious drug addiction is or how badass Metallica are—you always get the feeling that like Donald Trump, the only thing Metallica really want to talk about is themselves. “Sanitarium” is particularly dreadful—nobody in Metallica has a goddamn clue what mental illness is like, and even if they did their money would shelter them from any institutional abuses, and the whiny, petulant refrain of “just leave me alone” sounds like James Hetfield talking back to his mother after being told to clean his room instead of an assertion of his humanity in the face of authorities vested with the power to incarcerate him, drug him, and surgically mutilate his brain. From this unconvincing sullen dreariness, the song then takes a complete about-face and is suddenly an equally unconvincing anthem about how the patients are going to overpower the staff (with what weapons?) and escape, because of course Metallica would never submit to the directives of a mental institution (yes, yes they would, if their childish meltdowns in front of their overpaid kiss-ass counselor in 2004’s melodramatic “documentary” Some Kind of Monster are any indication). In light of this yawning intellectual void it’s no surprise that the least objectionable lyrics are those to “The Thing That Should Not Be” (Cthulhu is really scary, booga-booga-booga) and “Damage Inc.” (literally just Metallica bragging about themselves for five minutes), where they forego any attempt at putting on sophisticated airs and just let their troglodytic macho-man schtick run free. Turn off your brain, throw up the horns, forget that you could be listening to something better instead.

I purchased this album on vinyl from Metallica’s own new record label Blackened Recordings, supposedly an independent company owned by the band themselves, but my hopes that a self-financed and self-owned label might treat the music recording with more respect than the multi-headed corporate Hydra of Warner Music Group did, but this has got one of those awful, lazy remasters that have been standard issue with every reissue of an old recording since around 1997—intrusive punched-up kick drums and a heaping helping of dynamic range compression to bury all the fine details of the original mix in noise, because it sounds “better” on $12 gas-station earbuds. As usual with heavily compressed metal albums, it sounds worse the heavier it gets, and only in the quiet sections do you get an impression of the original mix, which was pretty good by Atlantic’s low standards, but not great, very clear and with plenty of space between the instruments, but with a weak bass and muddy, uncontrolled snare drum reverb.

“Battery” starts the record off with essentially a rehash of Ride the Lightning’s opener “Fight Fire with Fire” with new riffs, but the pace is about 50 beats per minute short of the original and the musicians’ playing is far more relaxed, and it comes off as more of an angry uptempo boogie than a raging thrasher. The dainty acoustic intro thing had been a bit of amusing irony to juxtapose against the nihilistic, apocalyptic frenzy of “Fight Fire with Fire”, but “Battery” tries it again, and this time it’s a complete waste of time. When the thrash riffs finally take over, it’s less a shock to the system than a relief that a transparent attempt to dress up this song as something it is not is over. The riffs aren’t as dark or as interesting either, and the Iron Maiden-like dual harmony guitar part from “Fight Fire with Fire” was axed and replaced with more blues scale noodling from Hammett—the guitars go meedley meedley mee and wow wow wooooow and I completely check out because I can predict his next notes before he plays them.

The first half of “Master of Puppets” has by far the best set of riffs on the album, and would have been an excellent simple midpaced thrasher if it had been kept short and concise, but the verses are padded out with riff repetition and endless bridges, and then the metal stops and they bring in really dull bluesy Grateful Dead-ish noodling—normally quieter interludes in metal are supposed to retain and transform some of the momentum from the earlier part, but this essentially functions as a giant “reset” button for the whole song, a total anticlimax, and really, I find it inexcusable—even Manowar could figure out how to do dynamic changes without deflating the tension in their longer songs, and they teetered on the ragged edge of idiotic, childish self-parody through the entire ‘80s (naturally, they fell right into the darkest, cheesiest depths once the ‘90s came around). The heavy riffs come back to close the song with a last go-around of the chorus (always with the chroruses, Metallica), but since the middle of the song was a complete disaster the recapitulation feels less like a triumphant return than yet more repetition of a song that should have been over four minutes ago.

“The Thing That Should Not Be” was initially a song I was willing to defend against metalhead charges of being a dullard groove-metal song of the type Pantera would later shit out by the dozen, and while I still think it has a bit more class than Pantera with its subtle (subtlety! In Metallica!) transformations of the main riff in various ways, the entire song is nonetheless built around just one midpaced mosh riff and derivatives, with no variation in tempo, mood, or overall rhythm at all. This is the sort of song that becomes more and more tedious the more you listen to it and realize how little content there really is, it kind of reminds me (and bear with me here, I’m going out on a limb) Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia, which at first listen seems quite clever in its juxtaposition and transformation of two contrasting melodic themes, but that’s it, that’s all there is to the piece (well aside from Orientalist racism, but that’s another subject for another review…), and as you listen to it a few more times, you’ll see through its simplistic construction and trite emotional appeals and get completely sick of it. So it is with this, it is way less clever than it originally looks and is actually quite a cheap and nasty piece of music.

I’ve already taken “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” to task for its lyrics, but the music only contributes to the onslaught of absurd bathos that is almost certainly the worst song on the album. This is a typical remake of Judas Priest’s “Beyond the Realms of Death” like a thousand metal ballads before it, but even more derivative than usual because Metallica couldn’t write an “epic” melody to save themselves and just reach into their bag of recycled blues rock ideas instead. This completely ruins the form because the original song and all the derivatives that are any good work by using imaginative lead guitar playing and a powerful, convincing singer to create a contrast between the bleak, borderline self-annihilating depression of the verses and a chorus that boldly, defiantly reasserts one’s autonomy and subjectivity, culminating in a hysterical, virtuosic guitar solo, thereby dragging a listener who has the right sort of alienation to buy into it through an emotional wringer, Metallica just suceeded in writing a mawkish hard rock ballad that wallows in the pettiest of teenage resentment and doesn’t even begin to approach its supposed subject matter with the seriousness it deserves. Kirk Hammett’s solos are especially awful here, with his execrable “weeping” blue notes bent in the most generic possible way at the most generic possible times. The ballad eventually gives way to some quite respectable thrash riffs and even dual harmonized leads that sound straight off (a reject from) Ride the Lightning, but it’s far too late to redeem all the garbage that came before it, and Kirk Hammett plays two more solos, blowing his blooze load all over the music just as it was getting mildly interesting. There are at least five guitar solos in this song and they’re all terrible.

Though “Sanitarium” got my pick for the worst due to its wretchedly childish sentimental angst, “Disposable Heroes” gives it a run for its money through sheer, unrelenting boredom. The bulk of this song is built on amelodic single-chord bashing on repetitive triplet patterns, and ceaseless, tuneless Yorkshire Terrier barking from Hetfield. “BACK TO THE FRONT! BACK TO THE FRONT! BACK TO THE FRONT!” For the love of Christ, someone send him to the front so he’ll shut the fuck up already! Until he blew his voice out in the ‘90s and developed that fake redneck accent, this was the single worst performance of his entire career, and yes, I’m including his “nine-year-old’s Paul Di’Anno impression” clean singing voice from the 1982 demos in that assessment. It just goes on and on for eight nearly unbearable minutes, with the only respite being a faceless blues solo from Hammett (so, not a respite at all). “Leper Messiah” is very similar, only it bashes a bit slower and there’s a slightly more melodic B-section in the middle—I’ve heard it compared to (and sometimes accused of being a plagiarism of) Dave Mustaine, but Dave Mustaine tried harder than this.

And then comes “Orion”. The instrumental coat rack that late ‘80s Metallica’s reputation as a “progressive” band is hung on. “Orion” is Cliff Burton’s baby, and he actually puts in a very impressive performance...that you cannot fucking hear aside from a couple of gimmicky guitar-like leads. Seriously, I had to go to YouTube and listen to a fan remix with the bass cranked up, and he actually does some pretty cool stuff on here. And nobody else does. The rest of the band, the only thing you hear in Flemming Rasmussen’s original mix, all follow the path of least resistance, and Kirk Hammett vomits out two of the most flatulent, derivative, hollow, shoddy, manipulative, obvious blues-rock solos ever recorded. Everything in these solos is done the laziest and most shopworn way possible, and then, instead of orchestrating the skeleton Cliff Burton provided with his bass line in the melodic middle section, they all double him. They just mindlessly trail after Burton like kids following the Pied Piper, because counterpoint might scare the stupid people or something, and you can’t even hear Burton much in the original mix, so the whole thing comes off as a pointless noodlefest. With a second root canal of Kirk Hammett’s guitar dentistry as a segue, they bring back the best riff from the heavy part of the song and run it into the ground by repeating it constantly as it slowly fades out. They don’t even do something like Rainbow’s “Stargazer” where they layer more and more florid ornamentation over it as it fades out to keep it interesting, you just get Hetfield chugging and chugging and chugging some more until silence mercifully overtakes them.

“Damage, Inc.” is the only real full-throttle thrasher on this album, so of course it does the same sort of atmospheric bass chords as the mellow diet-prog song before it, for no reason whatsoever. Just like Battery, this intro feels completely disconnected from the actual song and a complete waste of space, and it’s compounded by being the same gimmick used to introduce two songs in a row (and then, with Burton being dead, James Hetfield imitates it on guitar for the intro to “Blackened” on the next album, so if you listen to the albums in order you get the same gimmick intro three times in a row. Even Disturbed aren’t this lazy). The song proper sounds like a timid, hesitant dry run for the harrowing “Dyers Eve” on ...And Justice for All, but the genuine hatred and bitterness that ran through that song and gave its triplet-based palm muting exercises life are absent here, both because the lyrics are Metallica waving their dicks around instead of James Hetfield confessing a real anger in his life, and they put far more effort into both the songwriting and the performances on the later song. Sure, it’s heavy, and you can bang your head all day to it, but “being pretty heavy” wasn’t good enough by 1986, not with bands like Kreator, Bathory, Sepultura, and Possessed running around. It was mediocre. Metallica were mediocre. A mediocre rock band for a mediocre rock audience, convinced that nothing outside their suburban bubble mattered at all.

The review starts off interesting and challenging in a good way but waters down to a biased rant more than anything else as it moves along. You allowed your grievances with white American mediocrity (as you called it) get the best out of you and in turn demean your effort to write something meaningful which could educate the reader or at least present the reader with a different point of view, a broad perspective from a solid base in terms of knowledge (which I'm sure you have, but it reads as if trying too hard to prove a point and loosing ground on the subject.). I wish this read more like a compelling argument as opposed to a run of the mill tirade.

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TrveKvltMetalhead666
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:37 pm
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 10:15 am 
 

My review was deleted and I would like to know why. It was truly ridiculous that it happened, so I figured I would come here and ask if anybody could give me pointers to fix this review. It's of Napalm Death's "Scum", by the way.

Leftist Alex Jones parody, I think... - 0%

"Is this band a joke? I always see people revering this band and their "legacy", but this just sounds like random, incoherent noise overladen with an autistic patient screeching into a microphone while said noise is blaring in the background. This is really the next generation of Angry Anti-Capitalists™? More like Whiny Brats.

After starting this with a vapid "rant" about corporatism over a copy of Lou Reed's Metal Music Machine, the band progresses with tons of noise and rails against capitalism some more. And some more. And even more. And so much more that it becomes a bore. The lyrics read like a conspiracy radio station run by a leftist version of Alex Jones. Each song is just more whining about corporations, society, and other idiotic tropes that wouldn't look out of place on a Sex Pistols album.

Then we reach the title track. The lyrics here deviate a little bit, as they are now talking about television being bad, following it with "Caught In A Dream", which rails against escapism. Okay, did we just travel from the leftist Infowars and suddenly enter a evangelical radio show about the evils of television and music? Because that is what these tracks sound like. After this, the band goes back to Alex Jones-tier rantings and then, before you know it, you've wasted almost 30 minutes on this mess of an album.

Besides the ranting tone of the lyrics, there is nothing else to offer here unless you like literal noise. This is good to wake up a particularly heavy sleeper if at a loud volume, because said sleeper will want to toss the album out a window and strangle the person who conspired to put this album on as an alarm, but otherwise, nothing. Avoid."

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TrooperEd
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:18 pm
Posts: 2115
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:00 pm 
 

Spoiler: show
The fact that most fans of Paul Di'Anno not only call this his best album with Maiden, but <u>the</u> greatest Iron Maiden album of all time. If you ask Mr. Di'Anno what he thinks of the album, he'll tell you he thinks its terrible and that the first album was much better. Don't get me wrong, this album is fucking great, surprisingly heavy, and underrated. Partially because for some stupid reason Maiden refuses to play any song from this album except Wrathchild, which I will actually agree is not very appropriate for Bruce to sing. That song is a street thug anthem, and Brucey is many things, but a street thug isn't one of them. There's a certain viciousness in Paul's performance in these songs, which, Bruce was actually quite capable of replicating during his first few of years of Maiden. Go listen to the Killers songs on Beast over Hammersmith, Bruce is absolutely maniacal and fits the songs like a glove there. Even a half decade later on Maiden England he manages to deliver the title track with perfect amount of rasp and venom, despite many fans declaring the Seventh Son period the soft sellout period. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

If I could describe how Killers differs from it's predecessor in four words or less, my response would be "similar songwriting, better production." Perhaps even slightly inferior songwriting, as Steve admits they decided to put all their best songs on the first album with no regard for how that would turn out sonically. Granted, that worked out for them in the end as great songwriting shines through, but imagine how much better this would be if it got Phantom of the Opera instead of Prodigal Son, by far the least interesting classic Maiden song, and the song that hangs around this album's next like an albatross. Dammit, I'm getting ahead of myself again. We would get a Martin Birch treatment of Phantom with Live After Death, but I think a Paul sung version of Phantom with this production would have been killer.

I should say something about the arrival of the great Adrian Smith, but the problem is, he's given such little chance to shine, he's virtually forgettable. I know, calling Adrian Smith even slightly forgettable is a blasphemy that should be punished with a right bollocking, but we have to face the facts here. He has zero songwriting credits on this album, we don't get a proper guitar solo in from him until six tracks from him, and he even gets outclassed by Dave Murray on the title track! Seriously, go listen to Murray's all-time great[est?] solo at 2:59! While Adrian's solo on the same song is by no means bad, the preceding solo was so good that's its almost a waste of time to follow with another. Murray has technically played guitar for longer than Smith, and here it's the former who plays Jedi Master to the Padawan latter.

Highlights of the album are the aforementioned stupendous title track, Murders In The Rue Morgue, Purgatory, the monstrous instrumental Genghis Khan (the riff at 1:47 would be recycled by the band and others quite a few times throughout the decades) and closing rocker Drifter. Yes, I said it, Drifter. I may be the only person on the planet who loves this slice of uptempo Status Quo worship (and this was long before I had even heard of Status Quo), but I'm entitled to my opinion, and this song absolutely kills, especially live. Again, go listen to Beast Over Hammersmith, what a lethal crowd pleaser! Why did Sanctuary replace that song in the encore again?

Every Iron Maiden and metal fan needs to hear Killers. I'm not entirely sure why this album went lower in the UK charts than it's unnecessarily lo-fi predecessor, but it is fun to bust Di'Anno fanboys' balls with that fact, especially since for a bunch of supposed anti-establishment punk they sure do love the numbers game. Ignore those dickheads. Ignore the Bruce fanboys as well for that matter. This album's bloodlust will defy all your needs! Ooooooo, look out, it's coming for you! Ha. ha. ha. ha. ha. ha. ha. ha. ha.


I'm told there's a mistake in the very first sentence, but I can't figure out what it is. Is there a rule against underlining in the first sentence of a review or something?

Woolie_Wool wrote:
they remind me of what Phil Sandifer said about Red Letter Media's reviews of the prequels being worse at being criticism than the prequels were at being movies,


That sounds like whining from a butthurt prequel/Lucas fanboy. I learned more about film criticism from those reviews than I ever thought possible.
_________________
Timeghoul wrote:
Petitioner wrote:
Shut the fuck up you pathetic shut ins.
I didn't know children book fans were so angry.

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gasmask_colostomy
Metalhead

Joined: Thu May 27, 2010 5:38 am
Posts: 1639
Location: China
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:55 pm 
 

TrooperEd wrote:
I'm told there's a mistake in the very first sentence, but I can't figure out what it is. Is there a rule against underlining in the first sentence of a review or something?


Don't worry dude, you're too busy frying other fish to check all the grammar.

TrooperEd wrote:
The fact that most fans of Paul Di'Anno not only call this his best album with Maiden, but <u>the</u> greatest Iron Maiden album of all time.


What we've got here is a sentence fragment, so it will show up in Microsoft Word or whatever. If you start the sentence with "The fact that..." you need to return to that structure to finish the sentence. For example, "The fact that most fans of Paul Di'Anno not only call this his best album with Maiden, but <u>the</u> greatest Iron Maiden album of all time, is an indication of the great quality of <I>Killers</I>. I'd just cut off the first three words and begin with "Most fans..." to be honest.

I had a read of the rest and spotted one or two other bits as well. Also, I know that you know the songs very well, but you might want to go into a little bit more musical detail on one or two, for example why 'Prodigal Son' kind of sucks. (A point on which I totally agree.)

TrooperEd wrote:
Granted, that worked out for them in the end as great songwriting shines through, but imagine how much better this would be if it got Phantom of the Opera instead of Prodigal Son, by far the least interesting classic Maiden song, and the song that hangs around this album's next like an albatross.


I think "next" has got to read "neck", hasn't it?

TrooperEd wrote:
He has zero songwriting credits on this album, we don't get a proper guitar solo in from him until six tracks from him, and he even gets outclassed by Dave Murray on the title track!


There's a typo here, with two "from him"s where there should be one. A description of the solo styles might also be helpful for people who haven't listened to the album before.

Hope that's helpful for you!

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TrooperEd
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:18 pm
Posts: 2115
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 1:31 pm 
 

gasmask_colostomy wrote:
Don't worry dude, you're too busy frying other fish to check all the grammar.


Image and you were indeed helpful, thank you!
_________________
Timeghoul wrote:
Petitioner wrote:
Shut the fuck up you pathetic shut ins.
I didn't know children book fans were so angry.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:45 pm 
 

TrveKvltMetalhead666 wrote:
My review was deleted and I would like to know why.

https://www.metal-archives.com/board/vi ... =4&t=44482
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Bigotry is a mental health issue.

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Diamhea
Eats and Spits Corpses

Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 pm
Posts: 9275
Location: At the Heat of Winter
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:50 pm 
 

TrveKvltMetalhead666 wrote:
My review was deleted and I would like to know why. It was truly ridiculous that it happened, so I figured I would come here and ask if anybody could give me pointers to fix this review. It's of Napalm Death's "Scum", by the way.


Quit trolling. You are lucky you weren't banned from the site at the same time.
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nuclearskull wrote:
Leave a steaming, stinking Rotting Repulsive Rotting Corpse = LIVE YOUNG - DIE FREE and move on to the NEXT form of yourself....or just be a fat Wal-Mart Mcdonalds pc of shit what do I give a fuck what you do.

Last.fm

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TrooperEd
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:18 pm
Posts: 2115
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:14 pm 
 

Diamhea wrote:
TrveKvltMetalhead666 wrote:
My review was deleted and I would like to know why. It was truly ridiculous that it happened, so I figured I would come here and ask if anybody could give me pointers to fix this review. It's of Napalm Death's "Scum", by the way.


Quit trolling. You are lucky you weren't banned from the site at the same time.


Wait trolling reviews aren't allowed? Why is Falconsbane's Rust In Peace review still up? Pretty much anything old-school metal he was a contrarian little shit about, the mods have deleted most of his other reviews that dealt with mainstream bands.
_________________
Timeghoul wrote:
Petitioner wrote:
Shut the fuck up you pathetic shut ins.
I didn't know children book fans were so angry.

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TrveKvltMetalhead666
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:37 pm
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 8:36 pm 
 

Diamhea wrote:
TrveKvltMetalhead666 wrote:
My review was deleted and I would like to know why. It was truly ridiculous that it happened, so I figured I would come here and ask if anybody could give me pointers to fix this review. It's of Napalm Death's "Scum", by the way.


Quit trolling. You are lucky you weren't banned from the site at the same time.

I wasn't trolling. Napalm Death is fake and gay, and they deserved the review I wrote about their "music".

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~Guest 282118
Argentinian Asado Supremacy

Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:16 pm
Posts: 8300
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:05 pm 
 

Your review barely talks about the music, opting to attack the artist's politics and lyrical themes instead. One doesn't get even the simplest idea of what the album sounds like from your review other than "noise", which in case you weren't informed, is grounds for rejection/deletion.

Also, calling a band "fake and gay" is the mark of either a troll or a witless mouthbreather who most definitely shouldn't go around reviewing anything. Is that enough of an explanation for you?

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TrveKvltMetalhead666
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:37 pm
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:26 pm 
 

Xlxlx wrote:
Your review barely talks about the music, opting to attack the artist's politics and lyrical themes instead.

Because they shove it right in your face like a catholic priest does with his prick when around children. It is literally the most unavoidable element of the band.

Xlxlx wrote:
One doesn't get even the simplest idea of what the album sounds like from your review other than "noise", which in case you weren't informed, is grounds for rejection/deletion.

Because that's all that is; noise. There is no redeeming qualities about anything other than the fact that it's noise.

Xlxlx wrote:
Also, calling a band "fake and gay" is the mark of either a troll or a witless mouthbreather who most definitely shouldn't go around reviewing anything. Is that enough of an explanation for you?

I called it as I saw it. They're fake and gay because they are a bunch of poseur sell outs. They decided to be kikes and take the money and sold out their values. Granted, they sucked before they did this, but they were even worse afterwards.

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~Guest 282118
Argentinian Asado Supremacy

Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:16 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:00 am 
 

"Kikes"?

Speaking for the entire Jewish community, how about you go fuck yourself?

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TrveKvltMetalhead666
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:37 pm
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:16 am 
 

Xlxlx wrote:
"Kikes"?

Speaking for the entire Jewish community, how about you go fuck yourself?

You first, rabbi. ;^)

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Diamhea
Eats and Spits Corpses

Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 pm
Posts: 9275
Location: At the Heat of Winter
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:14 am 
 

Banned. Obvious troll from the start.
_________________
nuclearskull wrote:
Leave a steaming, stinking Rotting Repulsive Rotting Corpse = LIVE YOUNG - DIE FREE and move on to the NEXT form of yourself....or just be a fat Wal-Mart Mcdonalds pc of shit what do I give a fuck what you do.

Last.fm

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deathvomit70
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:39 pm
Posts: 6
Location: Costa Rica
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:48 am 
 

Hello guys, I wrote a review but it was rejected because of poor grammar. I used grammar and spell chekcker but the mistakes still apprearing. Spanish is my language, so I want to know what I've need to modify for my review. I will appreciate your help. Here it is:

I am not a fan of black metal and only like some few songs of this genre, but listening to this Apocalypto production, I can realize that they did an excellent job here, mixing black with death metal and giving to the band a really nice sound even if this is their first demo. Also, I need to say that I'd discover this band recently, so I think its a good time to listen and evaluate new music from new bands out there from all over the world.

First of all, in the aspect of sound, including recording, mixing, mastering and tune of the instruments, I think that they did it well because when you see that bands release a demo, you are prepared to listen a medium or bad quality in the music sound, but in this demo, the band put a lot of effort trying to get an excellent sound of each instrument, listening very well every not of each, for example, in each song, you can listen the guitars, bass, drums and vocal well-mixed and still sound clean and professional that seems to me that the musicians has a vast experience in the metal scene.

Even if the demo has a great sound, I have to say that is some things that they can improve for next productions. In this demo they only recorded a guitar, I would like to listen a background guitar when a solo is played, but you only here the bass and drums that gives a strange sound to their music. Also, the voices needs to sound a little bit louder because in some cases, the instruments opaque the voice. However, for being their first production, the work done here is very impressive and when I discovered the band, my expectations were even low because this is a demo, but I was totally wrong.

Also, this demo has a Death cover so I need to write about it because I'm a big Death fan and think that with the quality of their sound (speed, technique and genre), they could do a better job in the Evil Dead's cover here. The speed of the song is slower than the original Death song, so when you listen to the song with a higher speed that make you headbang, this one is slower and maybe you will not like it for that reason.

Finally, if you like death metal and black metal as well, I recommend this band even if they only have one demo with short songs. They did a great job here, and you will enjoy listening to this demo and the dark riffs it has. Although they should improve some things in later productions, the truth is that they are skilled musicians that can play great music in the future.

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Tanuki
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2016 12:36 pm
Posts: 425
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:42 pm 
 

The main issue here is sentence length; there are a lot of run-on sentences which hurt your flow and make the review seem like a stream of consciousness. Each thought should be able to stand alone. For example:

Quote:
Also, this demo has a Death cover so I need to write about it because I'm a big Death fan and think that with the quality of their sound...

Consider something like:
"Being a big Death fan, I need to mention their cover of 'Evil Dead'. They could do a better job, considering their slower speed weakens the aggression of the original song."

Grammar notes in the spoiler:

Spoiler: show
I am not a fan of black metal and only like some f̶e̶w̶ songs o̶f̶ (from) this genre, but listening to this Apocalypto production, I can realize that they did an excellent job here, mixing black with death metal and giving t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ (this) band a really nice sound, even if this is their first demo. Also, I need to say that I̶'̶d̶ d̶i̶s̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ (I discovered) this band recently, so I think it's a good time to listen and evaluate new music from new bands o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ from all over the world. (This sentence is confusing)

First of all, i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶n̶d̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶recording, mixing, mastering and tune (tone?) of the instruments, I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶a̶n̶d̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶e̶m̶o̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶a̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶u̶m̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶q̶u̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶i̶c̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ (are done well, considering most demos are medium or bad quality). But in this demo, the band put a lot of effort (in) trying to get an excellent sound o̶f̶ (from) each instrument, listening very well every not (note?) of each. For example, in each song, you can l̶i̶s̶t̶e̶n̶ (hear) the guitars, bass, drums and vocals are well-mixed and still sound clean and professional. That seems to me that the musicians h̶a̶s̶ have a vast experience in the metal scene.

Even if the demo has a great sound, I have to say t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ (there are) some things that they can improve for next productions. In this demo they only recorded a̶ (one) guitar. I would like to l̶i̶s̶t̶e̶n̶ (hear) a background guitar when a solo is played, but you only h̶e̶r̶e̶ (hear) the bass and drums t̶h̶a̶t̶ (which) gives a strange sound to their music. (Consider shortening this sentence by just mentioning the lack of rhythm guitar during solos) Also, the voices needs to sound a little bit louder because in some cases, the instruments o̶p̶a̶q̶u̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶v̶o̶i̶c̶e̶ (make the voice opaque). However, for b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ their first production, the work done here is very impressive and when I discovered the band, my expectations were even low because this is a demo, but I was totally wrong. (Consider revising this sentence, it seems redundant)

Also, this demo has a Death cover so I need to write about it because I'm a big Death fan and think that with the quality of their sound (speed, technique and genre), they could do a better job in the E̶v̶i̶l̶ ̶D̶e̶a̶d̶'̶s̶ (Evil Dead) cover here. The speed of the song is slower than the original Death song, so when you listen to the song with a higher speed that makes you headbang, this one is slower and maybe you will not like it for that reason.

Finally, if you like death metal and black metal as well, I recommend this band even if they only have one demo with short songs. They did a great job here, and you will enjoy listening to this demo and the dark riffs it has. Although they should improve some things in later productions, the truth is that they are skilled musicians that can play great music in the future.


Hope this helps

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TrooperEd
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:18 pm
Posts: 2115
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:54 pm 
 

deathvomit70 wrote:
First of all, in the aspect of sound, including recording, mixing, mastering and tune of the instruments, I think that they did it well because when you see that bands release a demo, you are prepared to listen a medium or bad quality in the music sound, but in this demo, the band put a lot of effort trying to get an excellent sound of each instrument, listening very well every not of each, for example, in each song, you can listen the guitars, bass, drums and vocal well-mixed and still sound clean and professional that seems to me that the musicians has a vast experience in the metal scene.


This is one sentence, and that is very, very wrong. I myself, struggle with run-on sentences alot, my advice is don't make your sentence longer than 2 lines. Three at the absolute max.

deathvomit70 wrote:
First of all, in the aspect of sound, including recording, mixing, mastering and tune of the instruments, I think that they did it well because when you see that bands release a demo, you are prepared to listen a medium or bad quality in the music sound. However, in this demo, the band put a lot of effort trying to get an excellent sound out of each instrument. For example, in each song, you can listen the guitars, bass, drums and vocal well-mixed yet still sound clean and professional. This indicates to me that each musician has vast experience in the metal scene.


Here's me splitting the same run-on sentence into a four sentence paragraph. Though I strongly suggest you also look at Tanuki's feedback, as he is clearly better at this than me.
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deathvomit70
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:39 pm
Posts: 6
Location: Costa Rica
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:11 pm 
 

Thanks a lot for help me with my review, I will take into account all of your advices to modify it and submit again. I really appreciate your help. Thanks a lot.

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