Would be funny if the average score ends up like that.

Thank You!



I do admit I only have her 'Lunatic Doll' album on tape somewhere. But listening to Soar as we speak because of your remark.

BH's In Flames review is a great read. I do think though that it's obligatory to point out how, in addition to Friden being the absolute most shit clean singer in the known universe, he's also become one of the most consistently god-awful lyricists I can think of. Part of what makes those clean choruses so cringe is actually what's being sung. I know that lyrics are pretty low bar for much of metal, but in this case I don't think it can be glossed over, especially since In Flames's lyrics during the Sundin era were always interesting and often amazing.

MawBTS' review for 72 Seasons has to be the most entertaining one for that album so far.

Yeah, genuinely very good writeup, strong analysis and it does take the whole history of the band into account in ways a lot of reviews don't.

True, and I have to be honest: that line, "The Black Album has sold an astonishing 22.7 million copies. To put that in perspective, if all of those albums were stacked in a pile, it would be a pile 22.7 million albums high." really cracked me up. That is just brilliant, one of the finest bits of humor ever included in an album review. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. Anyway, I found that hilariously funny.

Oh no, I completely agree

Hey BH, I found one for you to review: https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Space_Pope/Space_Pope%27s_Cosmic_Rhythm/1132442

Hey Felix you reviews of Mavorim are eerily resembling those of the Necrophobic

Pure greatness

Ps Felix give me money to be a fanboy

Thanks! I actually sat on that one for a few days because I felt like I never actually made a point, but I figured that the perspective of somebody with no opinion or knowledge of their post-Reroute days could be interesting and that practice is the only way to get your mojo back so fuck it, click submit.



I couldn't figure out at all why this made you think of me until I saw the title of track three

You don't remember The Space Pope? He's at the end of some of those 50s style reel-to-reel videos they sometimes watch, noting he's the one responsible for the video being made. He's basically a lizard in a pope hat.

Of course I remember the Space Pope, I just didn't immediately make the connection since "Is the Space Pope reptilian?" was a rhetorical question way back in season one and these hacks missed a golden opportunity by making the figure on their album cover human!

Cool to see more positive Overkill reviews even though they can all be crystallized with one broad statement "yes it's pretty much the same Ironbound era Overkill album but it's still pretty great" or as VladimirCokorillo put it;



laughing because that was surely unintended humor - lost in translation or summin'

I just realised that a few days ago 8 reviews of Hornets of the Pogrom were deleted. I assume the reason must be that all of them had some racist content in them. One of them was titled "Makes me proud to be white" LOL

Since they’re doing that, they should also delete the one you did for Incorrigible Bigotry.

Giving a shoutout to AxlFuckingRose on that Schizophrenia review. Easily the most well-written one from a non-scribe amidst the dozens from a the past couple days, and it made me want to check the album out.

Why? if I may ask

Just busting your balls a bit man, me being a goof. On a more serious note, I've read your review 3 times as of now and still can't figure why exactly you think Arghoslent are such a mediocre band, it's not exactly clear. Kudos to you for not doing the usual ''They're racist, so they suck.'' thing, though!

They are a band whose fans boast that they make melodic death metal that is truly heavy, and the truth is that except for the riffs their style is completely flat and bland, most of their songs have no dynamics that grab me and when they do sound melodic they sound incredibly weak. And I really think that if they weren't overtly racist no one would give a damn about them.

The same goes for GBK (well I've only heard Mocking the Philanthropist but it bored me so much that I've stopped listening to any more of them). And I think it has something to do with Alexander Halac's obsession with putting traces of classic heavy metal in his music when he doesn't have the talent for it.

Honestly, at this point, I'm not sure why anyone should still listen to Arghoslent in this day and age, considering we now have plenty of bands that do this heavier style of melodeath better and without the racist lyrics. Bands like House of Atreus, Grenadier, Dungeon Serpent, Draghkar, and especially Intestine Baalism are my go-tos in this style.

At least GBK wrote some good riffs…

But aren’t for me

Great reviews of Dawn,Lord Belial and Coroner..

Into the Brazen Bull was some prime Arghoslent-style melodic death metal. Wish the full lengths after were as good and not just kinda dull. Ah well. Big ups to Draghkar and Grenadier for catching the ball House of Atreus fumbled. Intestine Baalism are indeed excellent.

Whenever I see the name House of Atreus, I immediately have to think of a Virgin Steele worship band. If only...

That newest Tristania review by zardos is a real throwback to a time long past. Even if I put aside subjective disagreements (are The Sisters of Mercy really commercial? is it a sin to like them or be inspired by them, especially just because they're inspired by glam rock? are guitar solos a requirement for a metal album to be good? help) and my personal dislike for the style (the deadly combination of flowery vocabulary, clumsy grammar and Russian phrases translated word for word makes me wonder how it was accepted at all, but that's probably just me), I thought people were long over hating on non-metal, "commercial" metal like this. It's like someone read some Noctir, thought he was way too straightforward and too much of a softie, and decided to make the Metal Archives great again.

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... rd/1855196


I don't think "shite mallcore" and "appealing to people that never grew out of their daddy issues" are the right terms to describe SOTS. Also...


I can understand one finding the production of SOTS to be too clean, but saying it's the worst production in metal history is just plain stupid.

Yeah, this one is just fucking awful. Doesn't help that I think Slaughter of the Soul is pretty on the money, but the writer is just making all the wrong points about why the album is poor. As soon as someone compares SotS to Slipknot, I've already stopped listening and am thereafter just reading to see how stupid it's going to get.


While on the theme of terrible reviews, BurningSod are you doing the next challenge? Any ideas when it'll be?

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... an/1764117

We now have two negative reviews of SOTS over the span of 24 hours. And sadly, they brought down the album's average score to 69%

nice

Seriously, both of those reviews complain that the songs/album are too short? Like the answer has ever been to pack an album with 60+ minutes of random crap and extend songs in that stripped-down style beyond about 3-4 minutes. People who weren't born when AtG released these albums pointing out the "obvious" line-up change issues. What happened to trying to understand the music? SotS has just become one of those easy target albums where everyone can pin all the shit music that followed on that. Never mind that metalcore owes almost nothing to AtG and that this was basically the first melodeath album to imagine the style divorced from death metal strictures. (Seems like I've finally hit metal old age at 31.)

nice indeed


Of course! As for the date, my summer is an unscheduled mess (exams and concerts aside) so I still have to work it out. I'll try to do the best I can to follow the previous ones' time frame though, that is, somewhere in June if possible.

Those At the Gates reviews are painful. Not really familiar with them myself and trying SotS now - as someone who doesn't like melodeath, this is pretty good and the no nonsense rock feel works... the criticisms in those reviews are pretty poor and embarrassing. Lots of reaching and "music that isn't what I want is bad by default." Try hard.

Hard agree. Lawrence Stillman is very rapidly working on my nerves.

Dude also wrote a negative review on The Jester Race. At this point, I get the impression that he isn't into melodeath all that much, which is fine if it's not his thing. However, if he's just gonna continue giving classic melodeath albums negative reviews, then I would personally suggest that he review something else.

EDIT: Looks like the In Flames review got deleted, but I thankfully found an archive of it on the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/202304261629 ... an/1764117

He's actually got yet another one doing just that in the queue, but I'm letting someone else handle it. I can only read so many of those.

I'm not going to talk in detail about those ATG reviews, except to say that I think SotS is an awesome album.

But I always struggle with the lack of attention paid to GoG in the band's chronology, being the greatest death metal demo of all time (in my opinion), and the best thing the band ever did. So statements like the following read like a lack of due dilligence:



Technically this is true but it is also misleading. He left between WfIKtBD and TSD. GoG is the band's first recording, way back in 1991.



Again, this is fine if you want to think of it like that, but why not include GoG (the true beginning of the ATG story, and the basis for everything on TRitSiO).

Try The Red in the Sky is Ours. That one will blow your mind.

Yep, this one is a mighty treat.

I've been thinking for some time that the criteria for accepting reviews need to change for the good of the site.

One rule that for me is priority is that negative review must have at least 40.

I can’t read of 0 or 5 given to the best albums in metal history.

Thankfully the average score goes down.
It's all opinion anyway. Personally I applaud anyone giving them a good bashing because the ATG-allergy is not rare and should be heard as well

Im not the greatest fan of SOTS but at least only for the first three songs deserve 60.

Come one it’s so easy thrash that album that seem forced