Newcomer Zardos makes a strong entrance today with his clever doom metal triptych surrounding Trouble, Pagan Altar and Saint Vitus - the latter band of which remains "virginal" for this thrower. Oh, I'm just about to sample that supposedly hard-driven and upbeat new Smoulder release on my way to work, if only to dissipate the ever-bland and generic radio rock we're all subjected to there...(exceptions are made, though, for any Billy Idol.)

Yeah LawrenceStillman's not that great of a writer. Several of his reviews were rejected because they had too many typos to be acceptable, as well, his Jester Race review had an inexplicable hot take in it (saying it wasn't melodeath and closer to prog metal that is neither prog nor metal(??)) - he actually had a review of AtG's debut in the queue that was also rejected for similar reasons, as well as a review of The Gallery waiting in the wings too, lol.

Yeah maybe negative reviews aren't my forte, a big reason why I wrote those scathing reviews was because of my sister that loves the Gothenburg trio but hates the Svensson-era of ATG and Intestine Baalism. She does nothing but forcing me to listen to Gothenburg/melodic metalcore albums all day while refusing to listen to regular death metal or anything harsher than what she usually listens. And not just her either, a lot of young adults and teenagers here are like her and a good chunk of them are complete assholes. So the negative reviews are done in an angry fit to write down my dissatisfaction

In hindsight (and more listens), I feel sots might deserve more points, maybe around 40-50%. But changing the score will mean that the average will move away from 69 (nice)

That would simply be a tragedy!

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... Frog/68002

Wow great review…

Yes modern world suck and we are doomed to implosion and democracy is under attack and too slow at times in deciding maybe we need rebuilding but right ideologies have the same problem when they are at government they are naked…


i don't have the solution i hope in the new generations but I have my doubts..

Play The Witcher 3 again and again so people can learn on not fear of diverse snd be more tolerant…

guess I've developed an unexpected sig theme

Imagine being forced to listen to shit you don’t want by your sister.

I couldn't even get through this review.

those sisters amirite?!


Indeed, more power to who did. Very few reviews have a reason to be that long imo... probably just not my thing.

The one that's up right now isn't that much better.

It's like people here want every single reviewer to drink a cup of autothrall's blood and immediately start churning reviews as good as his, God forbid people learn at a slower rate

It's not that; your review of TJR doesn't make much sense.

One specific point you're making is that "Moonshield" is a very good song; however, you absolutely do not elaborate on what makes it good, and you also do not contrast that with what you perceive the rest of the album be like. That's an "objective" fault.

A "subjective" fault is that so much of your review hangs on the idea of the entire album being "poppy". Now, go listen to, I dunno, Amaranthe or something, hell go listen to later IF albums. You'd have a point there, but for TJR this makes sense to me only if you take, for instance, The Red in the Sky Is Ours as a baseline, not as a particularly harsh album. Comparing TJR against that, and particularly against actual death metal, then yes - in the rather narrow scope of death metal, that album maybe could be described as "poppy". But in the broader context, say metal as a whole? That doesn't make much sense to me at all. To return to the issue of "Moonshield", to be frank, I simply can't see how that song would not be poppy when compared to other songs. And that's just it - as a reader, I'm left baffled and trying to come up with my own explanations to cover the utter lack of anything like that on your end.

Please don't take this as me trying to antagonize you or shut you up or anything; it's not that. It's also not about unrealistic standards (I hope you wouldn't be too happy with obviously low standards being thrown your way simply because you're new to it*). It's just that your review feels very rushed, or to put it better, it sounds like your listening experience was actually rushed, so much that your writing comes off as disorganized and riffing on very dubious points. Again, as an illustration - if your baseline is Last Days of Humanity, A Blaze in the Northern Sky will come across as "poppy".

The solution here may be to take a step back, let yourself absorb an album, and more metal albums across various genres to immerse yourselves in different aspects and moods of the whole deal, let things settle down for ya if you know what I mean.

*Lowering that standards so much on this account would not only be patronizing, but also an obstacle to any improvement through constructive criticism.

So just take my time when it comes to writing reviews that I don't know much about, maybe I'll go back and revise the jester race review when the time comes

Well now it's understandable.

Nothing wrong with writing bad reviews, plenty of my old ones were bad too (I reread my reviews for the same Gothenburg albums you're reviewing and cringed). Just listen to as much music as you can and try and analyze it in the best way possible for whatever it was going for or qualities it may have or lack. More practice will probably help you do fine.

So basing on my approved reviews, which review has the best direction and cohesion? I tried to emulate the style of the big names out there like gasmask and autothrall but I keep feeling like I will never be as good as them in condensing every thought I have for the album into 4-6 paragraphs, there are just aspects of the album that I really want to explain in depth but can't

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... 12/1651249

I prefer Leprosy on Altars one of few albums that scary me every time that I listen to it…

Anyway great review

The answer is patience. You're a new reviewer, I didn't really write anything I'd consider remotely good until like, two years of doing it. (Go back and read my Ghost Bath - Funeral review from 2015 and see what I mean; this is how NOT to write a review). Also, you don't want to fully channel someone else's style, but take inspiration. Some of my favorite reviewers are Twisted_Psychology, BastardHead, Gasmask, Felix, and honestly, even AxlFuckingRose has impressed me lately despite being fairly new to it. Also, thrilled to see that Zodijackyl is back.

Anyhow, I'm rambling, the point is, don't try and become a perfect reviewer overnight, and take your time. Read other reviews and listen to more music. You can write long reviews, just make sure it isn't three extra paragraphs of irrelevant garbage that doesn't address the music. I can't really pick a "best one" at the moment.

Oh, and P L E A S E, proofread your reviews for spelling and grammar mistakes. That's half of your issue regarding getting them accepted (or not) right there.

ehh, i get that. it's barely about the music. i don't write normal reviews.



don't become autothrall, my man. no one needs more "the guitars are buzzsaw" reviews. write something interesting.

You don't want to become another reviewer (I think that my older reviews sometimes read like a poor man's Acrobat review), but you should absolutely learn from others. Nothing wrong with taking inspiration from the 'big names' as long as you do that to develop your own style; something that comes with time.

Also I just went over your Winter review. There's a decent piece of work in there, but for fuck's sake, writing these kinds of lines make you look like a silly doofus;



Or



Nothing wrong with describing what an album does to you... just try to describe this is an interesting manner. Goodluck!

Sorry to hear that..

We Italians are more philosophers….

I bet you are.

I... beg to differ.

I just listened to Anthem's Crimson And Jet Black, thanks to Agonymph's honest and enthusiastic review, and I'm now kicking myself for having taken so long to discoverer this excellent, well-seasoned and genial Japanese heavy metal band.

Go check their early stuff. Hunting Time in particular is absolutely fantastic. This new record...well, it's not my thing. Still love 'Snake Eyes' but that's only ripping tune on it.

This made me laugh. Remember that both Metallica and Iron Maiden suck now.

But seriously, the best way to get better is practice. A lot. Several of the people mentioned as inspiration have written 1000 or more reviews, that's a lot of practice. Go back and read some of your old reviews a few weeks or months after writing them, you'll see how you're growing and how you can improve them. Read other people's work and then think about what kind of points interest you from those reviews. Even if it doesn't manifest very clearly at first, you will find that you slowly understand how to make your intentions come true in your writing.

Just read LawrenceStillman's Disembowelment review and that one seems like a step in the right direction.

Just be careful with long-winded sentences and awkward phrasing. I'm talking about something like this that doesn't read very well:



Otherwise, I'm not complaining much.

It does help to have an inspiration; someone who is more knowledgeable than you on the particular things that you are interested in.
My main inspiration here is Drowned. I love the way he reviews obscure shit that no-one else knows, then drops a few other obscure names into these reviews (along with some less obscure ones), so his reviews feel like a breadcrumb trail for someone younger/less knowledgeable to discover new bands from the deep underground. I love that shit. I have basically tried to copy Drowned's approach and streamline it for 'mass production' over the years.
It helps to write with an audience in mind. My hypothetical audience is usually 'a younger version of myself' (given that a younger version of myself was reading Drowned reviews back in 2005). What would that person find helpful? What would they want to know about? What bands would I want to tell them about?

"This made me laugh. Remember that both Metallica and Iron Maiden suck now."

You take that back, Senjutsu is pretty good! 72 Seasons is kind of meh though

Thanks for the tip colin, I'll do just that.

Oh, Big L, a wise man by the name of Roy Peter Clark once emphatically stated: "Fear not the long sentence."...You'll find that dashes, semi-colons, well placed (and none too abundant) commas as well as token parenthesesal mnemonics go a long way!

Above all, the most important thing is to simply have fun whilst crafting playful odes to well-deserving purveyors of endearing endorphin fuel. It also doesn't hurt to slyly honor and acknowledge fellow writers within. So where's that upside-down happy face weemoji, already?

Are people still waiting for bands like Metallica to "return to roots"? Really? It's always the same BS.

Reading 20-something year olds review stuff is utterly pathetic.

Off topic but I agree with that, unless they explicitly say they will return to their AJFA and before sound and failing to deliver, I don't think we should shit on Metallica for it, unless it sounds objectively terrible like St Anger

Not really sure even how much further back to the roots they can go aside from just rerecording their old albums entirely. They sound different because they're older now, but they've consciously been trying to work in all eras of their sound for years now.

For real. At this point, we're been long past the days of Metallica ever returning back to their 80s thrash sound. Say what you will about the latest albums, but if Metallica just stuck with their old sound, then I could guarantee that it was going to get stale, and people would want the band to try something new instead. Not that sticking to one sound can never work, but given their age, I just don't think they can keep up the momentum.

This is the crucial point imo. I read this sentence:


and all I can think about is "man invents fictional scenario and then gets angry at it". Like, it's fine if you expected that, but why assume the same for everyone else?


I clearly understand that this sentence was written to work in this context, but it's still hard not to take issue with it though.

Does this young fella that reviewed this Napalm Death release not realize it's a compilation of non album material? https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... gui/785629

Yeah, actually, that person submitted 6 other reviews that are worded just as basic and boring as that one, and it reads like a bot, so I'm not accepting any more until other review mods take a look at it.

In other news, the recent Iron Maiden and Metallica reviews that are technically passable were tough reads, especially the Metallica one.

Given the times we live in, I guess we shouldn't exclude the possibility an AI wrote them...

But yeah, frankly bland and interchangeable stuff. I'm also not against axing that Napalm Death one, it's just wrong on all levels.

EDIT: actually, scratch that, several parts are shamelessly copy-pasted across them... I guess it just reinforces the impression of somebody toying with an AI, if anything:


lmao, I knew the day would come, but I wasn't ready

I suppose it is time for us to start crusading against AI reviews

Yup. Caught that as well but wasn't gonna leave the comments on every one of them. Thank you for taking care of that.

Man I only had the chance to skim over some of those reviews in the queue so I didn't pick up on that specifically, but I THOUGHT the writing felt like, aggressively formulaic and samey lol. So yeah that makes sense. I dunno if it's AI or if the writer is just that goddamn lazy and bland as a writer but either way, it's dreck.