I don't think it needs to be edited any further, anyway. Just... please don't bash Rust in Peace now.

Rust in Peace is one of my top 10 albums of all time. No way that will happen!

So, I guess we should expect a positive Rust in Peace review to come from you sooner or later, right?

Very late on, but yeah, at some point. I think with 23 or so reviews, most of which positive (fuck you Falconsbane), another would be quite redundant.

Agree. But wait a sec...




Uh... wtf?

A sudden change of heart. I gave Ride the Lightning a few spins, and it all started to unravel for me. Generally my opinion on MoP waxes and wanes with time, but there was a general downwards trend from 'the greatest album of all time' to 'it's ok', and its predecessor rammed home its weaknesses to me.

I see. That's a radical change of heart and I can't really figure out how can Ride the Lightning be responsible for it but it's you who's gonna be haunted by that review when you get old and and listen to MoP with your eyes filled with tears of nostalgia, anyway.

Naah, since it was Ride the Lightning and Metallica that got me into Metallica and metal on the whole anyway. Even as a kid I didn't really like MoP to the same extent as their other '80s albums, it sort of grew on me with time and fluctuated as time went on.

Ride the Lightning showed me how that sort of progressive, atmospheric thrash is done, and in every case it destroys its successor. Whether it be vocals, instruments, production, songwriting, pacing, hell even aesthetics. I started to see what the band was actually capable of, and MoP came off as a sort of perversion and near parody of the formula set by the album before.

I agree Ride the Lightning is better. Maybe... far better. However, your rating (15%) is something I've never thought I'd see at a Master of Puppets review. Even UltraBoris's review feels like some kind of trolling while reading it. However, a Romanian proverb says: "you can't shit on someone's taste". If you don't like it, then you don't like it.

Yeah, taste is taste, some taste is just shittier than others... kluseba. I just don't really see anything of worth in the album, barring some riffs in the title track, 'Disposable Heroes' and 'Battery'.

Back to actually discussing reviews now: I never actually realised how much better PorcupineofDoom's reviews got. Apparently some of his earlier stuff wasn't very good (I don't actually know, never read it) but his latest review is actually very good. Nicely descriptive, passionate, succinct, well-structured... yeah. Good work. It actually makes me want to check out something labelled 'Avant-garde', a mindset to making music that I thoroughly despise.

At least Kluseba stands by his opinions and doesn't change his mind on something after 1 month.

Yup. And at "nothing of worth" in an album that's gone down in history as a classic...not sure you have much room to talk about people with shitty taste when you are still changing opinions so fast and throwing out contrarian negative reviews for classics, by the way.

It's bizarre we're still talking about this at all. I'm sure N_S's opinion will change to a much more reasonable/balanced one eventually, that's usually how it goes. You eventually learn as you keep listening to music not to spout out opinions that aren't fully formed or well-listened. I mean it happens to everyone now and then, but it's so much more common when you're younger than 20 and trying to make something of yourself online. I remember how that was.

These days I love two classics I gave negative reviews to a decade ago, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and The Oath of Black Blood. Most of the things I hated back then, though, I still don't like.

I was just told yesterday that napalm is basically made of styrofoam and gasoline, which is an interesting metaphor for N_S's opinions.



Not that I'm surprised that you'd form a polarized opinion prematurely, but I'm curious what about the avant-garde you actually dislike. Extreme metal in general at one point in time would qualify as avant-garde until enough frequency and experience builds up to normalize the style, but maybe we're talking about different things.

Thanks man! Some of my early reviews were without a doubt poorly written, probably not helped by the fact that I used to churn them out without really thinking about what I was writing. I went back and fixed some of them a while ago, deleted a few where what I'd written was complete nonsense, but left most of them intact. Looking back at some of them I think I've improved from where I started, and it's always a good feeling to see other people nodding towards that.

As for avant-garde, well, it's a genre that I've always found a bit odd. Because there isn't really a set style the bands labelled with that tag are all over the spectrum, with some good and some bad. Tyrant of Death, however, are just plain awesome. Alex Rise just does not disappoint. Everything he releases with that project is of an exceptionally high standard.

PoD is a massively improved reviewer, good call on that one.

"Avant garde" is kind of a pointless term because it can mean damn near anything, and at the same time it also seems to sorta get slapped onto any band that sounds a little bit like Sigh, and even then I've just taken to branding their difficult-to-define style since Hail Horror Hail as "whirligig metal" and it's been working out fairly well for me. If you don't like their I and H albums, you're just flat out objectively incorrect.

I had a period some years ago where I listened to a bunch of Sigh albums, and I don't think they're bad or anything now (though In Somniphobia was pretty weak), but I just don't feel like listening to that stuff anymore.

Been taking notes listening to albums during downtimes / no classes but still having to sit in the classroom. Feels a bit hollow trying to spring back into reviewing after a few years.

I just read BastardHead's review for Breeding The Spawn, and it was pretty damn good. Yeah, he used a lot of words that I didn't understand, but he made his point. I would personally take away 10% from the score because it's my least favourite of their 90's albums, but it is in fact some of the finest death metal in the world. I had a good laugh when he mentioned Frank Mullen's "New Yawk" accent; never noticed that myself, but it's making me think of how one would growl in a certain accent. It's all "RRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHH" to me.

Hope you finally come back. Nothing worth reading anymore; I never even bother checking like I used to.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... Boy/115667
This is a troll that seem hipster "overrated this" "overrated that" blah blah blah and Stained Class Priest's don't has negative reviews with low points, pffff...

And this is a kluseba's review, only 65%???
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... eba/238242

And No prayer for the dying 67%?? Really???
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... eba/238242

And Virtual XI 75%?? REALLY? REALLY KLUSEBA!?
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... eba/238242

I don't think they're trolling...
You should check out Master of Puppets' reviews, anyway .

Kluseba pretty much does just give scores out to deliberately be contrarian. A lot of his reviews for popular albums don't really say much beyond "this is overrated because I said so and I want to be special."

It's better that you realize sooner rather than later that the scores are more or less meaningless. Not limited to the fact that each reviewer has his or her own scoring gradient, and that most writers score using the critically flawed (for this purpose) US school grading system, where anything under 60% is abject failure.

And kluseba is one of our worst high-profile writers. He still hasn't figured out how to properly proofread his reviews, and he has what, 700+ by now? I wonder if he realizes that I fix several typos per review before accepting them.

Thanks for the typos, Diamhea! And thanks for your patience with me. If there are any recurring mistakes, please let me know. I do proofread but my reviews are often quite detailed and I'm not a fan of correcting texts on a small computer screen, so I might miss a few things here and there.

That being said, I constantly improved my writing over the past six years but there is always room for improvement for everyone for sure. Since English is only my third language, I'm actively expanding my vocabulary and learning new stuff. Even though many people think I'm trying to be contrarian or to get extra attention, I simply write what I think and stick to my opinions, as simple as that. I can perfectly understand that my tastes are controversial since there also regular writers on board that I find weird concerning their opinions or writings without feeling the necessity to point anyone out though. I guess it's better to stand out occasionally than to be completely faceless. I'm proud of what I'm doing, I enjoy writing and listening to music and I appreciate the learning process behind it.

In my book, that's always better than the high amount of new reviewers these days who immediately react when somebody criticizes them and go change their ratings, modify their reviews or even delete their contributions to please the veterans. I don't comment a lot on the forum but I read review threads occasionally and what really strikes me is that certain threads look rather like therapy sessions for mentally unstable writers than actually constructive debates about writing. Other users quickly pass by and are happy not to get criticized for once and take the chance to make rude comments on someone who looks inferior to them to make themselves feel better but that's a common thing for anonymous outsiders on the internet. Others are happy to play the role of the wise elders to repeat that those who try to argue back are "passive aggressive" which seems to be a real fetish expression for some people here. Maybe some people will look back on such threads in a few years and feel ashamed that they really wrote stuff like that accessible to anyone on the internet. To end on a positive note, these threads are at least entertaining and sometimes amusing for those who are just reading them.

No problem. Believe it or not, you still write better than countless native English speakers that have tried their hand reviewing over the years.

And also this dialogue:

Most of your reviews just blather on about how open minded you are and how everyone who disagrees is following the masses. It's all really just a lot of self-involved ego-jerking, and the points you make are rarely substantial or interesting to read.

I'm getting the impression that you didn't read most of my more recent reviews. I might indeed state here and there that I'm open-minded and I understand that this might sound arrogant on paper if you don't really know the person behind it. I certainly exaggerated a bit with this kind of attitude in my earliest reviews on this page. I'm aware of this and sometimes it's funny for my to look back on reviews I wrote three years ago. I don't modify them because they represent how I felt back then and I can mostly still agree with the general content but I'm proud to see that both my way to approach a review, to describe things and to express myself have evolved. I can tell you though that mentioning that I'm open-minded is not meant in a narcissistic way but just a way to describe that I'm curious about bands who always try out new things and bored with bands who copy themselves on a low level which explains why my opinions might often diverge from the majority. I'm a person who is extremely curious about anything new and that includes everything in my life but I know that most people rather stick to what they are used to. I don't say that my approach is the better one, it's simply the one that suits me. My favourite band of all times is Amorphis and that should explain a lot about my personal tastes.

Something I don't like though are bands that desperately try to please to larger audiences and change their style for commercial purposes instead of sticking to what they do best or try out something new on a purely artistic level and there are certain bands that I call out on that. If you find my writing style boring, that's fine with me. As long as I'm convinced to write the best I can, I will continue to write and create. My writing style seemed to be good enough for two different websites that asked me directly to participate since I started writing plus two newspapers where I was looking for writing opportunities and that ended up accepting my participation and where I contributed reviews among other articles for three and four years respectively, so it can't be all that bad. I'm not trying to brag here, I'm simply stating how things are and you can still call me one of the worst reviewers and that's fine.

Obviously, any kind of constructive feedback is appreciated, so if you could concretely suggest what ''rarely substantial'' or ''not interesting'' means, that might be useful. Your reviews are definitely not my cup of tea but your constructive ideas are still always welcome.

Has anyone else noticed that hammersmashedeverything deleted all his reviews? What the hell's happening to all these writers lately?

Your In Flames Siren Charms review had that attitude and that wasn't one of your earliest reviews - that review if I remember right just talked a lot about how you liked it because it would piss off metalheads.

As for rarely substantial or interesting, well, your latest review for Avantasia - you seem to be criticizing it for being a hodge-podge of Tobias's influences, but how is that any different from any other thing he's ever done? Most of the criticism just seems to be "these songs are boring and derivative," which isn't like delete-worthy or awful or anything, but you spend so much time going on and on and all it really says is that you find a lot of the songs boring. It comes off as rather empty so far as criticism goes. Same thing with the Seventh Son review which wasn't that old - such a long review to say "this isn't really as good as their other 80s albums, oh and also, anyone who likes this is just an 80s apologist stuck in the past who's following the masses." It's crap.

For the In Flames review, you are right. I simply wanted to call out on those who still want the band to sound like fifteen years ago and don't understand that this will never happen. It's even more annoying when half of the exchangeable reviews for the band basically just say that everything was better back in the days. Since that attitude annoys me, I wrote in a more aggressive style on purpose. If a review gets a lot of reactions, it means that it did something right. I guess my review fits very well the band's own attitude that pisses many old fans off.

Concerning Avantasia, I explained very well how the previous album managed to sound consistent, develop a certain atmosphere and integrate a few new elements and singers here and there and that the new album doesn't do much of that and is therefor quite different. All Avantasia albums sound inspired by other bands but parts of the new output are almost exact copies from the original artists or previews songs of the band. It's as much a question of coherence as of diversity.

Concerning the Iron Maiden review you seem just to have read the first paragraph. The review explains very well how I find the record too mellow and that certain songs run quickly out of ideas, especially the title track. I even say in the beginning that I don't write the review for the sake of degrading a popular album and that I usually agree with the general opinions for the band's early albums (except for this one and Piece of Mind).

I guess we just have quite different views on how to write reviews and quite divergent opinions as well and that' sur fine. Thanks for your feedback anyway.

As far as In Flames is concerned, everything w-a-s better back in the day whether "open-minded" metal heads like it or not. However, not everybody who appreciates a band's early/-ier works is stuck in the past, nor does it mean he/she's incapable of moving on. In fact, it's the exact opposite of that which makes us selective. Believe me, people tend to move on, find new music, better music, elsewhere, and embrace new bands whose music is tailored to their taste and/or is daring enough to challenge them to mature musically, instead of waiting for a so-called pioneer to fulfil a promise they've never made. Only a handful of people dwell in the past the way you put it, whereas the rest simply deem one phase superior to another and stop giving a shit.

Speaking of deleted reviews, Reign In Blood dropped from 33 to 32 reviews. It was a recently written one, too.

Such a bummer... People should care much more about their efforts and their spending hours writing...

There could be any number of reasons people delete their reviews. I've deleted a few and I've considered deleting others for various reasons. For example, I recently deleted my review for Gorguts' Obscura because my views on the album have changed in the years since its acceptance. I don't know about the latest Reign in Blood review but maybe the author didn't like the way it was written. Besides, there's still over 30 reviews - plenty to choose from still.

I see what you mean, but I was talking about the phenomenon when people delete all of their reviews. They can't have changed their views on all the albums they reviewed, can they? It's like changing their views on none of them, which is very very unlikely.

I wonder where gasmask_colostomy has gone. He was churning out reviews pretty much daily for ages, and now suddenly it's been six weeks since he published a review. Hopefully he's just taking some time off and he'll return, because he's a good reviewer and it'd be a shame if he didn't.

Good call.
For some reason, the only reviewers I follow that still contribute with a large amount of writings are Felix 1666 and NausikaDalazBlindaz. I am seriously thinking about finding other favorites since the old ones seem to be having a break.

Read Empy's review of Kings of Metal from 2010, and it's funny, it seems what he hates the most about the album are what I like the most about it. I love the atmospheric stuff Manowar throw in their music, so I eat up The Crown and the Ring with a spoon. And I really like A Warrior's Prayer. I think the narrator's voice is really engaging, eventually it gets into reeeeeeally subtle keys that work great, and I really love at the end: "Grandfather?" "Yes?" "Who were those four men?" "Who were they? THEY... WERE THE METAL KINGS!" That makes a great intro to the last track. I also really like Pleasure Slave, I think the guitar riffing and Eric Adams' vocals are great on it, though the lyrics are stupid, and I agree with with Empy that the moaning is really dumb.

It's just funny that almost everything Empy listed as the worst parts of the album happen to be my favorite parts of it.