Well I guess there are no sprinkles springing from that horn. Still, you can spin one hell of a yarn. Keep it up, your reviews are great.

I just gave my first 8 pointer in years to zeingard's review of Bear Mace, almost entirely for the amazing pun in the title and describing the double bass sections as "a rain of raw chicken on concrete". Git gud at descriptive writing, kids. It can be an amazing illustrative aspect to your critiques.

Zeingard's is a very entertaining and factually fulfilling read, that's for sure. I might have to listen to more DM just so I can steal that line about raw chicken.

Just out of interest, how many points does a scribe get for each review? I'm sure this is something I could find out for myself, but this is my Sunday morning, you know.

My understanding is that every review gets 5 points if you're a scribe.

Liking the U.A. review; pretty much feel the same way, mostly, although, I think it's an 80% album... I think we've been here before over the marking of an MD album. Two things–I think that U.A is stronger than Endgame. Endgame has a great lead opening, followed by 'This Day', which is excellent modern MD. And, 'Head Crusher', along with the finale is pretty good. The rest is like groovy C.T.E. rehashed ideas, with dull compositions. And, not to be too pedantic, you called 'Play for Blood', 'Pray for Blood', but so what; not really worth changing that.

And, 'A Tout Le Monde' did seem like a completely worthless exercise. U.A. was like 2 good songs away from being a much better album.

Just reading a couple of reviews; Chairthrower manages to provide a good description of the music on an album, which helps, especially to someone like myself who doesn't know i.e. Crushing Axes. At the other end of the spectrum is Wacke, who chooses to criticize Mustaine and Megadeth rather than describe the music, and frankly, the analysis is poor.

Well, it seems like you follow the Megadeth reviews quite a bit. I think the reason why this one gets a lower score from me than 'Endgame' is because there are songs on 'Endgame' that really heat my blood, but U.A. just has songs that are either pretty good or average, but nothing outstanding. I should have noticed the 'Pray for Blood' thing: for some reason, my digital copy has that as the track name although I know that Mustaine is singing about playing for blood.

On Wacke's review, I'm not really in agreement with his point at all, because however modern 'Dystopia' may be, I don't see the evidence for calling it "soulless" or "another turd in Megadeth's catalogue". I know I've been a harsh scorer on the band, but I haven't spotted any turds so far (I'm not tempted to listen to 'Super Collider') and think 'Dystopia' was a step up on most fronts. Also, I'm surprised that Dave is "a multi-millionaire" - I'm pretty sure if he had any money, he'd find a way to get rid of it pretty quickly.

I try to read as many reviews as possible just to pick up on any different bands that might interest me. As for Megadeth, I've been listening to them and the other '80s thrashers for over 25 years, so it always interests me more, especially when someone calls Dystopia a 'turd'. Risk and Super Collider are 'turds', although lyrically, Risk isn't so bad on paper; Collider is just a 'turd' on every level.

I had to come back and edit; I forgot to add that U.A. is consistently good to average, while Endgame does have more of those real great head banging, crushing songs, like 'This Day' and 'Head Crusher', so I get your angle. It's good modern MD; just hope the next release surpasses Dystopia. I want to hear a few more Black Friday's.

Methinks the new Reptilian Death review has gotta go. Not that I am a fan (or have even listened to the band), but the review is chock full of unhelpful hyperbole and borderline racism. The reviewer locks in on the fact that the band is from India, states that they might have made their music in their "caves," describes the band members as an Indian "tribe," and then there's this whole paragraph:

"Is there one-tiny-thing I can say positive about these Indians and they're terrible gimmick? Probably not and I don't give a fuck. They'd be better off flying their magickal, wannabe death metal carpets and preaching how shitty their culture is. Stick to your foreign, traditional music, guys. I don't mean to rip on Indians and their culture, but solemnly, these guys are a fucking joke, they're a bigger joke than feeding an elephant peanuts for breakfast."

NUKE.

"I don't mean to rip on Indians and their culture, but lol they're both shit."

That review is shit.* Will it be saved by the fact that it includes musical description despite being a racist vomit-wank? Time will tell.

"Their whole land is a zoo." Go fuck yourself, buddy.

* All his reviews are shit.

I say nuke and warn/ban. Not actively suppressing bigotry - when having the power - is tantamount to fostering it.

Link.

Probably up there with the worst reviews I've read on this site. Bigot trash.

I may be overstepping my bounds but I retroactively rejected it. We've asked for edits of Arghoslent reviews that drop the N bomb or say other similar things and I mean, at least those are in context. The review itself is fine outside of all that shit but it really has no place in a review here. He's more than free to resubmit it with that crap cut out.

I read that Reptilian Death review and the comments about Indians was just way too inflammatory and unnecessary. Personally, I'm not offended; I'm sure an Indian might have been offended if he called them 'Pakistani'.

Props to psychoticnicholai for reviewing Meshuggah's 'Koloss' and managing to fit this analogy in:

"It just sits on one groove and doesn't go anywhere, like a morbidly obese guy in a broken Wal-mart scooter."

The more I think about it, the more apt it sounds.

The opening sentence for the new To Mega Therion review is baffling. I had to stop reading immediately, but I can't stop thinking about it:

"On To Mega Therion, Swiss metallers Celtic Frost manage to take a would-be monotonous and repetitive proto-death metal record and make it memorable as well as epic."

99% rating. Thank god they saved this unbelievably classic album from being monotonous and repetitive...close call!

Ezra's (new reviewer) Reign in Blood review adds ' Slayer never achieved any commercial success. ' They were commercially successful in the late '80s and early '90s, tailing off when metal was being beaten down.

Ezra gave the album 97%, then finished his review with 'All in all, this is a solid album that should be in every metalhead's collection.' If he think that it's worth that much then it's a 'colossal' album.

On the other hand he gave Celtic Frost's Mega Therion a 99% and matched that with stating that it was a 'masterpiece'.

Personally speaking, "Solid" is my polite way of saying "this is okay I guess."

It can vary, "solid" to me = "that's pretty damn good!"

Damn, the Poser Holocaust 0% meme is broken.

But the average is, what, 1%? I don't think they're in danger of gaining a positive reputation yet.

Yeh, I'm not actually upset. Just thought it was noteworthy.

The new Pestilence was an enjoyable read. It just wasn't Mameli doing the vocals on that record, damnit!

I agree that Thrash or Die isn't particularly great but it doesn't deserve 0% or 1%. I have heard a lot worse and the band is definitely very passionate about what it's doing. I don't really get all the hate.

@colin 040

Thanks for your kind words and of course, you are right. I have edited the review. But now you know why I wrote "senile geezers like me..."

Never forget.

The band also paid to grossly inflate their Facebook "likes" total. More reason to hate them.

That new Rust In Peace review is quite bad. Okay, he doesn't like some songs. Okay, he hates the vocals. Fair enough I guess. But he also starts with



but he praises Friedman as a good addition to the band later on. Also a huge chunk of the review is actually not about Rust In Peace, but goes full anachronism and talks about (mostly) Countdown and other albums. And then, there is this gem:



... and he gives it 15%. I am genuinely butthurt.

What's also laughable is the fact that he writes:





So he's saying that approx. 60% is worth listening to, and some of that can be 'truly appreciated', yet he's given the album 15%; there's something rotten here.

Also, the solo play is in the 'Punishment Due' part, so he's just shitting on the album for the sake of mugging everyone else off.

I prefer bayern's reviews when they are like the one for Santuary Lost; they just a little easier to consume.

I went into that review giving him a fair shot to offer his hot take, and he nearly lost me right from the first sentence where he calls himself a Megadeth fanboy, but writes their name as MegaDeth. No, clearly you aren't a fanboy at all if you type their name screwy in the first 3 words of your edgy review (plus two other times in the review) not to mention doing that when tearing apart a classic album. I read the rest of it, but it just gives off an aura of hating everything just for the sake of hating it and coming off as super forced and kinda phony anger, at least to me.

I love all the completely random other albums he lists throughout as 'better'... it really has no rhyme or reason to it and the review comes off as needlessly contrarian.

I think maybe this guy is tugging our legs. I can't explain why people would write the following things otherwise.



I think I've missed the parts of 'Peace Sells' where Dave was "concentrating on speed and violence alone". Would that be the catchy (and fairly slow) title track? Or has he got confused about 'I Ain't Superstitious'?





Is this a Peter Steele prank? Why else would Carnivore be mentioned twice in a RiP review?


However, it's this one that makes me certain it's a troll.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the Belgians who are leaders in this field?


There are also all kind of other absurdities, like saying that Fates Warning 'The Spectre Within' is technically superior and generally better, yet that's also an album that overindulges in showy playing and has potentially annoying vocals. Oh, and saying that Testament's 'The Legacy' is a far superior thrash album...without really having any thrash songs on it.

If you like irony, I would give the review a read. It's terrific.

That new Megadeth review is a steaming pile of troll excrement, it reads like the guy is a wannabe bitterman who can't even be bothered to structure his bullshit into something that would pass for serious.

Why the hell would you mention those albums in a Megadeth review?

@gasmask_c.

As a German, I can say that you are absolutely right. Nobody has ever heard of Bavarian chocolate.

"Of Terror and the Supernatural by Temple of Void is miles ahead of It's midnight in Neverland and I can't get my dick out of this unicorn; Volume 8 by Nightwish in both the amount of heaviness and lack of keyboards."

Yeah, quite true; a crappy read on all counts. Absurd, nonsensical ramblings from which one can't see the justification behind the deplorably low score...

They did it again, but with a deplorable score of 15%, worse than Falconsbane's one in 11 years. I'm crestfallen.