Thanks. I tried and it detected just a few not so critical issues.
It also detected some "advanced issues" but I can't see them without paying.

Anyone interested in seeing how important it is to incorporate constructive criticism should take the time to compare the original posting to this version. It can be challenging to basically scrap something deeply meaningful, and I respect your effort. I hope more people put the work in that you have. Thanks a lot for taking our notes to heart, and be sure to keep writing.



We're here to help. Thanks for putting effort into improvement.

That's the kind of stuff peoples here can fix Do not waste your money. I wrote a review with more than 50 advanced issues and it was still accepted.

I hope so. Pay for translation? Not a single chance.
My review for Decrepit Birth "Axis Mundi" (for those who missed it, it was posted near the bottom of page 92)
has at least 30 advanced issues less than yours and it was rejected.
I just put my Croatian review (http://www.terapija.net/mjuzik.asp?ID=26627)
into the Google Translate, but I spent an hour manually correcting its epic fails.

Ouch, using Google Translate is maybe the best thing to do to upset translators... x) Even if you spend some time to correct it, it has to contain some mistakes.

Translation is a very tough work. It is often tougher than writing a review in your language. You will have to use appropriate words and change some syntax etc... To illustrate my words, book authors choose very carefully their translator and they select it not because the man is good but because he knows perfectly the mind of the writer, how to translate his words while keeping the atmosphere of the book. Writers and translators are often close peoples!

Anyway. I said this because I submitted three times a review and every time it got rejected because of grammar problem, syntax etc... So because of bad translation (and from time to time spelling mistakes). The best you can do, even if it's a little bit more difficult, is writing your review in English since the very beginning. You can do it on Grammarly, so you can see in real time your critical mistakes and fix them. And if you're not that much familiar with English (I'm not an expert myself...) translate your review with a complex dictionary. I've in mind WordReference, which is the dictionary I check at least 300 times in a review to be sure but it only works for Spanish, French, German peoples and a few more languages but not Croatian. Same case for Pons. There are Czech and Slovenian peoples but not Croatian. :/ I don't know Croatian dictionaries but maybe you do!

So if you want to translate: 1/ Translate your review as best as you could not using Google Translate but your knowledge and some dictionaries and 2/ to be sure, submit here (I know you've already done that but maybe another reading from your part would be nice... I don't know). For the moment I can try to fix some mistakes (I'll make another post) but I guarantee nothing.

I certainly will.

Grave Wyrm, thanx for your quick and extensive response.

Sure thing. I'll just add more to the existing spoiler.

Hey Can you guys help me with the grammar on my review please, thanks!

That's a mess. Did you write it in five minutes?

English is not my first language, I'm from Costa Rica.

@YevX

I think what Grave_Wyrm is saying is that this review doesn't meet the standards for this website. First, I suggest you read some more reviews to get an idea what is expected. Remember that all reviews need enough musical description (not just, "This track is awesome, it's so fast and has a great solo!") and should say something useful, so maybe look at the other reviews for 'Better than Raw' as well to see what people have already said. The review that you wrote doesn't have almost any musical description and doesn't tell a new listener what to expect from this album. Imagine someone doesn't know Helloween, how will they know what it sounds like?

Your English is not too bad actually, I think you should just remember two things for now. The first one is how to use capital letters: they should be used for names (of people, of bands, of songs, and albums) and at the beginning of a sentence. That's it. Don't use them for things like "My Favourite Line-Up" or "Beautiful Guitars". The second thing is to make the review at least a bit more formal. We know you are a big fan of this album, but you are writing a review, not shouting from the front row of a concert, so try to make your language more written and less spoken. Reading other reviews will help for this.

Anyway, I hope you have another try at the review because 'Better than Raw' is a great album!

thanks man!

YevX: the site standards are available for your personal enrichment. Once read, heed the gnosis of Mr. G. Colostomy.
https://www.metal-archives.com/board/vi ... =4&t=44482



Their almost random use was what made it look slap-dash. If YevX knows enough English composition to get a review to this point, he knows that, as well, seeing as those rules are as basic as it gets. Plenty of people whose English comp is less developed than this don't interact with the keyboard itself as erratically, so I'm skeptical of ESL being the issue.

I've been getting back into reviewing and was wondering if anyone had constructive criticism or suggestions on my reviews generally as I start to ramp up once more.

Can you post a sample here, please. We are very lazy, so confronting us with the material will get you advice quicker

What he said.

My bad, totally forgot about that part. This is for Oranssi Pazuzu's Varahtelija, thanks for taking a look.

The problem may be in the writing method. I wrote a review in Croatian for our domestic music web-portal. Then I put the text it into a Google Translate and spent one hour trying to correct its epic translation fails. But it seems that they still can't be understood properly. Croatian has different syntax rules (especially in the long sentence writing where we have much more freedom in (re)ordering words without losing its sense or exactness) and it causes me a lot of confusion during the translation. Also, there is a crucial problem with Croatian wordplay stuff which can't be translated, but I find hard to rephrase them. My long Croatian sentences are crystal clear and not confusing at all, but they obviously can't work within English grammar rules. It would be easier to write a review directly in English, but I speak Croatian ought too well to switch myself to think in my average non-native English. And yes, that's why it demands more simple writing according to my English knowledge/ignorance. When I find some more time, I will try to make all these sentences more simple. But it's not easy to do that without losing some fine edge shaping and specific layers of text content.

Comments in spoiler. Hope they are useful.

Thanks a ton gasmask, that feedback is extremely helpful and clear. I really appreciate it dude.

I'd definitely advise you to post your drafts here. As a native speaker myself, I think I could offer some help with polishing your English (I'm also majoring in English, so there's that).

Having said that, I'm not so sure the whole of the problem is in your translation. It seems people have missed a dubious sentence in your draft, reading:

You can use the neat method of google search with a particular expression in inverted commas so that it yields exact matches; with "intrigue the ear pins" you'd get one result (out of a whole lot of sites with written material), your own draft. That is because you didn't correct google translate, it's eardrums. Correcting for that, you'd still get only two results. This basically means it's a hell of an unusual expression, and I'd say intuitively that it doesn't make much sense. It's rhetorical overkill when you combine that with the notion of eardrums that pulsate to eargasm (there's no need for a definite article here, I think...). I'm not one to criticize creative use of language, but a line should be drawn somewhere. I think you crossed it. For instance, it would make more sense to use "tickle eardrums".

The same search for this expression in Croatian, quoting from your review, also yields one result. So, it can't be that your translation is the only significant aspect of the problem here. It's also a matter of style (hope you don't take offense). It doesn't sound right to me in Croatian as well. And just to be clear, your original text is written clearly. I just wanted to point out one nuance that can shed some light on some broader issues.

^ +1 Gold, + 1 Focus to Mr. R. Death.


Cudnoredje, spend some hobby time with thefreedictionary
Adequate resource, includes some nuance.

On style, read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
Among the most useful 26 pages of material available.

Great! As a Croatian and English speaker you're capable of comparing my English draft with Croatian original:
http://www.terapija.net/mjuzik.asp?ID=26627

But it seems you've already done that. Ok, maybe it's better to put "da narajca ušne bubnjiće" (to arouse eardrums) than "zaintrigira" (intrigue). Now we can make that sentence more simple: "Novi album sadrži sve što bi technical death metal bend trebao imati da narajca ušne bubnjiće do eargasma." (The new album contains everything that technical death metal album should have to arouse the eardrums to eargasm". if I remove eargasm from sentence and put only "...to tickle eardrums." it'll lose its "stylish" sexual connotaion.

But what about all the other controversial sentences?

Hi, this is my fourth review, I wrote it with my heart in my fingers, I was very excited and proud of it, but... I wrote it while drunk, so I had a lot of grammar errors and spelling mistakes. After the rejection I checked it and corrected it, but it got rejected again. I'm asking for some good aid. Please help, there are mistakes I can't seem to see.

Here is my review:

Black metal apex comes from meditation and occultism in the third Schammasch record. The band has matured, found its dark soul and own sound. Their previous album, Contradiction was ambitious, a great piece of art, but somehow it seemed to be overproduced and pretentious. Triangle on the other hand is natural and honest. The band has reached the peak of their talent and art.


Of course is not for everyone, not for black metal purists, or closed minded people. A three discs record over 90 minutes is hard to digest and hard to listen to in a single session. But the music, damn! The music on this beast is one of the greatest works of art I have ever heard, an opus from privileged minds.


As the band lyrics and efforts are focused on meditation, inner dialog and spirituality, you can trust me when I say, they made occultism and reflection music. Every song is deep and dark in its own way. The ambient they created with this album it’s as if you were in the abyss dialoguing with the cosmos. Chaos is part of the universe and chaos is part of Triangle, the music gives you this feeling with the perfect executed drumming and horrendous voices. Deep thoughts come in form of clean vocals and spoken words of wisdom.


Guitar work and solos are a glorious achievement; the best performance in Schammasch discography, marvelous production and mixing has to be praised as well since every single element on each song is enjoyable and perfectly listenable. Acoustic guitars through the album are crystal clear. Composition is another highlight, every song has a structure that works as a solid body and each part is there for a reason.


When "Father's Breath" smashes the instrumental intro song, you become aware that you are facing something bigger than you would think a black metal album could be, this here is supreme. Is hard to pick a best song in a 16 tracks album, furthermore since every single one is a fine piece of music, but I'll go for "Upon the Stars of God" as the masterpiece on this monstrosity. A song that starts quite relaxed, every instrument in sullen harmony, you get comfortable as you picture the universe guided by a beautiful guitar solo, then in its progression we get to find chaos and duality, the drumming on this track is sick and unpredictable which is great, but at the end of the song after some excellent guitar riffs and bass lines, lays a superb guitar performance accompanied with clean vocals that sums up the magnificence of the whole work.



Since black metal is a genre so criticized for its simplicity, raw sound and repetitiveness, is gold to find a band that takes its music seriously and creates something original and magnificent. Triangle is a masterpiece and a work of art in every way. Black metal ends in the third and last chapter —disc 3— and it’s a very intelligent move, an epilogue it seems, an instrumental way to end your journey. I hope some black metal bands could learn from the complexity and quality from this album which is in the end, supreme black metal.

Is there anybody out there?

Ok, i'll see if I can get some help I guess. Do someone know some useful tools or softwares that could help me with english text correction, grammar and stuff?
Because it looks like i'm always doing the same mistakes over and over again according to mods. Though, it's really not intended and i'm sorry for this.

The beacons are lit, Gondor calls for aid!!!!!!

O.k., guys, someone help me out here? Please? So far here lately I have been doing really well with my reviews, all have been being accepted... then, comes this one, just now. Rejected. The reason stated simply "Poor grammar". Nothing else. So I do not know what is even wrong here. I use 2 seperate spell and punctuation checkers... and, just now, ran my review through both checkers again, and still it comes up showing no errors.

Would anyone mind pointing out what is meant by "poor grammar" please? I am not understanding? I appreciate any help at all, from anyone. Thanks!

The review is of Hermóðr's 2012 demo:

For almost ten months now, since starting back in early January of this year, was when I fell so much in love with the music of Hermóðr. And, through all this time, somehow this demo has been eluding me. Only just but a couple of days ago, have I finally found, and listened to this. This demo is simply unlike anything I have ever heard. There is just so much raw emotion presented here. So much so, that for 22 hours straight, I just could not seem to break away from listening to it. I was completely and totally captivated. I mean, the music here is just so powerful, it grabs a hold of you so damn tight, you don't even wish to fight it. You just let it completely take you over, it is that overwhelming!

All three tracks on this cassette are passionately commanding. “För alltid” is the first and, also the longest track on here. And you can really feel the longevity of it, even from the start. The drums on this are very simplistic, yet resonant, keeping the same pace of sound throughout its duration. The guitar melodies have a beautiful blending effect. While it seems to have a very pure harmony to it, at the same time, there also seems to be a droning, grainy effect. And, Rafn and that velvety, melting voice of his; there is honestly no one else on this earth that I have honestly heard that can even come close to competing with his skill level on this. This man and his unrivaled voice; when he starts to sing with his clean vocals, you just cannot help but to become imprisoned by it. I mean, when he breaks this part of his vocals out, you just almost fall to the ground, because his voice is that mesmerizing and beautiful. Undoubtedly, it will put you into an intense, weakened state.

I've really got to talk about the last track on here, “Över de snötäckta bergen”. This one song affects me I think like nothing I can honestly say I've experienced ever. The atmosphere seems to shift some on this, as there's a much more haunting and very cold sound present. This song gives me chills throughout it's entirety. I truly feel like I'm caught up in a whirlwind of emotions, from the very start of this. Slight nausea sets in, while I feel myself being pulled up into the vortex of Rafn's voice. On this one particular song, the frequency of his range in certain parts goes so deep; every single time this puts me in a state of being an emotional mess. And, of course he blends in his black metal vocals brilliantly amongst the velvet. I cannot listen to this song, and not become so overwhelmed with emotion that by the time the song is almost over, I am in tears.

This demo cassette is really something special. It is Hermóðr at its most raw, yet while being so, is nonpareil. My review of this may seem to highlight more Rafn's voice, there is a reason as to why. To me, while the music in itself is tremendously just as dominant; his voice is what is so prominently forthcoming. And, the atmosphere on this... just unreal! While very seasoned, you get the sense of autumn zephyr. And, this sense that you feel while listening seems to want to remain with you even after it's over. But then, at the same time you feel so strongly compelled to revisit this feeling, to experience the magic of this all over again.

If you truly love and cherish Hermóðr's music, and if you have not yet listened to this, you honestly need to. For while every song on every album Rafn has ever done with this project, exceeds true and vibrant beauty; this 2012 demo of his is just something extraordinarily special.

^ lots of mistakes that can't be detected by a simple checker, as well as poor wording, punctuation and word choices. for example, what exactly did you mean by "longevity" in "you can really feel the longevity of it, even from the start"? timelessness? because if a song seems long from the start, it's not a good thing at all. and "It is Hermóðr at its most raw, yet while being so, is nonpareil." sounds like a foreigner trying to sound posh with the help of a dictionary in a high school English textbook. how about "it's Hermóðr at their rawest, but also their most unique"? still not perfect, but hey, at least it sounds less clumsy (to me) and doesn't use a word that your average Hermóðr fan probably wouldn't know without looking it up in a dictionary.
anyway, you might want to proofread this review yourself and not just run it through a checker. while you're completely sober and can pay attention to small details, natch, not half-asleep and intoxicated by 22 hours of blasting Hermóðr's 2012 demo non-stop. hope i didn't do much harm

Thank you for your advice on this, I do appreciate that; really! See the thing is, I think I just got so damn caught up in this one, I mean the music (I mean, you can see how long I listened to the it!), that I accidently got carried away in how I was writing it... making it more "profound" than it needs to be. I am really glad I asked here, you are very correct I definitely need to go back and clean this up some.

I wrote something much better and more detailed than my first one review posted here, but this goes way too far beyond my translating abilities:
http://www.terapija.net/mjuzik.asp?ID=26966

If anyone whose a reviewer wants to, they can get a shareware copy of OpenOffice from this link. https://www.openoffice.org/download/

My old laptop with thousands of hours of music and tons of writing crapped out on me during my four years away and I'm so glad that this program could still access the written files I had kept from Word 2007 from a flash drive.

It's like using Word 2000 to me with a few spiffy extras, especially because I used Word 1998 and 2000 until I got Word 2007 a decade ago. Man, now I'm feeling old. Either way, saving your reviews only on Metal-Archives shouldn't be the only goal. I have every review I've written, including the terrible ones that got moderated out of MA, since I started on a file that I'm still filling. Now I've filled a document of 366 pages and if, in some terrible circumstance, the Encyclopedia Metallum is attacked by some unscrupulous hackers, we can still submit and keep its reviewing strength up.

Consider it a metal review portfolio as well. Hell, consider it a show of how much you've grown, and for many newcomers it will show just where you can improve while also having a place to save some appreciative e-mails or 'fuck yous' from bands that you've chatted with.

I'd say if you want to review music on here and put the time into it, keep a backup that, when you're a bit older, you can look at and appreciate when heavy metal becomes so weird that it's way beyond any of our grasp.

After I saw the "Gondor calls for aid" thing, I thought that was funny, so I'll try to help.

I think there aren't many serious problems with grammar and spelling, but probably the reason this was rejected was because the reader can't tell what the music actually sounds like. If I count all the things you mention, it might be clearer. You say the album:
1. is "black metal"
2. is "not for black metal purists"
3. is "occultism and reflection music"
4. has "perfect executed drumming and horrendous voices...(and) clean vocals" - should be "perfectly executed drumming..."
5. has "glorious" guitar work and solos
6. has "acoustic guitars"
7. is "bigger than you would think a black metal album could be"
8. includes a track called 'Upon the Stars of God', which has "a beautiful guitar solo", "sick and unpredictable" drumming, and "excellent guitar riffs and bass lines".

1 and 2 contradict each other, because you don't tell us what is different about this kind of black metal. Are the vocals weird? I'm not sure. I just know there are "horrendous voices". Does that mean the vocals are really terrible? Or do they sound really inhuman? The description of the instruments is especially unhelpful, because you have just used words like "perfect" and "glorious". I guess your score for the album is high, but I have no idea why you think they are so good! This part is what got the review rejected by the moderators. You need to describe specific things about the music, not general comments and opinions.

I hope you find these comments useful.

Gas

Hello to the great folks at MA
I wrote a review for the band Funeral Hearse from Singapore. It's still in pending status. Its been quite awhile now. I'm wondering if i had not written the review well or maybe its not a well known band.
Can someone please help me with how to improve my writing of reviews here although i have written quite extensively for a number of Metal blogs. I think MA has high standards but english is not my native language and maybe i suck at writing.
Thanks anyways!

Hey guys,

just wanted to ask for some input to improve my way of writing reviews. Feel free to read through my reviews, I'd love to hear your thoughts about them.
Not a native English speaker, so be kind about spelling/grammar, but there shouldn't be that many issues, otherwise "Feuer frei" as Rammstein would say.

Please ignore my review for 300 Cobras, I'm planning on rewriting or just deleting it anways, because it's way to focussed on the guitars

Reviews

Thanks in advance for your thougts/help/improvements.

Hi guys my review for this awesome band Funeral Hearse from Singapore was rejected.
It seems mine was too annoying to read lol!
Can someone write a better one?

here's the review

Okay finally a Black Metal band from Singapore with no ugly looking wannabe Norwegian corpse paint and all that warmetal spikes heavy chains used to lock storage gates and gay bullet belt bullshit. No dreadfully long and stupid sounding song titles like "Demonicfrostbite Goatpenis Execration Rituals" which some bands from this country are notoriously infamous for. No! none of that bullshit or lousy sound production with just horseshit that some of these Blasphemy wannabes from Singapore put out once awhile after they have grown bored with their girlfriends. Funeral Hearse is a band that plays quality black metal.

Funeral Hearse is something like a creme de la creme of the south asian black metal scene.
Very intense and crushing Black Metal yet with an excellent sound and production.
The guitars have a tone that carries the sound very well especially when it comes to the trademark Norwegian Black Metal tremolo pickings and the 4 tracks in this ep offering has a very cold, grim and frighteningly Attilaesque vocals to carry the merciless Black Metal attack with such strength and force.
Usually the bands from these part of the world do not have vocals that lets you hear what is it that they sing. It's usually some garble mumbling rubbish shrieks and screams with no substance or meaning but here you can hear the vocals prounouncing each word with clarity all through the merciless barrage of sonic assault and pounding of drums and blast beats.

I would've rated this a 80% but had to settle for 75% instead because though it's a very good ep release considering the fact that it's just the debut of this band, i found the tracks rather short and sometimes the guitars played in haste.
They should really work on getting some harmony and melody rather than be repetitive with their guitar chords. The bass needs to be balanced up a little as well as the bass work sounds a little low on the tracks.

Funeral Hearse seems to be a promising band.
Waiting to see what kind of sonic destruction they bring next!

here are some links!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvrDOGawunQ

https://redefiningdarknessrecords.bandc ... thwinds-ep

reviews

http://www.metal-revolution.com/reviews ... deathwinds

http://www.nocleansinging.com/2017/10/0 ... wood-fell/

http://occultblackmetalzine.blogspot.sg ... -spit.html

would really appreciate your feedback and help to write review!

Some of the submissions we see in this thread are bad, but might improve with practice. Some suffer only from a language barrier. Some of them might be annoying because an opinion isn't shared or the style is ridiculous, but that's not a problem if the review itself does what the rules say it must. Some offerings, like this writer's, are like panhandlers you just don't feel right giving money to. There's just something about them. Clearly their hygiene is bad, they smell of their own varied accretion of "dirt," their manners are tacky, but those features alone don't explicitly set them apart from most other reviews around them. As a public transport-commuter and pedestrian, I'm inclined to support certain individuals (buskers are statistically more likely to gain a few coin) and others not (like the fellow who says it's his 50th birthday everytime he shows up). It's a snap judgement, usually, a knee-jerk reaction, a social heuristic developed over time. Sometimes these reactions are reductive and may leave one with a temporary taste of regret, but sometimes you simply don't like them. The reaction is immediate, instinctive, animalistic. You couldn't care less if they live or die. The one with horns turns away, and you agree with him.

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.

Thanks, I will

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?