Metal Archives

ShadowOfDeath said:
I'm notorious for writing reviews on MA. I'm far from the best writer though. some of the best reviewers are Boris, GrimAndFrostbitten, Spawnhorde, Vim_Fuego, take note from their reviews.

I thought you were just notorious for having the worst BM project in the history of the world.
 
ShadowOfDeath said:
More people know me for my reviews than for my music.
If anyone knows about you for your reviews, it's because you've whined and bitched about them getting rejected so often.

Oh, and I also review on MA. My two Averse Sefira reviews are pretty bad, particularly the Homecoming's March one, but my more recent ones are pretty good IMO.
 
I don't tend to read reviews on M-A all that often. There are too many people who merely praise or trash albums with an all too strong opinion on the piece, rather than telling you about it.

There are a few reviews posted that I really enjoy though. But to answer the thread, I don't review on that site, no.

@ the guy who wrote the in flames review: Why don't you post it in this thread if you still have it, so we can see for ourselves whether it is likely to have been rejected based on its perspective.
 
Cynical said:
If anyone knows about you for your reviews, it's because you've whined and bitched about them getting rejected so often.

Oh, and I also review on MA. My two Averse Sefira reviews are pretty bad, particularly the Homecoming's March one, but my more recent ones are pretty good IMO.

I recall liking your Therion one.
 
5thSeason: Have you ever thought that they had a quota on the number of reviews they want for a specific album? I mean, IF is very big now, and people don't need to sift through 30+ reviews. I think this is probably the case. This doesn't bode well for me, as I listen to fairly well known stuff.

I never liked UltraBoris. He basicallly only gives good scores to thrash albums. I did enjoy reading his Master of Puppets 0% review though.

What do you guys think about song-by-song reviews? I know it's not the professional way to do things, but I think they work for trying to get other people's opinions on the stuff you already know.
 
I'm a moderator at Metal-Archives, though I rarely do work anymore cause I'm too busy playing World of Warcraft. When I DO work on the site, it's mostly reviews, and I assure you that contrary to 5thSeason's bitching, I don't reject reviews just cause I disagree with them. See: Requiem99, the most notable combination of great writing and bad taste ever (with Cynical here coming in a close second.) I also have written 20 or so reviews, and need to write more, but I'm really fucking lazy.

The lack of a standardized number system IS a problem, but you should generally ignore the numbers anyway. Any reviewer worth paying attention to should be able to convey his opinion without using a number.

I generally hate song-by-song reviews. It's okay if you talk about all the songs in order, but do it in paragraph form and vary things. Don't do that list format shit. Nine times out of ten, I will reject anything with a list of songs straight off, unless it looks REALLY well-written.

Shadow0fDeath will forever go down in history as the epitome of Tr00bie Syndrome for his genre-defining work with Apocalypse. Oh excuse me, that's The One True Apocalypse. Fag.

MasterOLightning said:
I never liked UltraBoris. He basicallly only gives good scores to thrash albums. I did enjoy reading his Master of Puppets 0% review though.
Untrue; read through his shit. His highest scores are actually to trad/speed metal albums, and a deal of power metal too. He just doesn't like modern or extreme metal.
 
Pyrus said:
I'm a moderator at Metal-Archives, though I rarely do work anymore cause I'm too busy playing World of Warcraft. When I DO work on the site, it's mostly reviews, and I assure you that contrary to 5thSeason's bitching, I don't reject reviews just cause I disagree with them. See: Requiem99, the most notable combination of great writing and bad taste ever (with Cynical here coming in a close second.).
:D

@ Jaar: That's Tops! :loco:
 
I write reviews for that site too. And I also assign scores based on the academic grading scheme (90s - A, 80s - B, etc.). Others, like UltraBoris, assign scores based on where the album actually stands on a scale of 1 to 100, meaning that 50 is average. When I look back at my old reviews, I find it intesting to see how my musical taste has changed since then (I used to like modern pseudo thrash, Gothenburg, Opeth, and other stuff I no longer like). My more recent reviews are definitely better than my older reviews, as well as more reflective of my current musical taste.
 
I have written a lot of reviews for M-A lately (under the same alias as here) and I have 20 something reviews up now. What I can say is that I've never experienced any rejected reviews because of opinions differing from the moderators. I even had a negative "Soundtrack To Your Escape" review rejected, so that surely clears all doubts about that.

When it comes to "grade integrity", I try to do negative reviews as well as positive ones to "balance" it all up. Looking at my reviews today I do feel that some reviews have a bit too high grades. But I'm gonna try and occasionally lower some of 'em to fix that.

I also have to add that UltraBoris reviews are damn entertaining to read, even if I disagree with his opinions occasionally.
 
I rather like Shadow's reviews. I won't say his music doesn't blow, but we all have to start somewhere, on the offchance that he's serious. :p
 
Oh my God!

You're telling me that our own ShadowOfDeath is THE ShadowOfDeath? The one with that..."BM band?"

I remember hearing about it, but I never believed they could have been one and the same.

Also, for me, it's a rule of thumb to use M-A for purely factual archival purposes, not for reviews.