cd/lp/tape etc. REVIEWS

[Levas]

Is that actually said in a text accompanying the allbum?

As Andrew already wrote, yes. and I think we were laughing with someone that there are endless possibilities in here and in reviewing such subtle thing as sound/music/noise. these statements that are just worthless, wrong and silly. why not cannibal corpse meets vomir? or panthera meets shift? why not "when i woke up dead one morning, there was no sun outside. i was sitting in the dark cellar, hearing these sounds of madness. something turned upside down in me. something evil, grotesque. i felt that the beast is growing. i took my knife and started shouting at silent walls, staring at me. let me out of these sounds, but they grabbed me, they took me, they dominated me. i was trying to escape, but my legs were tired. my eyes were bleeding. i felt sand in my hands and in my mouth. broken ribs, tearing apart my flesh were not letting me drown into the dream again. until i felt relief. i died. i died with the last sounds of the disc." [please insert your band and album]

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

i was trying to escape, but my legs were tired.[please insert your band and album]

I was meaning to make a decent album but I couldn't be bothered so I shat out the usual hippie space rock kack.

Yours truly,

Skullflower

[tisbor]

Worst Skullflower material i ever listened to.
"Fucked On A Pile Of Corpses" is a nice title though.

[Levas]

i feel slight relief that i'm not complete retard here. for after reviewing, i've read several reviews from other sources that stated

With Fucked on a Pile of Corpses, Bower has delivered the strongest, most cohesive (and, ironically, given the titanic length of its predecessor Strange Keys to Untune God's Firmament, the shortest) Skullflower album since Tribulation, and maybe since before the band's late-nineties hiatus.

Accents like the howling, black metal-esque vocals of "Anubis Station," alongside the distinct, guitar-based feedback hovering over the album like a slow-passing thunderstorm, link Skullflower's would-be alien sounds back to humanity.

Fucked On A Pile of Corpses can lay claim to be the most unremitting release from Skullflower. It's also the shortest and most direct. There's definitely a place in your Skullflower collection for this.

so i thought that perhaps i shouldn't say anything bad about such a great band, but something happened and review got online. and now it's too late.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I guess saying honest feelings about any band - big or small - is doing everybody a favor. I personally think there is couple good tracks on that CD, but as a whole, it falls so far from what it could and should be. My review found in SI#7.

[Matthias]

Quite fond of this album, listened to it alot last year. Not a masterpiece by any means, could've been more coherent overall and I'm not too sure about the production at times, but tracks like Sleipnir... right up my alley. Have almost only heard bad things about it though. For the more recent Skullflower releases, I still think Malediction is the best.

[Andrew McIntosh]

i thought that perhaps i shouldn't say anything bad about such a great band

Never think that.

It's interesting to speculate how much bands and artists pay attention to their reviews. On the one hand people love good reviews but on the other pretend to ignore the negative ones. I suppose the difference is how constructive the criticism is, but even then, does anyone read a review of their work that is negative and think "hmm, maybe I need to change a few things"? Or do they just brush it off?

[XXX]

It's interesting to speculate how much bands and artists pay attention to their reviews.

like when willy bennet got all pissed that mikko panned cut hands newest album...finnish noiseabilly heh

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

i thought that perhaps i shouldn't say anything bad about such a great band

Never think that.

It's interesting to speculate how much bands and artists pay attention to their reviews. On the one hand people love good reviews but on the other pretend to ignore the negative ones. I suppose the difference is how constructive the criticism is, but even then, does anyone read a review of their work that is negative and think "hmm, maybe I need to change a few things"? Or do they just brush it off?

There's guy I used to know (self appointed HNW champion reviewer number one nowadays) who confessed to shying away from giving negative reviews. This was before he'd become the HNW maestro but he said that if he didn't like something he'd rather not review it. He was particularly concerned at the time about some artist/label he was in a priapic state over that had sent him an album he didn't like. "What should I do? I CAN'T give THIS bad review!".

[Levas]

ah, i should have written something like

i thought that perhaps i shouldn't say anything bad about such a great band [sarcasm]

perhaps. though during first several years i was also quite uncomfortable with giving bad reviews. even for the most awful records from labels like that mask of the slave and so on. but if you lie and try to pretend that you liked this or that then it is wasting your time, your readers' time, artist's time, potential buyer's time and overal, wasting resources. there are always different tastes, different reviewers and so on.

[ImpulsyStetoskopu]

I suppose the difference is how constructive the criticism is,

I think this should be clue to every good review. Interesting review, in my opinion, should include all prons and cons, not abstract feelings or very subjective opinions which aren't based on facts, and every interpretation should have real reasons. We (readers/artists) can talk about this interpretation but it should be based in music/lyrics/manifestos/graphics etc. Problems can be when reviewer writes about his friend's music/release. I don't think this is a good way...Too much emotional (positive or negative) relationship between artist and reviewer isn't good for profesional reviewing.

[Andrew McIntosh]

It can get problematic when you review an album by friends that you actually do like, too. You don't want to piss in anyone's pockets but you don't want to not share the pleasure, either.

When I started doing a review zine a few years back I had a policy of not doing any bad reviews on the unstable grounds that I didn't want to "offend" anyone. A stupid idea, for the reasons Levas has already stated - I even got to the point where I had to tell someone I wasn't going to review their tape because I didn't like it. Would have been better to do the bad review.

I've also thought for a long time that doing reviews is a bit redundant, anyway. Who makes their decisions on what to buy based on a review? I only write them here because I think the Playlist section doesn't tell me enough and because, fuck it, I like writing about what I listen to. I sure wish more people would use this section of the forum! A bit more insight than just a list of what's on the stereo is something I appreciate.

[ImpulsyStetoskopu]

Who makes their decisions on what to buy based on a review? I only write them here because I think the Playlist section doesn't tell me enough and because, fuck it, I like writing about what I listen to. I sure wish more people would use this section of the forum! A bit more insight than just a list of what's on the stereo is something I appreciate.

I think that reviewer should be intermediary between artist and receiver. There should be place for description about release, music, how is important this item in the context of (sub)culture/(anti)art, not commercial factors. If I could recommend anything for Mikko or anybody who wants to run music magazine with reviews section, it would be wonderful read, instead of many reviews, less of them but every release by seperately 2-3 reviewers. Besides there should be established criteria what reviewer should consider in assessment. This is a bigger chalange for reviewers but it would be more interesting and more profesional (what doesn't it mean that SI isn't interesting or profesional now).

[Brad]

Reviews are good for creating awareness of a release.  Obviously I'll pay more attention to a review that someone has taken time to write than if they had just posted "here's a list of 20 CDs I've recently heard."  The fact that something has inspired writing about it kind of in itself suggests some importance.  And for reviews of releases I'm already aware of, it is just interesting and a sense of community to see what other people thought of them, given that hardly anyone I know in real life appreciates these styles of music. 

I like the Sonia Dietrich reviews in SI, that are more of a creative writing approach than just facts/opinions.  Her reviews have a kind of infectious excitement and immersion in the music/culture that I don't sense from most music writers. (Does she post here?)

[linxtyx]

Negative reviews are more based on constructive criticism, while positive more on individual fetishism. But it's only my point of view. And I hate those good, but [+ bonus suggestion that lowers that "good"], nothing special [+ bonus suggestion that highers that "bad"] - this type is most insincere I think.