Metal Reviews

You're welcome to comment on:


Click here to see the review.

Fuck yes!! Great to see these guys getting some attention here. Primo Victoria is better than this imho but this is still a killer album! 85/100 for me (I would only give a few albums a 95..)

I need to hear this. I'm listening to Primo Victoria right now, what a great album. Brode has such a killer voice.

You have only done one review where you have not given the album a 90+ score. 90+ score should be given to only real gems.

overrated again!!!this site is beginning to loose it with all this new reviewers that throws 90+ on each and every album. Soon you dont know which albums that really stands out are... Does anyone agree?

Battle Anthem Power Metal is an official subgenre? Wtf?

That said,

MetalMaster wrote

And your point being???? Do you keep tally of every reviewers Quotes??? At least if you're going to come out with some pointless drivel you could at least get your facts right! Here we go:

Manticora - 96 - Well deserved.
Threat Signal - 90 - Which in my books is NOT 90+.
Evanescence - 60 - Severely over-quoted according to the 11 page debate somewhere else in this forum.
Van Canto - 85 - Their A-Capella uniqueness still has my jury out on that one. I'll wait for their next album to see if it deserves a higher score.
Sabaton - 95 - Extremely well deserved. The best Battle Anthem Power Metal album I've heard including anything from Manowar. I'd liked to have given it 99 but that would have just been stoopid!!!

According to my reckoning, I've gave 3 out of 5 reviews less than 90+.

Now could you perhaps give some more constructive criticism, preferably something better than the usual one liner "That band sucks" kinda shit. Why dont you go to the band website at http://www.sabaton.net, listen to some clips of the album, watch the video, form an opinion and come back and discuss it. Go on, you know it makes sense!

I saw Sabaton live a couple of weeks ago in Västerås and even though I thought that this album was pretty good before, seeing the songs being performed live took them up even higher in my eyes. They really delivered this time, a friend told me they failed to do that acouple of years ago, and the crowd responded great. They did Primo Victoria as extra number, a worthy finish to a fantastic show, they really deserve some attention.

Sounded decent, but was far from anything spectacular.
I would perhaps given it something in the range 75-80 from the first listening.

Well, I for one was blown away by Sabaton's first CD "Primo Victoria". I loved it so much that my dumb ass pre-ordered "Attero Dominatus " from their site before the release date. Did I have a clue as to how many US Dollars that converted to.....ha....hell no! I paid entirely too much for this CD but it was worth every stinking dime.

I really love everything this band has recorded. Even the cheese-laden last song on each CD. They remind me of a modern day Accept with lower tougher vocals. The war driven lyrics fit the sonic barrage extremely well. They've carved their own niche in metal very quickly and I find Sabaton very addictive.

This is in my top 5 for this year. You can call me insane all you like....I love this fkin' band!!

There have been an insane amount of great releases this year. Not all of them have been masterpieces, but there are more than a few that I feel deserve the score they got. I can't really say what I think of this particular album right, now but after a few spins I will come back to see how much I agree with the score. But you guys also gotta remember, the most important thing is that if the review matches the score. We are all bound to have different opinions, but if we can thoroughly explain why we think something deserves the score it gets, that is pretty much the best we can do.

Nicely put Dylan. There have been an insane amount of brilliant releases this year, I'd even go so far as to say "The best year ever!" No doubt someone will disagree with me but that is my honest opinion. Which brings me back to the way we quote, or the way I quote anyways: Everybody is affected by music in different ways, that is why there are so many different types, styles, genres or whatever you want to label it. I absolutely hate Rap music, Opera and Electro Dance or House or whatever name it calls itself this week. So is there something wrong with me because I hate it? To me - No, to fans of that type of music - Yes. Now, I thought that 'Attero Dominatus' was one of the best albums I have heard in a while so I gave it a high score - because that is what I thought it deserved. I am a big fan of music in the vein of 'Attero Dominatus' so I am biased towards giving music like it a high score. At Metal Reviews, the reviewers mainly review albums from their favourite genres so if you think about it, they will probably high score it. Occasionally a reviewer will get an album from their favourite genre that is real bad, but human nature being what it is, the reviewer will probably score it a little higher than it deserves, just because it is in his/her favourite genre.

Occasionally, I like to grab something from a genre that I am unfamiliar with because it helps me to listen properly to the music in an unbiased manner. Case in point was my review of Evanescence's 'The Open Door'. At the last count, the shitstorm that caused is into its eleventh page. I will do the same again shortly; grab another album from a band and genre that I know little or nothing about and see what happens this time. Hopefully, I will write it in an unbiased and objective manner, sit back and wait for cluster of shitbombs to hit the Forum. Fans from whatever type of music will no doubt regard me as a cloth-eared wanker and say I don't know what I'm on about. To an extent, they will be right; I will know very little about the band but the opinion I give in the review will be completely honest. In fact, it will be more honest than if I had reviewed a band I knew a lot about and really liked, because, no matter how hard you try, there will always be an element of favouritism creeping in. And that my friends, is probably why a lot of reviews get higher scored that you think they should.

Now, here's the thing, if we as reviewers should write reviews on bands that are not in our favourite genre I have no doubt it will lower the Quotes dramatically, but I also have no doubt that the howls of complaint from you Forumites about us reviewers not knowing what we are on about would also increase dramatically. The reviews would also be more drab and probably boring because the reviewer doesn't have the little snippets of information that a fan of that particular kind of music would have.

So what would you prefer? Us to write mediocre reviews about music from bands whose genres we know little or nothing about, which will equate to probable lower, though perhaps more honest, quotes or, write more in-depth reviews about music from bands and genres that we are a little more knowledgeable, thereby having higher quotes due to favouritism? IMHO, what you read within the body of the review should be what you concentrate on and what you should try and base your judgement and perception of an album on, not the quote. Too many of you put too much emphasis on the quote - let it go! Or perhaps we should just skip writing the review all together and just give it a score???? Make our life a lot easier, but somehow, I don't think you would go for it!



There are that many sub-genres and sub-sub-genres out there so I'm sure another one won't make much difference, besides, as the say, "If the cap fits, wear it!" And I think 'Battle Anthem Power Metal' sums up Sabaton's style beautifully. What would you call Sabaton's style of music then????

Um...Power Metal?

Nah, too obvious.

Yeah but this album is a fucking pure gem if you ask me !
The score is RIGHT ON !

Just my 2 cents,
Chris

I personally never regarded this as a subgenre but more like a very short description of the style of the album. I just can't accept all this categorization that is the latest trent in all kinds of music. It's not a genre or subgenre if only a couple of bands play it and it's definitely not a subgenre just because some words like battle-anthem, stonish or ding-badabing fit the metal in question like a glove. So if people just regard that line as a short description of the style of the album as I mentioned earlier, there will be no problems about it.

Antonakis Wrote:


Clap, Clap Clap, Clap - That's a round of applause for the voice of sanity. I spend more time trying to categorize what genre the review I've just written should come under that I really, REALLY want to. From now on I'm going to do as Antonakis suggests - use that line to give y'alls a description of the style of the album rather than try and shoehorn it into a genre it has no place. Thank you Antonakis you bring sense where all around is mayhem and confusion.

Reviewers should not simply review what they know they will like. And just because you may not like something doesn't mean you can't give it an honest, informative review. The process for an album you like or dislike should be exactly the same.

I have been listening to this thing all day and it fucking rules. I am waiting to see how much staying power it has with me before I make my final decision though.

I might be stucking here with nonsense issues, but anyways..
..and I think you are mixing up the countries here. In Sweden they can go to army if they want to, so it's definately non-obligatory thing there.

Here in Finland, pretty much everybody (~18-28 year old men) must take 6 or 12 months of military service or 12 months civilian hippie service either same time in jail.

About the album; I think both their latest releases are great! Maybe pretty one-dimensional, but so what. Many others in my liking are too. Especially the often-upbrought Metal Crüe with lyric UFO shooting Gamma Ray mentioning two of my faves with extremely likable prenouncing of "r" brought instatgrin on the first listening. The whole gem:

Good review. I've immensely enjoyed this album and it's definitely in my top 5 for 2006.
Regarding their live performance: I saw them earlier in the year opening for Edguy and Dragonforce. They were brilliant. I even think they came close to Edguy and they certainly gave Dragonforce a good kick up the backside (ok, I'll admit it here, I don't like Dragonforce. That's just me.).
I can only recommend the album to everyone out there.