Metal Reviews

I was looking around Allmusic.com and noticed something peculiar about how they give album ratings. It appears that more 5-star ratings are given to non-metal albums, while metal albums appear to be short-stacked when it comes to being given a perfect.
Going to heavy metal's top albums chart, I count a mere nine 5-star albums for all of metal's subgenres and another five for borderline genres. Just within the subgenre of rap gangsta rap, nine 5-star albums have been given and many more outside of gangsta rap are given. Too many in my opinion. A 5-star album should be the magnum opus of an entire genre and having 9 albums be given 5-stars for one sub genre is too much.
Also, classic albums such as Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss have been given 3-stars and Iron Maiden's album Somewhere in Time given 3.5-stars. It seems as if Allmusic's reviewers aren't completely knowledgeable about the genre of heavy metal so, more than any other genre of music, have underrated albums.
I realize that I'm overreacting a bit on this, but I'm interested in people's opinions on this.

http://www.allmusic.com/explore/style/h ... 655/albums
http://www.allmusic.com/explore/style/g ... 686/albums

I definitely know what you mean. I discovered allmusic years before I found this site. Their lower scores have often withheld me from checking out an album in the past. Later I discovered that a lot of albums they have rated with 3 stars (sometimes even less) are actually classics of the metal genre.

What I've also noticed in their reviews of a metal album is that they often say it sounds exactly the same as everything else out there, that it's nothing special, that it has been done before, etc.. Although for some (probably a lot of) albums that is certainly the case, I do feel that allmusic tend to ignore the fact that this can be overcome by good songwriting.

It's a site that caters to a wider audience, mostly to fans of mainstream music I guess, so it doesn't surprise me all too much. But you would expect that a site which calls itself ALLmusic would have writers who are a little better informed or at least more in touch with the underground and the importance of certain albums (wether they're classics or not).

But hey, you know where to go if you actually want decent reviews.

The reviews do not match the ratings AT ALL.

All you need to do is look at Rush's ratings. I think they gave Grace Under Pressure a half a star. I think Presto and Moving Pictures are the only albums to get a decent rating.

What tools.

In short: Allmusic sucks ass.