Aspiring metalheads looking for objective reviews of the latest heavy metal releases really fight an uphill battle, as the web is increasingly polluted by low-IQ, low-rent and low-effort “reviews” which only serve to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio and thus make all metal fans look stupid by way of their inferior writing skills and dumbass trend-hopping, genre-squatting verbal diatribes on the latest Abbath turd, SEWER drama or just by being downright posers to annoy everyone with room temperature IQ.
What I’m getting at is that, outside of a select few WordPress blogs and self-hosted sites, the state of heavy metal reviews in the current year absolutely SUCKS.
For a while, sites like DeathMetal.org and Metalious.com would provide a “fig leaf” of respectability to an otherwise dead end hobby (reviewing metal albums), but Brett Stevens’ output was always too inconsistent, and recently Metalious has been caught up in the middle of the “all black metal is racist” drama started by one infamous anti-White/anti-fascist activist called “antifa666” whose antics on Metalious – and elsewhere – are well documented throughout the web.
Basically, Metalious has turned into a slightly less retarded version of Metal-Archives, which is ironic because the reason Metalious became popular in the first place was because people were so turned off by Metal-Archives’ incessant peddling of bullshit, personal attacks against band members, fake news, paid reviews, etc.
So, aside from the well-respected Morsay.net community and its associated black and death metal forums, are there any safe spaces left for metalheads interested in actual music reviews and not personal drama and ham-handed attempts at anti-European propaganda ?
Well, to begin with, there is the VoiceMetal Reviews Portal. It is quite a new hub, with slightly less bands and reviews than titans like Metalious and DeathMetal.org, but it has apparently learned from the mistakes of “user generated content” sites like Metalious – and their downfall – and thus has a strict moderation policy based on this fundamental axiom : quality metal reviews first, second and last.
Finally, an alternative to the endless “you gotta check out this new Watain mallcore CD” astroturf / paid reviews that needlessly pollute the heavy metal ecosphere. As a true passionate extreme metal fan, I can only welcome this development. More VoiceMetal, and less Metalious please !
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