Ultimate Metal review of The Shameless

[circus_brimstone]

Lamentations of the Flame Princess - The LotFP Quintology Part I: The Shameless

[Jim LotFP]

Originally Posted by circus_brimstone

Lamentations of the Flame Princess - The LotFP Quintology Part I: The Shameless

When it comes to buying things that are on biggie labels... it's always going to be a band I've been a fan of for awhile. I do my discovering on a much lower plane... anyway, first I try to buy directly from the band. If they aren't selling it directly (or are doing something stupid like pretending sending a CD to Finland costs $8), I go to my local metal shop. If that doesn't work, then I do some online comparitive pricing. Usual stops end up being The End or CDON if it's old major label stuff.

Oh, and thanks for taking that close a look at it.

[circus_brimstone]

[DBB]

I’ve been meaning to respond, but I have been busy as hell and finally managed to get to it. Even now, I’m going to more brief than I would like to be.

I can’t say I was personally offended

I’m glad. There was none intended.

is that there is less material to write about, so it follows that it’s less work than writing a review for a full-length album

This is not how I read it—and still do not. I know I am not going to convince you otherwise, since this is the second time you have made this argument, but Fonseca’s statement reveals a general lack of respect for independently released EPs/demo from where I’m standing. To place these thoughts at the front and center of a review automatically tags the release as something worth less-than-serious attention from where I’m standing.

I also don’t think it follows that less songs mean less work. Most reviews don’t mention many songs anyways, so the difference between three and ten songs becomes much less vast the numbers appear when all is said and done. The majority of reviews all grapple with the overall sound and aspects of an artist, so whether there are 20 minutes or 50 minutes is somewhat of a moot point. Less time listening perhaps, but the qualitative measuring and parsing of material is still same, I think.

Less music may even mean more work, but that is a tangent I’m not going to go off on.

As an aside, openly admitting laziness is tacky and revealing. One of the reporters who writes for various mid-sized newspapers who I called lazy in one of the articles was up in arms over it and sent me a few emails demanding and then pleading for me to remove his name and/or take the lazy accusation out.

The appearance of this statement in a review is just tacky all the way around and indicative of some larger problems.

Eardly’s comments were just stone cold idiotic, and I see no need to mention or contest that and it is good to see that you did not either.

Perhaps Burns meant to focus on Fonseca’s attitude and comments by divorcing them from the MR M.O., but that’s not quite what I inferred. Instead, it reads like Burns didn’t weigh all the evidence that actually points to the contrary, that demo reviews are treated like any other kind of release and are not separated from the pack.

It was the attitudes of these writers and their work, not the overall policy of MetalReview that I was honing in on in this section of the piece. Maybe I could have been clearer about that, but the general structure of the editorial runs from the broad to the narrow (established act to demo level, large circulation print mags to webzines, overall policies to specific attitudes). I do briefly quote Gruise, but the singling out of Dave Fonseca and Jon Eardley was intended to be representative slices of an attitude that is common.

You are entirely correct in making sure to state the particulars of MR’s polices and practices, and perhaps I should have inserted something to that effect in there, but I was more focused on the writers in this particular case with a limited amount of space, so that is the way it shook out. There are numerous things I wanted to mention that I did not, and may pick up this topic again someday and be much more systematic and surgical about it.

However, as I said in the article, there are exceptions and variations across the board, but I was more interested in general tendencies which cut across publications and form the general landscape. I actually could make numerous counter arguments against the evidence I employ, but think that the overall thrust of the editorial holds water. Attitudes and practices are certainly separate, but I think that both feed into a larger current to form one stream of thought which makes us all much poorer as listeners.

Even if you don’t care for TO, the interview is an interesting read – well-researched questions spark informative answers with plenty of entertaining banter in between.

Thanks. That is the highest compliment that can be given, and I appreciate it. Although most of the credit should go to Ben and PJ for their lengthy, informative and engaging answers.

We need to let heavy metal know that we care about it as it ages so it doesn’t continue to disfigure itself like an aging stripper trying to remain attractive to the youngsters waving their dollar bills,” writes Raggi on page 5 in his review of Battlewitch’s Fyredroyde. So how do we “let heavy metal know that we care about it”? Even if we figure out how, will anything change? Does it matter?

I thought that the Battlewitch review was the best of the bunch myself. It really hit home and made me think about some things and is in some ways the culmination of a direction Jim has been heading in for a few years now.

One of the things that has made heavy metal a part of my life for over two decades now is that it is an ideal. It is not an exaggeration or being melodramatic to say that shares much on common with other ideal like freedom, liberty, equality, brotherhood, civilization, humanity and many others that are open to competing and conflictual interpretations, but have a firm and immutable core which keeps them within certain boundaries. Recognizing this is the first step to showing heavy metal that you care. Heavy metal is something much, much larger than any one fan, label band or listener—it is something which has established traditions and conventions *gasp* which must be honored and respected in order for it to thrive and survive.

This certainly does not translate into stagnation or a lack of innovation, because an ideal will drive and push people until the day that they fall and are thrown into a grave due to the possibility of a better future after the lights are turned off.

Do the LotFP’s writer’s CD collections stay true to the sentiments they’ve relayed here? I can’t say for sure, but I’m skeptical.

Close, but it is not hermetically sealed off from Century Media, Metal Blade and Relapse releases of late. There are few in there and will be a few more in the future, but most of their output does not interest me as a listener, so it is decision that does not have to be made too often. Earache is beyond the pale for me, they will never see a dime from me again.

It is a good jab, but a bit of a flimsy one. The metal industry is something that we are all mired down in one way or another, and one can either acknowledge that things are rotten or not.


Something a few brave souls will acknowledge:

Earache is a piece of shit and Metal Blade has been pretty professional up to this point, but you still have problems now and again. Our ideology and the way our band works doesn't necessary fit within the music industry or record label ideals generally.
Gavin Ward

[circus_brimstone]

Thanks for the response, Dave. I was hoping you would have one. I think you've addressed most of the issues I brought up to my satisfaction. At the very least, your stances are more clear to me now.

[DBB]

Originally Posted by circus_brimstone

Thanks for the response, Dave. I was hoping you would have one.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. I probably should have said that first.

I'm always interested to read what people have to say, and I do think it was a fair, level, above-board and thorough representation and review of the contents.

[davefons]

I understand your passion. I can also see how it would make me a target in your eyes. My reviews won't cure cancer, and I don't think it is necessary to tell people how hard I work to write them. I like to make people laugh, and to let them know what albums sound like so they don't buy bad ones. I'm a fan first and foremost. I don't write long reviews, because I'm a firm believer in saying things as concisely and hygienically as possible - without embellishing. I feel I do that well. Incidentially, Moe from Morgue Supplier was pleased with my review, and seemingly got the joke. I'll glady review anything this band sends my way in the future.

I take pride in doing well in any task that I endeavor. Considering the hard work this bands put into their albums, for little financial reward, I just don't have the constitution to short change them in a review. My introduction may have hinted to you that I could care less about unsigned artists. But I think most readers who weren't motivated by a pre-determined thesis such as yours got that joke, especially if they've follwed me at all during my nearly three year tenure at MR. Instead you read that itro and used it as ammunition. That Morque Supplier review also came in a month where I intentionally signed up to review every last unsigned act in our review queue. I wonder if you read any of them?

My concern is that I think you did a disservice to your readers by connecting my review with a general disregard for demos as MetalReview.com. As a journalist, did you consider contacting one of us at MR first? I would have totally welcomed the opportunity the speak to you on this topic, because it's an interesting and important one. You might have gained a little more insight into how we approach demo reviews, and how our policy of reviewing everything that comes through the mailbox complicates that. Maybe you would have had to change your thesis if learned a little bit more about how we did things? Instead, you just took a shot at me. Considering we're sort of colleagues in the metal journalism world, I just don't see the point of that. We should be working together, not against each other.

That is my honest feedback. No harm intended, I repsect the role you play in the Metal Journalism community and I do not wish to be enemies.

`Dave Fonseca

[DBB]

Originally Posted by davefons

As a journalist, did you consider contacting one of us at MR first?

Albert Mudrian said the same thing, and Nathan Birk wrote me to request an interview before I write what I have called the “NSBM article” that will be much, much more than that.

Journalistic conventions are honored in the breach and not observed elsewhere it seems, but that would be drifting too far from the subject at hand, as well as going over ground I’ve already covered.

The idea of contacting the subject of an investigation is an interesting idea and what people who are immersed in the environment where products are serviced by labels and publications would consider a “courtesy,” but one that is based on an erroneous assumption in this case.

I am not courteous. I am cranky, which is another way of saying that I do not consider myself a journalist or a part of the “profession.” I am a muckraker, a gadfly or a loose cannon--take your pick.

The mainstream convention of contacting sources is something I do not engage in because I am not part of the mainstream.

At this point, this should be clear and something that does not need to be stated, but there it is in black and white.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

It is not as if people are going to own up to matters I discuss in my articles, so it would be a waste of time to canvass for the equivocations, excuses and explanations that would be the predictable responses.

Speaking of that, we have some business to attend to now, Mr. Fonseca…

Maybe you would have had to change your thesis if learned a little bit more about how we did things?

…or what I refer to sometimes as “happy fun goodtime.”

No. You are mistaken about many matters, I’m afraid.

There is no “we.” There is only you.

My concern is that I think you did a disservice to your readers by connecting my review with a general disregard for demos as MetalReview.com.

Someday I may very well have some very interesting things to say about MetalReview, but not today, and I was talking about particular writers at MetalReview in this case--not the site as a whole. Considering that your intro to the Morgue Supplier “demo” and the “demo” discussed below were given the green light and published on the site does have something to say about the overall policies and practices of the site--that is just common sense.

Anyway, you smell chum in the water due to Jason’s severing of the practices from the attitudes in his review--not a hard concrete connection made in the article even though I could have been clearer about this--and chose to use this as an opening wedge to make me look as if I did not do my research or take the larger picture into consideration.

I don’t know how familiar you are with my work (or if you actually have read the “No Place for Disgrace” article for that matter) but I can only assume that you haven’t due to you riding in here like a cavalier to set the record straight.

The accusation that is partially breaking the surface here and there is that I just take what I need to fit into my framework and disregard everything else that would weaken my wrongheaded argument (a variant of this charge that I have seen elsewhere is that I quote people out of context). Big mistake. As I said above, there are many things that I wanted to include that I did not. And it just so happens that your work falls into that category.

I always take a long, hard look at the writers who appear in my articles to make sure that I am not flying off the handle or making wild, unsubstantiated charges, and I assayed your work over at MetalReview (beyond the reviews I’ve read in the normal course of things).

What this all means is that have more than a few evidentiary aces up my sleeve to throw down on the table, and it is time to play some cards.

But I think most readers who weren't motivated by a pre-determined thesis such as yours got that joke, especially if they've followed me at all during my nearly three year tenure at MR. Instead you read that intro and used it as ammunition.

As you can tell, when I am in this mode--I am not in a joking mood. You admit that you try to make people laugh in your reviews. What this all boils down to is what I call will call the “Decibel approach.” Flippant, frivolous asides that are often trite and hackneyed which takes the place of serious analysisused to pad a review. Although some of your reviews do not employ this device, there are more than a few that do, and an indication of a deeper strand of thought which appears in more than one of your “demo” reviews.

I will say that I think that this is something which is becoming more prominent of late (it is the pack journalism of choice nowadays), but would have to sit down and be a little more systematic about it.

I do have some examples at hand, but I am going to stay on task.

So, since you accuse me of not taking into account your previous work and the sentiments about “demos” expressed in these, let’s turn back the clock to November 26, 2005 and take a look at the introduction to your review of Cryptic Stench’s Horrifyingly Mysterious EP that just happens to share much in common with the intro to the Morgue Supplier review.

Originally Posted by dave_fonseca

This review needn't be longer than a paragraph. This is a demo, and it sounds like a demo, from a band that should still be recording demos. Nobody needs to hear Cryptic Stench, yet. The songs are pretty simple, but not painfully so. They've got choppy Slayer riffs. They've got melodic tremolo riffs. The drums sound like drums, no double bass...and no triggers![….]This is the kind of uncompromising, scene-shunning, workhorse metal that is best served as a parochial commodity.

Here we are again—back at square one. An intro to a “demo” review which is disparaging of demos and treats them as something which is not worthy of serious consideration. The funny thing here is that Cryptic Stench are not calling it a “demo,” they are calling it an EP and you chose to ignore this fact to use it as a springboard to malign “demos” as innately and inherently inferior to more polished and “professional” fare. The humor is absent, but the underlying opinion is still there.

There are no bones made about it here: a demo is a demo and a demo sounds substandard even if it is an EP.

The drums sound like drums, no double bass ... and no triggers!

My, my, my. This is most interesting and revealing. What in the hell is wrong with “drums sounding like drums?” I imagine since the percussion wasn’t pressed and processed into something sleek and sterile that it is a drawback and the natural sounds of a band banging out some sounds becomes a liability due to the sleek stylings of non-demo bands.

This review needn't be longer than a paragraph.

Indeed….but you go on and dole out a little praise and even manage to compare the band to “watching a really well-played WNBA match,” a little backhanded compliment torn from the pap cultural playbook of Kevin-Stewart Panko.

A schizophrenic and clumsy review on some levels, but the opening wind-up is the bold and clear message that Cryptic Stench is a demo-level band and that it would be wasteful to spend any significant amount of time dealing with the particulars of the band or their music (this is also apparent in the big picture).

Or as you put in the abstract to the review: “demo-quality” and “blatantly minor league material.”

I do not think that there is any difference between the two to you and that the term “demo” encompasses things that should not be framed as demos.

parochial commodity.

Narrow-minded and head-in-the-sand metal? Nice to place an unsubstantiated and unwarranted insult right at the beginning of the review.

This also reminds of statements made by reviewers who have a firm grasp on the pulse of what is the most popular and profitable “commodity” and employs this criteria as a measurement, but that is just a feeling that would require looking at things from a different angle--something I have not done.

In the end, I guess I am not as sophisticated and urbane as you, though.

I took a listen to ”The House On Tombstone Hill” and found it to be promising and intriguing enough to entertain the idea of ordering the ep.

It seems that the band could have very well matured quite a bit and has moved forward since the 2002 EP that contained songs like “I Spit On Your Grave” and “Bitches In Ditches,” but that is nothing that someone would walk away knowing from your review or much else for that matter.

Considering we're sort of colleagues in the metal journalism world

Sorry, I don’t feel the same way, but no harm intended.

[DBB]

As long as I am at it and given that people have complained in the past that when I’m flailing about that I haven’t recommended any bands--here is a little of both:

Sirocco have been making waves in the Cork metal community for some time, and in the wider scene as well, so it's about time to have a look at their first release: any band who support Exodus have to be worth a listen. Recordings are getting so good, and bands are getting more professional these days, causing the line between what is a "demo" and "album" to become more and more blurred. The production on this CD is so good I'm really not sure what to call it, so first off all credit to Sirocco who have managed to get a really great sound from start to finish.

Cathal Murphy :::November 28, 2005 “Sirocco An Triu Creathan” Metal Ireland

I had a hunch about this CD and was hoping to review it for The Shameless issue, but it did not arrive in time. Despite Murphy’s conceptual confusion about formats, An Triu Creathan was filed away as a demo.

A shame, it is brilliant and beautiful epically evocative classic metal with some thrashing crunch thrown into the mixture.

An instrumental band to boot! There are lyrics for many of the songs in the booklet. The band thought it was a good narrative and the inability to keep/pin down a singer did not stop them from recording their music without vocals and deciding to go ahead and include the lyrics. That is pretty damn ballsy and metal.

It works well as far as I am concerned, and it appears that there will be some singing to go along with the music when they enter the studio here in the next couple of months to record the follow up.

Highly recommended.

Site:

http://www.siroccoband.com

Sounds:

An Triu Creathan

Abyss

[Jim LotFP]

... sshhiittt, and all I had ready was a quip about needing to write better reviews if they aren't curing cancer.