I thought it would be important to put down a basic “rules of the road” document before I started reviewing hundreds of CDs and posting them here, mostly because some people go ballistic over this kind of shit, and I thought I needed a standard disclaimer of sorts. So, here goes.

• First off: these are my opinions and mine only. So before you post some giant diatribe about how I’m obviously wrong about a review or how I’m a piece of shit because I didn’t like that one Pink Floyd album as much as you did, sorry. Create your own damn page and post whatever you want.
• I rate CDs on a ten-point scale. Basically, if you multiply a rating by ten and divide by a hundred, you’ll get a percentage score just like back in school. That basically means that a 7 is an average rating, and I’m trying to reserve perfect 10s for the absolute best of the best. I’ve given up on quarter points because it’s too anal-retentive, and it’s not like some statistician or the census bureau is going to use this data for some study of heavy metal a hundred years ago.
• My ratings have to do largely with how listenable a CD is, what kind of value it is, if I ever listen to it, and so on. To me, a CD with one good song on it and eight so-so songs rates much lower than a CD with five really good songs that you just want to put on repeat and listen to for hours. If a band has a big historical release that’s all important but is something you might buy and listen to once in five years, I’m not going to give it a high rating.
• I review the album, not the band. What that means is that I don’t automatically inflate my ratings because I really like a band and have some allegiance to them, either because they used to put out good albums or because I am supposed to somehow be loyal to them in some kind of bizarre metal mafia fashion. For example, I like the band Motorhead, but I do not give every album of theirs a 9 or 10 automatically, because honestly, they’ve put out a couple of sub-par albums, and their record labels have put out a ton of live albums, compilations, collections, box sets, and reissues that I see no reason to buy. I know all of you metal types will whine and cry when I say that, something along the lines of “but Lemmy is god!”, but like I said, I review the album, not the band.
• For the most part, these CDs are based on my personal collection, which is largely purchased by me. I don’t solicit or review free copies. I know that may seem completely backwards, but that means I don’t have to review every piece of crap that shows up in the mail. And that also means that by just looking at the list, you can tell what I like, based on the fact that I bought it.
• I don’t do heavy metal umlauts. No matter which of the 17 ways I use to insert the umlauts into text, they still break on like half the web browsers, or convert the letters into boxes, or something. So I gave up. And anyway, bands with umlauts in their names only do it for looks, and you don’t pronounce the names that way. In that sense, it’s like font or color or other aesthetic additions on the lettering of an album cover, so I’m not doing it.
• If you’re one of the bands or musicians in a review, please leave a comment or contact me as I would love to hear from you, and I’d probably like to interview you.
• As far as the comments go, I reserve the right to be a total fascist about them, and I will delete anything that I don’t like for any reason.