About the Grades

Those of you who read my blog regularly will probably have noticed that I've had a string of "A" and "A-" grades recently. It probably feels like I've just been handing out good ratings to everything I talk about lately, and it might make those rating seem less valid. While I can't deny the possibility that I've been in a generous mood lately, I really don't believe I'm unjustified in giving these grades.

Recently, I have been very active in my quests for new material to review, but I've also been very picky about what makes the cut. Usually I use Metal Archives and Youtube in conjunction to sample songs from new albums to see if I want to pursue those records further, or if they just don't interest me. In the past month or so, I've written about roughly 20 releases in one form or another (many in just a single paragraph). In that same amount of time, I have considered and sampled at least a couple tracks from somewhere between 70 and 100 albums. With that volume of content under consideration, I'm simply not willing to pick one of these bands I've found on my own and sit through 45 full minutes of a release that I can tell within 5 minutes I won't particularly like, just so I can write a "C+" review about it.

Additionally, with the increased number of demos I've been receiving from Full Metal Attorney to review for his blog (which has yielded some very good material too), I've had plenty of opportunities to write more negative things about mediocre records and old school death metal clones. Therefore, instead of looking for things to write negative reviews about, I've dedicated my time on my own blog to picking out the real highlights of my own listening and holding them up for what glimmer of additional exposure I can give them.

And that, my friends, is why the grades on my reviews have been so high lately.