This thread is to serve as a guide to those who may need some pointers as to how to begin. These are by no means strict rules to follow, they are intended as suggestions as to common mistakes many make. Most (if not all) of this has come through from personal experience and practice, and you may well find it useful.

One: I don’t reject reviews with a difference of opinion. I’m likely to comment, but I won’t refuse to post it to the blog on these grounds alone. This differs from other review sites, where for a good portion of reviews they go relatively unchecked. The important aspect of a review should not be simply presenting your opinion, but articulating why you hold it.

Two: Try not to review from genre’s you are not familiar with. It leaves less ground for comparison within the genre, and is generally more problematic to write. Stick to genre's you know best; if you dislike Power Metal, then you should not write a review to express that dislike.

Three: I have yet to entirely reject a review for a blog. I’m perhaps likely to request a touch up, expansion on a particular issue, clarification, or general clean-up of typo’s and paragraph use. If you fall into this category, don’t despair. The first few reviews are generally the most difficult to write, after which you should find a certain rhythm to your writing emerges. Once you hit this milestone, I tend to have nothing to add.

Four: The structure should be fluid and easy to read. Track-by-track analyses are a despicable practice that should never be utilised. Its often long winded and poorly descriptive of the overall piece. Whilst there is no obligation to follow the general format, many have found it useful in structuring their review. The general format used consists of four paragraphs:
i) The first should contain any notable members from other works (music), a genre, brief biography if applicable and an overview of the subject in question. I should ideally be able to read this paragraph and obtain a decent idea of what to expect.
ii) a) In Music Reviews, the second and third should deal with the individual instrumentation. Try to be methodical in doing each instrument in turn, and even if a certain instrument does little of note it still warrants the briefest of mentioning. This is as much out of respect for the contributing artist as it is in describing the overall sound.
ii) b) In Film Reviews the second paragraph should deal with a brief synopsis of the story, giving away as few spoilers as possible. The third deals more with specifics; the use of lighting and soundtrack, the performances of the cast and so forth. In many cases this may run into an additional paragraph.
iii) The final paragraph is a summation; how everything fits together (or doesn’t as the case may be), what was done well or poorly, and any final thoughts.

Five: Reviews should be between 300 and 700 words to be published on the blog. Less than this and its probably not got enough detail. More and you’re probably repeating yourself and/or ‘waffling’ unnecessarily. The reason for the variance in length is some albums generally require more explaining; an Avant-Garde album will generally be more difficult to adequately describe than a 20 minute instrumental EP.

Six: Links should be your own, placed inside a .rar file, or at the least uploaded to mediafire by another party. You can download winrar for free from their site, and a free account made on mediafire. Be aware that you can’t upload a file larger than 100mb, but you can use winrar to break the file into smaller pieces and uploaded as multiple links. Film Reviews require no links.

Seven: Avoid comparisons with other artists, or use brief and well-known examples backed up by further description. A comparison only works if the reader knows the artist mentioned.

Eight: Avoid purely opinionative words. Describing the vocals as ‘awesome’ or ‘dreadful’ only tells me your opinion, and not what they sound like. ‘Excessive use of vibrato,’ ‘poor pitch variation,’ ‘powerful,’ ‘delicate,’ ‘grating,’ these are all terms that simultaneously offer an opinion whilst being descriptive. One mans trash may well be another mans treasure.

Nine: Use a word processor. There are multiple advantages to this; if your system crashes it will usually have automatically saved your work, as well as a spellchecker which will automatically pick up most typos, grammatical errors and incorrect spellings. It also allows you to save your work and return at a later time. I frequently after writing a review re-read it 30 mins or so later and re-word or even rewrite sections.

Ten: Use the full extent of the marking range. If an album is given top marks, it indicates that it is flawless, unique and without a single issue; no weak tracks, poorly performed instrument or single passage out of place. It should be absolutely perfect in every way, and exemplary of the very best available in the genre. This is why so few albums receive top marks. Using a broader spectrum of ratings results on emphasis being placed on those you rate more highly; if you give every album top marks it is indicative that you are perhaps easily pleased. Generally films that send me to sleep before the end automatically receive 1/5 or less, whereas those that exceed 4/5 prove to go beyond my expectations.

Your friendly Webmaster.
T. Bawden - Aka: Ros The Ferret

Ratings

So I thought I’d expand on this ‘how-to’ guide with a separate note on how I conduct my ratings system. A few have probably noted I can appear to be fairly harsh on my ratings, and I felt it appropriate to give a brief explanation as to how I form my conclusions. Continuity between reviewers is a plus, so perhaps this could help (though I don’t think this is too different from most reviewers work anyway). I’ve written it with the music blog in mind, but the movie reviews are conducted in a pretty similar manner.

1/5: This is a brief ‘test’ as it were that thus far I only believe one artist has failed: can they play their instruments. Not play them well, I mean does the drummer actually know how to mimic a metronome, can the guitarist actually string together three haphazard chords, regardless of how dreadful they might sound. If enough effort has actually gone into learning to hit a drum with a stick at regular intervals and record it then they usually get the one mark in recognition of that fact.

2.5/5: So, onto the mid-point. This rating is meant to imply Julian Chan’s favourite word: ‘meh.’ Either nothing was done particularly well or badly, or any flashes of brilliance were counteracting by periods that made you wonder what they were thinking/drinking/smoking when they thought that was a good idea. Perhaps the solo’s were done pretty well but the drumming sounded like a garbage truck in reverse, or the riff’s were upbeat and addictive but the vocals sounding like a cat wailing in pain. This is the main point where above indicates you enjoyed the album, and below you didn’t. This is why most reviews get higher than this mark – I have no particular compulsion to continue listening to something that sounds dreadful.

4/5: This is what seems to be my ‘base’ as it were for reviews – the most common mark given. Usually this implies there is a lack of creativity; the music is often incredibly solid, each aspect performed well if perhaps not up there with the greatest, but nothing comes across as terribly original. Its been done before, and so unless an artist is bringing something new to the table, they will really have to pull something spectacular out of the hat, something truly exceptional that elevates them to one of the top in the genre to get any higher. A good example of this would be my recent review of ‘Vision Divine.’ Superb power metal, but simply nothing we haven’t heard before.

In the case of more experimental or avant-garde artists, creativity is usually a given and in such cases a slightly different criteria is considered; accessibility. It’s all very well trying new things, but if it feels distinctly out of place, disjointed or invariably difficult to get into then it usually suffers for it. Despite ‘Pin-Up Went Down’ being amongst my favourite avant-garde artists, many will find it difficult to get into compared to say, ‘Diablo Swing Orchestra’ which scored higher as a result.

If there are a few weaker tracks, or the entire piece began to feel tired by the albums conclusion then this gradually scales down depending on how severe the issue becomes. Sometimes this balances out with the issue of creativity – if it was fairly original and creative but didn’t hold up for the entire album’s duration, it balances out back to this rating. (E.g. ‘Kludde’ and ‘Emir Hot’ both brought something original but began to feel tired by the albums conclusion).

5/5 : This is my perfect score, and remains virtually unattainable. Not only do they have to do something unlike anyone else, but they have to prove they are amongst the most proficient at their instruments, composing their original style without fault to achieve the end result. The continuity of the album is such that there are no weak tracks (perhaps tracks you prefer, but) not a single track out of place or performed below the rest. The album itself should also be varied enough to keep your interest for its entire duration, but not varied enough to feel discontinuous; the album should feel as a completed entity. A huge number of artists come close but trip over a single hurdle, for example Crimfall’s ‘As the Path Unfolds’ as an album didn’t flow as well as it could have, and Kalisia’s ‘Cybion’ was built around a core of superb if only slight originality built more from the lyrics than the musical content; both of which received 4.5/5.