Premier Rock Forum

I hate reading reviews at the best of times but someone described the rock outfit I play in as being 'trendy' and sounding like 'The Rapture' when opening for a rock band heavily connected to the PRF. We don't even have a 'perky bass player' like That Damned Fly to bring the modern 'funk'.
The same gig was reviewed elsewhere and the person concluded we sounded 'too much like Deep Purple'.

diego wrote:With my band we recently had a review that none of us could say if the writer liked the album or not.
Since the review is in German, we asked a few friends who can read German to translate it for us and just the look of their face was enough for us.
So if amongst some EA forumers there are friendly German speakers, can you help us and tell us what the fuck this guy is writing about!!!

Was eine richtige Indy- oder Postrock-Band ist, lässt sich gut und gerne mit dem Prädikat "Form vor Inhalt" beschreiben. Dies ist für Journalisten, die dem Inhalt üblicherweise eh kein Promille Beachtung schenken, äusserst praktisch. Ich habe mich nun gefragt, welche Form ich dieser Musik denn konkret zuordnen würde. Und die welschen Gitarrenfreaks wecken schon mit ihrem Bandnamen Assoziationen zu Hauf. Ventura erinnert mich also ans momentan stürmische "Herbst"-Wetter. An Wolken, die am Himmel zerrissen und neu gruppiert werden, und dabei unter gleichen Voraussetzungen immer wieder Neues erschaffen. Die oft wiederkehrende Wetterberuhigung und das neuerliche Aufbegehren des Sturms zeichnen Mike, Diego und Philippe gekonnt in Notenform auf Papier. Genauso nachdenklich und verloren wie die bi-polare Musik von Ventura tönen denn auch die Songtitel über die Farbe von Drogen ("The colour of my dope") oder übers Reden und Nachdenken ("Thougts and speeches"). Dass Ventura dabei ihren Hörern eigentlich raten, was sie selbst nicht auf die Reihe kriegen ("Let yourself go" vs "I keep position"), passt irgendwie ins Bild. Und auch dass die drei Jungs und Gastsängerin Valerie Niederöst dauernd gewalttätig seien ("Violent, all the time") halte ich für ein Gerücht - auch wenn sie manchmal tönen, als ob jemand mit einem stumpfen Gegenstand erschlagen würde...

blah blah blah blah blah...nice record blah blah blah.....was that in a german magazine? I hate this kind of self-pleasing artsy fartsy writing.

oh..... is Valerie the singer from Toboggan ? I like this band!

This guy from Pitchfork took up about 8 paragraphs to express his hate for my old band,


"Oh, Aviso'Hara! Please stop pummeling me with your with your testosterone-powered sound! My arms are too skinny! My chest is too flabby! I am not worthy of your atomic rock and roll!" So says part of me while listening to this album. The other part of me, however, just wants to smack them.

Aviso'Hara attempts the same marriage of the angular/dissonant and the poppy/harmonic ends of the indie rock rainbow that Chavez used to pull off with such steroidal beauty. As Chavez wasn't a Hispanic guy, Aviso'Hara isn't, in fact, an Irish guy-- it's four guys from Jersey with either a penchant for dada, or a fantasy of being math-rock's next faux-ethnic sweethearts."

Anchor wrote:"math-rock's next faux-ethnic sweethearts."

Anyone who manages to use that phrase is a bona fide grade A twat. In fact, no matter how bad your record was (and I'm sure it wasn't!), it still couldn't be as bad as that phrase. What a cunt.

Aviso'Hara attempts the same marriage of the angular/dissonant and the poppy/harmonic ends of the indie rock rainbow that Chavez used to pull off with such steroidal beauty. As Chavez wasn't a Hispanic guy, Aviso'Hara isn't, in fact, an Irish guy-- it's four guys from Jersey with either a penchant for dada, or a fantasy of being math-rock's next faux-ethnic sweethearts."

Presumably the same writer, if asked to review, say, Iron Maiden, would concentrate on taking issue with them that they were neither made from ferrous metal nor were they a woman.

He made good use of his English Lit degree on that one, and actually ended the review suggesting that he could beat us up. This was from 2001, and I remember reading that thing 5 times just shocked that he took the time and space. But hey, we at least got a 5.2.

That's not just bollocks, it's also a bit fucking offensive if you give it half a thought.

What point is he making with the 'faux-ethnic' jab? What does that even mean? Would he prefer the band to be 'ethnic'? What would that matter?

Shit sandwich.

The first review we ever got made me laugh.

It was on a local music forum (www.herefordmusicforum.co.uk - if you've never seen a bunch of pompous idiots here's your chance). There was an argument between one guy who loved us and one who hated us.

A local gig promoter then wrote:

"Tastyhead are a really weird bad. I wouldn't book them".

And strangely that made me glad.

Justin from Queens wrote:Please note that we got "Zero Skulls".

That's zero skulls, folks.

It was almost based on this review alone that our label decided to keep us on.

= Justin

Upon reading that review, it looks like the label WROTE the review!!

The label was name-dropped five times, and four of their other artists were also name dropped...

Sounds like great label press to me.