Site Reviews

We keep getting comments from the maintainers of sites we review about the rating they receive. Again I'd like to point out what the ratings actually mean:

Rating: Yes - You should go visit this site. This means that it most likely has something to offer all of our readers and is worth the time to go look at.

Rating: Uhm - You should visit this site if you have a bit of extra time on your hands. While it's not a must see, there is likely something there that will appeal to many of our readers.

Rating: No - It is unlikely that this site has something to offer to a large portion of our readers. It doesn't necessarily mean the site is bad. It may contain extremely specific information, or it may be under development. As always, there is an elaboration in the actual review which clarifies the particular rating.

All site reviews by Mariusz Zydyk

Rating: Yes Chosen for a review because of its odd name, Cruor is a place of mordibity and eternal darkness (and construction). Some interesting occult and satanism tidbits can be found here, with section titles such as 'Lords of the Eighties', 'Hall of Knights' and 'Tales of the Axe'. Not nearly as ominous as it sounds (most of the time anyways), Cruor is about the greatest bands of various periods and genres. We have the eighties, black and death metal, all in a sort of album review format. A most interesting place to visit.

Rating: Uhm As is always the case, I manage to squeeze in a review or two of a page that has absolutely nothing to do with metal. For one, because I can, and two, because I have so much spare time on my hands, I don't know what to do with it. Well, Smurfs in Hell is just such a site. Condemned by the Pope, shunned by Al Gore. Grotesque and sometimes unfunny humour is the crowning achievement of this site. With pages like 'Drunks Against Mothers' and 'Crist in a Box' we are sure to see lots of people offended and lots of people entertained as well. Enter at own risk.

Rating: Uhm This one caught my attention because it deals with music that I have some liking for, namely black, death, dark wave and dark ambient. Dark Symphonies is actually a mail order and a record label rolled into one for time and cost efficient distribution of own records. A list of old a new stuff is here, as well as ordering information. No online ordering though. Scanning through the band names and album titles, it sounds like the largest presence is by black metal and goth, but I noticed a few odd entries here and there.

Rating: Uhm As the first line on the page says: for your convenience clicking each artist/band calls up an image of the cover-art and descriptions of the music. Which may or may not be very convinient for you. But it is nice to see the CD cover of a CD you are planning to buy, maybe you've seen it somewhere cheaper. There was also an orders link, but I got some error regarding the proxy, which I'm not gonna bother looking into. You can also listen to some musical selections, but Shockwave and a higher speed connection is required.

Rating: Yes Another personal page, this one is very well done. It is devoted to black and death metal, extreme metal in general, described as 'melodic madness'. Most of the music portion of the site is centered around the reviews section, which seems to be fairly up to date on the first glance, but the last updated line says January. The guy says he is pretty open-minded about metal and so his reviews should be quite accurate. You decide, but from my experience if you agree with a couple of his reviews, you will probably find the rest accurate. An ever popular rating system is used, a scale 1 to 6. Sound samples are coming soon, so in the meantime scroll through the standard links section.

Rating: No I am somewhat confused by this page. It is just a big list of links really, great majority of which can be found in many other places. Don't get too excited by the opening page, it does not foreshadow anything. The main frames page has some annoying Javascript code which opens up two useless small windows every time you go to it. As for the links, there are several dozen links in each category of black, death and trash.

Rating: Yes Defined as the science of turning raw metal into gold, Alchemy is much more than a links site. There are many links here, sure, but also tons of info (in the form of links of course) on the metal scene. Want to put on a show and need some lighting wizards or stage set-up crew? Not a problem. Some of the great radio stations playing metal are also listed along with show information when appropriate. Concerts, demo ordering information, on-site band pages, a very well rounded, complete metal site. Nice original graphics and layout. But to achieve total success, much like alchemy of centuries ago, it has some way to go.

Rating: Yes Looks to be a personal page, and it is well done. I think the only complaint would be that the background is too big (over 80k) and you have to pretty much wait for it to finish downloading. For the most part you will find information about several bands (Candlemass, Edge of Sanity and others), some with more info than others. The usual is present: discography, reviews, biography, lineup and as a bonus you get selected lyrics and sound clips (which are off-server). A links and tablature section rounds off this fairly typical personal metal page.