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

Invader is a German metal zine, and (with a few exceptions) everything comes in two languages. It is superbly designed, with all original graphics, a variety of fonts and loads of text. The left frame holds a JavaScript enabled menu, and the first main page has some miscellaneous information. I especially like the effect used for fonts, a sort of liquid metallic texture. Works well with the dark colour scheme. The usual zine sections are present. It is a universal law that concert reviews be few in numbers, and the Invader does not escape this with four entries. But that's OK, there are plenty of other good things coming. Which brings us to the next law: Europe and metal go well together. This shows up in the interviews section with almost a dozen artists featured. Many of these have been conducted before, during or after events, something which we in North America to not often get the chance to see. In any case, you'll find the interviews very good and extect to spend a while here. On the album reviews side, the Invader is no slouch either. All reviews have a shot of some CD art, 1-10 rating, and bilingual review text. Not always, though, and to my disappointment the Tiamat review came in the German language only. Still, this section is well done, so go look at it. Among the other sections of particular note is News from the scene. Intelligent and clean layout make this an enjoyable read. The On Tour page follows with similar elements. You can find a bunch of Real Audio clips scattered throughout the site, or go to the Gallery page where they are all in one place. On the negative side, Invader is fairly graphics heavy and will use lots of colours, so 16 bit high res is useful. And thanks to the 'expires=now' tags many pages will reload themselves on every visit. Well, you can't have everything.

Rating: Yes

After seeing the main page I was about to write something about how metal pages are becoming more visually appealing and so on. Having never heard much about Vibrations of Doom I did not know what to expect. Email zine comes to mind here. The only attempt made at HTML formatting is putting pre tags around the issue. This obviously calls for a review of content and text-driven layout, not the usual drivel about flashing text and awkward navigation. How refreshing ;) The zine is put together by self proclaimed metal fantics, but being open-minded about music and all they have decided to feature the techno, ambient, industrial and electronic side of sound side by side with metal. It's worked out pretty well. Scanning through the seemingly never-ending album reviews I noticed that the promised techno and ambient genres were fairly well represented, contradicting one of the complaining reader's letter. I personally am happy that someone has effectively undertaken the task of showcasing a broader range of music, not just focusing on metal. Following the album reviews we have a couple interviews of substantial length, and some final words from the author. Elsewhere on the site there is a large number of Real Audio recordings (full length I am told, but I am currently RA disabled and can't verify) of the reviewed albums. On the improvement side, aside from an HTML version, the doctor prescribes a table of contents at top of issue and not one, but TWO, blank lines between reviews for ease of searching.

Rating: Yes

This is like the Yahoo of zines, and more! Someone has really invested a ton of time into this, it's definitely not a one nighter. From black metal to rock, printed and online, the zines are here. Not only listed and with contact information, but individual reviews. This guy must have a huge list with issue release dates, I spot checked a couple of links and found the UZS site to be completely up to date. The reviews are fun to read, with a real metalhead attitude to boot. And if you think the reviews on all the zines out there are not sufficient for you, there is also a page with some demo and album reviews, they're very short and to the point. As far as the non-content aspects of the site go, there is not a lot of glitter, the author has 'stripped this thing down to the bare bone'. Except for the backgrounds which, while loading, leave you with bright text on a default bright background, something that is easily fixable. Great zine resource.

Rating: No

Advertised as Europe's biggest independant label, Invasion carries such well known bands as Gates of Ishtar and Infestdead, totaling a dozen bands. Two of the bands feature a home page, with the usual biography, discography and samples. As most label pages, this is bery basic and does not have a whole lot of general interest information. The relatively narrow left frame serves as both a menu and a content frame, while the big introduction frame just sits there; not a very good use of frames in my opinion. Aside from conact information there is not much else here, and ordering is done by mail only.

Rating: No

The Music Corner has been setup to provide some publicity for bands, and covers just about every type of music. There is a general feeling of support for independant bands, but there are numerous ones signed to major labels. All you will get is an aplhabetical listing of bands, with occasional pictures. The selection of bands is very haphazard, mostly 'new' bands with alternative sounding names and descriptions, however I have found at least several well established, commercial bands among them. The entire site is not very well designed at all; perhaps is tries to appeal to too wide a range of audience. All types of music are featured, from ambient to electronica to death. Then again, maybe I'm just missing the spirit of this site.

Rating: Uhm

We have reviewed the Russian Metal site before, and besides more band pages not much has changed. To refresh everyone's (and my own) memory I will go over the site. Michael has put together a lot of information about the metal scene in Russia. He is hosting pages for several bands, some official, some fan pages. They all have the complete discography with cover scans, track lists and detail information about the albums. The design is not too great, things are kept simple with one column of stuff centered on the page. And it's always under construction, so new stuff is added all the time. If you happen to be going to Moscow in the near future, check out the list of current gigs.

Rating: No

While the actual main page was loading I got a couple of JavaScript errors, and this is a definite no-no in my books; it should be fixed. Dead (there is a reason for this name) supports Christianity and reviews bands of similar persuasion. Basically, this seems to be a complete resource for fans of brutal christian music. You can find out where to go to hear it live, where to tune your radio to to hear it on the air and where to buy it. An interesting Sounds Like section allows you to find bands that sound, well, similar, kind of like The Similarities Engine elsewhere on the net, but with a more modest number of selected bands. Finally, the links page lists numerous christian bands and resources for you to look at, after finishing with Dead of course. The glaring technical problems like broken Javascript on a couple of the main pages and use of the Black Forest font throughout marks Dead as something less than a top notch publication. If the above styles of music appeal too you, definitely have a look.