Frequently Asked Questions
What is Metal Academy?
Metal Academy is first and foremost a community site where fans can talk about all things metal and discover new releases and friends. It was created by the brothers behind the Metal Academy podcast, which is a podcast that chronologically explores the history of metal music.
How is Metal Academy different to other music sites?
Metal Academy contains much of the functionality that you can find elsewhere, such as a Forum, Release Information, Reviews and Charts. What makes the site unique (and special) is the addition of clans that members of the site can join. Everything on the site was designed with these clans in mind to create an experience we guarantee you won’t find anywhere else.
What are clans and how do I join them?
There are 9 distinct clans on Metal Academy. Each clan represents a metal genre (or multiple related genres), so members can join the clans that represent the musical styles they personally love. The 9 clans are The Fallen, The Gateway, The Guardians, The Horde, The Infinite, The North, The Pit, The Revolution and The Sphere, and you can read about which genres relate to each of them by visiting each of the clan pages. When you register to become of member of Metal Academy, you will be asked to select the 3 clans that you’d like to belong to.
How do the clans I join make any difference on the site?
Each release on the site is related to between 1 and 3 clans. For a straight-forward example of how this works, if you look at Iron Maiden’s Powerslave release page, you will see that it has The Guardians icon, due to Heavy Metal being one of the genres connected to that clan. If a member of The Guardians rates Powerslave, that rating will affect both its Site Rating (the average of ratings given to the album by all site members, no matter which clans they belong to) and its Clan Rating (the average of ratings given to the album by members of The Guardians only).
Site Ratings appear on releases in blue, while Clan Ratings appear in orange. They play a big role in making the charts section of Metal Academy useful, as you can sort by either in various ways. The idea behind Clan Ratings is to stop the downvoting of releases by people that don’t like the style of music. This behaviour is rampant at other sites, such as Rate Your Music, where popular albums get downvoted by members that have never heard them. At Metal Academy, you can find the albums that like-minded metal fans enjoy, without worrying about elitism or chart-tampering.
An example of a multi-clan release is Edge of Sanity’s Crimson, which belongs to both The Infinite and The Horde, due to it being a combination of Progressive Metal and Death Metal. If a member of either The Infinite or The Horde rate Crimson, that member’s rating will affect its Clan Rating. Otherwise their rating will only affect the Site Rating.
Who decides which clans each release is linked to?
Rate Your Music has an effective genre voting system that has been in use for many years. Rather than redesign the wheel, the primary genres voted for each release on that site are used to apply genres and clans to releases here at Metal Academy. Note that the voted genres at Rate Your Music aren’t always correct, so we encourage discussion in the forums when members feel genres or clans have been inappropriately applied.
Can I change my clans or join more than 3?
Site members can’t change the clans they belong to, but they can ask a site administrator to make the change for them. This is by design to stop intentional chart-tampering. If it is felt that a site member has purposely added themselves to a clan with less than honourable intentions, the site administrators can ban that member from the clan. Note that this would only be done as a last resort, and not without warning.
While it is possible for site members to join up to 5 clans, it has not yet been determined how the 4th and 5th clans can be earned. It’s safe to say though, that Metal Academy loyalty and/or set achievements will be involved. More will be revealed on this topic once the site gains in popularity and site member behaviour is better understood.
Why is release “x” not on the site?
There are three reasons why a release isn’t currently on the site.
- It doesn’t meet the criteria on Rate Your Music to be considered a primarily metal release.
- It’s a demo, single or 7-inch EP, which have all been excluded from Metal Academy.
- The administrators haven’t got to it yet, in which case you can request it in the Forums.
What is the Metal Academy podcast all about and how do I listen to it?
The Metal Academy podcast is a monthly (or thereabouts) podcast that chronologically explores all the important metal releases since the genre began. It is created by the same two brothers (Daniel and Ben) that created this website. If you want to check it out, you can find the latest episodes at the bottom of the homepage or visit here.
How do I use Metal Academy to find releases and bands that match my tastes?
The best way to do this is to use the Charts section. You can view releases specific to the clans you belong to, and even sort the Charts by Clan Rating rather than Site Rating. Or you can go to the Forums and ask other site members for recommendations.
How do I use Metal Academy to meet likeminded metal fans?
The Forums are the best place to hang out if you want to be an active part of the Metal Academy community. There are individual forums for each clan so that you hang out with people you know have similar tastes to you. You can also see which clans each site member belongs to, which makes it easy to judge whether they like similar music to you.
Is there anything I can do to help the site?
It’s our hope that the community will grow large enough to warrant additional moderators for the forums. If / when that time comes, the intention is to have clan leaders. That will certainly be a role that devoted Metal Academy members can take on. For now, the best way to help is to spread to word and encourage other metal fans to come and join the site. We really believe that this site will become better and better with each member that joins.
Who designed and developed Metal Academy and can they help me make my own site?
Like the Metal Academy Podcast, this site was designed by Daniel and Ben. It was developed by the amazing Evgeny Tulikov, whose services can be hired through Upwork. The clan images and backgrounds were created by Andrew Dubyna, whose awesome artistic skills can also be employed through Upwork. We are forever grateful to both Evgeny and Andrew for all of their devoted efforts. They understood the vision and continue to help us to deliver it.