Clan challenge progress

Congratulations Andi. You've absolutely caned through the reviews in the last few days in particular. Seriously, your head must be spinning. Time to enjoy some well-earned downtime. Ben is back tomorrow so I'll give him the heads up to award you your fourth clan then.

The Metal Academy acknowledges that you have locked in your original three clans, before passing an additional clan challenge. We hereby state on behalf of The Fallen that you have been accepted into their ranks. They asked me to relay the immense melancholy and despondency that this achievement has provided.

Congratulations shadowdoom9! Massive effort.

Well done.

Well time to dig up this thread again, just got through The North's 1st Decade of Black Metal challenge. Glad I chose this one to do out of all the others I could have, definitely a massive and interesting history lesson since Black Metal progressed an incredible amount within the span of 3 or 4 years in the early 90's. 

The only other order of business might be to update my Emperor review, since Nightside Eclipse deserves more than one paragraph, even though that one paragraph is enough to get my point across. Hopefully the next challenge I choose won't take as long as this first one, haven't even begun to decide which one it's going to be. 

Congrats Xephyr. You've locked in The North!

I'm happy to see someone's still working through challenges. They were all the rage for a couple of months, then dropped off. I guess I need to figure out how to draw attention to them.

Even though I could rough it and go for the 1st Decade Progressive Metal list like I did for Black Metal, I think I've decided to go for the 2nd Decade instead. Even though I'm more familiar with more of these albums and already have a review for Control Denied and a college thesis for Blackwater Park,  there are too many heavy hitters that I'd love to write about to say no.

I think I'd learn more about Prog Metal on the whole if I did the 1st Decade one, but how can I pass up having a reason to finally write reviews for From Mars to Sirius, Biomech, Metropolis Part 2, Evergrey's arguably best album, Bath, Catch Thirtythree, Light of Day, Day of Darkness, plus like 5 others that I'm excited about? 

The clan challenges are indeed a hefty undertaking. I have been chipping away at The North: Black Metal The Modern Age for some time now and only have about three or four left to review. Of the three challenges I've undertaken so far this has been my favourite because I've discovered some really excellent albums I'd never heard previously and, perversely, I've even enjoyed the process of reviewing the ones I didn't especially love. I think the fact I've taken my time with it rather than charging at it like a bull at a gate has made it more enjoyable. In fact, I may even take on an extra  challenge or two just for the hell of it. Maybe I'll be ultra-perverse and do a Gothic Metal or Metalcore challenge (or maybe not).

It'd be really tough to do a genre you don't really care for, at least for the way I structure reviewing albums. I thought about going the weird route and doing the Atmospheric Sludge Metal list for The Infinite, but a quick browse through the list made me really dread thinking about having to write so many reviews for a genre that I'm not very passionate about outside of Cult of Luna and Inter Arma. Having 20 reviews saying "Yeah but this isn't as good as A Dawn To Fear" isn't exactly great content hahaha

I really enjoyed the challenges and at the time could afford to spend the time ploughing through them.  Nowadays my work is just full on but I do need to review some of the outstanding lists and see where I go next.  Oddly for me (based on recent years at least) I have been catching up with lots of recent releases so this has bulked up my reviews of late.  I do find the challenges addictive though so do need to look at a couple of my old reviews from when I was going at them as I think more than a few need a tweak now I look back.

Xephyr, did you really do a college thesis on Blackwater Park? That's awesome! Academia sure must have changed from when I was at school. Makes me very self-conscious about my reviewing "style" now.

Heh no sadly, however I'm sure I could given how much Opeth I've listened to. My Blackwater Park review on here is basically a full essay is what I was saying; I outlined the whole thing beforehand, had a friend proofread it, came out to be like 2,200 words or something. Worth it. 

Awww... now I'm disappointed!! I was hoping to do an Open University course on the aesthetics of Funeral Doom.

Realised that I am a fair portion of the way through the 2nd Era of Heavy Metal already so will probably pick up on that over the coming weeks.

I think I'd learn more about Prog Metal on the whole if I did the 1st Decade one, but how can I pass up having a reason to finally write reviews for From Mars to Sirius, Biomech, Metropolis Part 2, Evergrey's arguably best album, Bath, Catch Thirtythree, Light of Day, Day of Darkness, plus like 5 others that I'm excited about? 

Most of those are great albums! The 2nd Decade seems like a great era for progressive metal, and I probably should've done that challenge instead of The Modern Era one.

I forgot about the clan challenges sometime after I finished the one for my 4th clan The Fallen, and after Ben stopped creating new challenges. I'm glad to see the revival of clan challenge appeal, but I don't intend on returning to them now, unless we see the unlikely ability to lock in a 5th clan, in that case, I would take on a challenge for The Pit...

I believe I have just completed The North: Black Metal - The Modern Era challenge after a little over a year. I have definitely enjoyed this one - tough though it was - as I have discovered some great albums through it.

I've just been looking through the earlier posts in this thread and can't see if I informed Ben of my completion of THE PIT: Thrash Metal - The 80s challenge which I completed some time last year.

That's a challenge for each of my three clans completed, so now I have to determine which clan to go for as a fourth. I am still not sure and that makes me wonder if I should even have a fourth clan if I can't commit to one or the other. Of the six remaining, The Gateway, Revolution and Sphere are out for me. The Guardians, Horde and Infinite all have plenty of albums I love, but also a lot that I'm not keen on. I still intend to keep on with the challenges, but I may not seek a fourth clan at the end of it.

I believe I have just completed The North: Black Metal - The Modern Era challenge after a little over a year. I have definitely enjoyed this one - tough though it was - as I have discovered some great albums through it.

I've just been looking through the earlier posts in this thread and can't see if I informed Ben of my completion of THE PIT: Thrash Metal - The 80s challenge which I completed some time last year.

That's a challenge for each of my three clans completed, so now I have to determine which clan to go for as a fourth. I am still not sure and that makes me wonder if I should even have a fourth clan if I can't commit to one or the other. Of the six remaining, The Gateway, Revolution and Sphere are out for me. The Guardians, Horde and Infinite all have plenty of albums I love, but also a lot that I'm not keen on. I still intend to keep on with the challenges, but I may not seek a fourth clan at the end of it.

Bizarrely, I was torn between The Fallen and The Guardians when I was looking at a fourth clan.  Despite having spent most of my life with traditional metal I was debating picking The Fallen to broaden my limited knowledge of the doom/sludge genre.  Glad I went with The Guardians in the end, although I would class it as perhaps my weakest clan overall.

That's a challenge for each of my three clans completed, so now I have to determine which clan to go for as a fourth. I am still not sure and that makes me wonder if I should even have a fourth clan if I can't commit to one or the other. Of the six remaining, The Gateway, Revolution and Sphere are out for me. The Guardians, Horde and Infinite all have plenty of albums I love, but also a lot that I'm not keen on. I still intend to keep on with the challenges, but I may not seek a fourth clan at the end of it.

Skimming through the lists of your reviews per clan, you have more Guardians reviews than The Horde and Infinite, and most of them are positive, with nothing as low as 0.5 or one star. I think you'll have no trouble doing one of the Guardians clan challenges, Sonny, specifically heavy metal.

That's a challenge for each of my three clans completed, so now I have to determine which clan to go for as a fourth. I am still not sure and that makes me wonder if I should even have a fourth clan if I can't commit to one or the other. Of the six remaining, The Gateway, Revolution and Sphere are out for me. The Guardians, Horde and Infinite all have plenty of albums I love, but also a lot that I'm not keen on. I still intend to keep on with the challenges, but I may not seek a fourth clan at the end of it.

Skimming through the lists of your reviews per clan, you have more Guardians reviews than The Horde and Infinite, and most of them are positive, with nothing as low as 0.5 or one star. I think you'll have no trouble doing one of the Guardians clan challenges, Sonny, specifically heavy metal.

Whilst what you say is true Andi, I find more new music that I enjoy in The Horde than I do in The Guardians, so that ratio may well change going forward. 

Well done Sonny. That's quite an achievement. 

In reference to your decisions on whether to aim for a fourth clan or not & which clan you might choose if you decide to go down that path, here's a couple of insights that might help:

1. It's worth keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the clan configuration is to try to ensure that our audience can view release ratings that aren't diluted by scores from people that don't have a general passion for the subgenres in question. For this reason, I would suggest asking yourself if a) you can speak with some level of authority about a prospective clan & b) you have a strong passion for the majority of the material the clan contains.

2. As an individual, what clan members get out of being a part of a clan is the privilege of selecting the monthly feature releases, nominating tracks for the monthly Spotify playlists & voting on Hall entries so I'd also ask whether you feel that you have something to contribute in those areas as an active & informed fan of the clan's music.

If the answer to those questions is "yes" then you're a good candidate for that particular clan. :)

Well done Sonny. That's quite an achievement. 

In reference to your decisions on whether to aim for a fourth clan or not & which clan you might choose if you decide to go down that path, here's a couple of insights that might help:

1. It's worth keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the clan configuration is to try to ensure that our audience can view release ratings that aren't diluted by scores from people that don't have a general passion for the subgenres in question. For this reason, I would suggest asking yourself if a) you can speak with some level of authority about a prospective clan & b) you have a strong passion for the majority of the material the clan contains.

2. As an individual, what clan members get out of being a part of a clan is the privilege of selecting the monthly feature releases, nominating tracks for the monthly Spotify playlists & voting on Hall entries so I'd also ask whether you feel that you have something to contribute in those areas as an active & informed fan of the clan's music.

If the answer to those questions is "yes" then you're a good candidate for that particular clan. :)

I must admit, Daniel I am very much tending towards not seeking a fourth clan for the very reasons you state. Sure, I think I know a fair bit about the earlier Guardians releases and can perhaps provide some contextual insight and I do have a love of old-school death metal, but other than that I don't think I can add anything meaningful to either of those clans (to be honest, I'm not even sure if that's not the case with my original three clans!) In fact, the more I interact with Metal Academy and it's exceedingly well-informed membership, the more I realise that I know fuck all.