Yo

As many before me I'm here from RYM. Love that site, but the treatment of metal there is shamefully unfair these days.

I'm a lover of extreme metal, but specifically metal with a lot of emotion. For this reason I levitate towards the most mournful corners of Doom and Melodeath and the angriest pits of Thrash and Death. Lyrics and delivery are important to me; I'll take well-written lyrics and mood over technical skill if it carries no weight

Anyway, this site looks fantastic. Not only is the site design and functionality clearly built by those who love music and structure, but the users here seem very engaged as well. Two things I hope for here is to see this great structure grow, and for the userbase to remain passionate and non-toxic.

Nice to meet you all, and I can assure I'll become and remain an active user, at least in terms of ratings. Never been one for forums, but the clan system definitely makes me want to become a part of them.

Welcome to Metal Academy, and more importantly, welcome to The Fallen, The Horde and The Pit! Your description of your tastes sounds awfully similar to my own, although I must admit that I feel most affiliated with The North.

Thanks for the great feedback. We're very happy with the way the site is developing, but it's great to hear positive things from the metal fans we made it for. I can assure you that we intend to keep building on the foundation, and hopefully we can also encourage the continuation of the non-toxic environment you mentioned.

The treatment of metal at RYM was one of the main reasons I designed this site. I think in the early days of that site, metal fans kind of took over and filled the charts with (admittedly fantastic) metal releases. Those 80s, 90s and early 00s albums still hold deservedly high places in the charts, but as the RYM audience broadened, the intentional down-rating of extreme or underground releases began, to the point where the top 200 metal albums looks like a view through the Wayback machine. There are literally only 6 albums in that top 200 that were released in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, as styles of metal music have become more divisive (think Melodic Metalcore, Blackgaze, etc.), the down rating has become a thing within the metal community itself.

Metal Academy was created as a response to all of the above. We wanted to make a site where non-metal fans held no influence, but perhaps more importantly, where fans of ANY metal genre can have a voice. It was always going to be the case that clans like The Horde and The North were going to be heavily populated, but I'll be super excited if we can start to fill some of the less dominating clans, particularly The Revolution, The Gateway and The Sphere.

Cheers,

Ben.

Another new member Steven is really doing his part in filling up those less dominating clans. Check out Steven's clan list!

Welcome, SilentScream!