so, to be completely honest, i didn't find much to fault in your opening paragraph. you were mostly concise and provided context and set up your central thesis well, but then you went on to say stuff like "But Arche is unlike a peach, and unlike an onion. You can’t just take a giant bite out of it with your time and see the centre, bare and naked as the seed of thought that ignited this ingenious undertaking."

basically i'm in agreement with calc

Album Rating: 5.0

👹

Album Rating: 4.0

I love this album, it's easily one of my favorites of the year.



I think the main criticism is just how unnecessarily convoluted your review is. As much as I enjoy this album, this is just a rock record and doesn't need to be described with the grandiosity you have done so with; it makes for a very clunky read. As a reader, I'd much rather read some tasteful write-ups on the music, with analogies and personal anecdotes used sparingly to held pad your opinion on the material. Reviews like this read more like creative-writing practice than actual critique, and it's tiresome.



Believe me, I used to (and to some extent, still do) write very densely. It can be frustrating to break out of, but you have to consider the content you are reviewing, and the target audience. Reviewing music ≠ writing a novel. There's a fine line between convolution and description.

Album Rating: 5.0

@Slim: "Come ooooon can't a guy rant on about a masterpiece the first time he hears it?"



All because they can doesn't mean they should, listening to an album once is usually not enough to have a contrete opinion of it, never mind reviewing it.



"It seems like you people want all kinds of specifics and objective descriptions of why the album is good but that has nothing to do with what Dir en grey is."



No we don't, because it'll never be objective. What people are complaining around is how much of a convoluted review this is. It's wanting a concise, well review review to what makes this album special (since it's a 5 rating) and by the amount of critical feedback the writer has gotten he has failed his task. Reading this would not make want to check the album, just made me think "Get to the point already" therefore there's a problem.



"What Arche is to you is different than what it is to me and far different than what it is to the band itself. That's always been an inherit flaw of this website and of all sorts of reviews regarding any artistic endeavor."



Umm....that's the good thing about sites about this. It allows multiple perpecitves on a piece of art, and may change other people's view on it too. Also it affects the promotion of it to a certain extent. If a well writen, positive review is written some people may check the album out.

Album Rating: 5.0

"The point of all your comments is about the review and not the album! What's the point of this site if all you do is find reasons to criticize the way a guy thoroughly enjoys something?"



What a stupid comment, it's a reviewing and opinion site so of course they'll be differing opinions. It's not just about discussing music, it's about creating better writers for music promotion/criticism and future higher ranked members of the site.



"In my opinion, judging the way people judge an album desecrates the work. If this website is about trying to understand other people's perspectives on music so we can enjoy it more ourselves, that makes sense but it seems to me it's mostly about taste-elitism and trying to apply judgmental labels to music and its connoisseurs."



Bullshit. So you're saying that we shouldn't criticise any review because it's 'desecrating' it, the opinions and criticism of others should NEVER be silenced. Life isn't just conjured from a single view point and we shouldn't stop criticism of that view point for the single fact it's their's. It's discussion, it's far more a problem of how the point was presented rather then the actual opinion of the album that people care about in reviews (well, I hope). We're not promoting taste elitism in this page review page, so don't even bother with that point because it's criticism of the review and there's been many high ratings for this album during it.

"People wanna come up to me and run their mouth - guess what? I'll throw them through the fucking window... I won't think a thing of it. "

Album Rating: 4.5

"Sure everyone out-grows riff-driven music with no other substance or form built out from the pith."



Damn riffs and piths, I have outgrown such drivel as states the aforementioned phrase m'lord.

Album Rating: 5.0

@CalculatingInfinity



Music and other forms of art are heightened forms of communication. It allows human beings to express themselves in a way only that medium could allow. To take a masterpiece that portrays the inner grandeur and intensity of the human spirit such as Arche and to try to describe it with only written English words in a few paragraphs is, by default, an impossible task.



With that said, this website is partially a popularity contest and the winners of the contest have to post their reviews very soon after the album is released to get their opinions across and they can only do so with their first impression. The album will seem completely different to them after 15 listens and yet many people will still read what they wrote and be influenced by an unripe view of the work. You argued as if promoting the album is by default a good thing, but what if it introduces the band in the wrong light?



If someone said "check out this Van Gogh painting. I can only try to imitate it with a pencil and I'm right handed but I can only draw a sketch of the painting with my left hand and I don't really paint but I like pictures, and here is my own rating of the painting based off of my own personal opinion" I really don't think that does the work much of a service.



Criticism is a necessary part of life obviously. Art criticism not so much. If it gives you pleasure to have your opinion on something read by many people and to have them get into music that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten into then great, but categorizing the abstract in black and white terms is a flawed form of communication and there's definitely no clear overall benefit to the world as a whole that this website gives even if it doesn't do much harm either.

@Slimjim - it isn't so much as "I'm gonna judge your perspective on this piece of art" as "I'm gonna judge this piece of writing you've presented". the review isn't awful, but it's flawed in some ways - not necessarily because of the writer's opinion on the album, but the way he chose to present it. does that make it 'wrong'? well, no, but it makes for an unsatisfactory read. it's the difference between a review that comes off as self-indulgent, and a review that tries to give the reader something to take away - just because Dir En Grey is apparently some monumental force of brilliance doesn't mean you can't 'do it justice'. you said yourself that objectivity matters little (and I agree), so what's so difficult about offering an interpretation of the album beyond "Likening it would be unjusticiable if tried by any practicing critic"?

Album Rating: 4.0

SlimJim why are you even here? What are you hoping to accomplish? You do get that the whole purpose of the site is to discuss music right? The review is being criticised because it's convoluted and uninformative. Alright, so Depatures enjoys the album, but telling people that you enjoy the music is only half the purpose of the website and very little the purpose of writing a review for a piece of music. This review just uses an excessive amount of hyperbole and ridiculous metaphors to try and push its point and all this tells me is that the writer really likes the album. At no point does the review justify that the album is a "classic;" it never explains why I as the reader and someone looking to find out about this particular release having never heard anything of it or even the artists themselves why it's so good and why it's worth my time.



In both of your comments you have entirely missed the point and have pointlessly tried to back yourself up when what CalculatingInfinity was trying to tell you was that the comments have fucking nothing to do with the art. He is also trying to get across that the purpose of reviewing something is to communicate to another human being why or why not you think that a piece of art is significant. This is always going to be subjective, the only time objectivity is going to be necessary is if the artist isn't doing anything new in which case comparing it to contemporary pieces is certainly relevant. The writer has rated the album a 5 and has not justified it well enough, how are you missing that? How the hell does saying that the review is bad desecrate the fucking music? Yes, the review is bad. The REVIEW is bad, not the music. We can see that Departures loves Arche, but the way he has put it into words doesn't portray his opinion very well at all. It's his writing skills in question, not his opinion on the art.

Album Rating: 5.0

@Jas: Bang on, *gives a white chocolate cookie*.

Album Rating: 4.5

This page, fucking hell.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Somebody's trying way too hard to defend such a flamboyant review. Don't know whether to laugh, cry, or join the Navy.

join the Air Force

Slim Jim displays a fairly weak style of "full of shit" writing = an absurd use of metaphores and thesaurus for a fake sensation of sophistication (volontary or not the bullshit remains).
Go read reviews by old master reviewers Mynameischan or Robin to better understand how words can partially yet wonderfully express music

Come ooooon can't a guy rant on about a masterpiece the first time he hears it?

I have done that very thing several times on my main, difference being I actually talk about the music

It seems like you people want all kinds of specifics and objective descriptions of why the album is good but that has nothing to do with what Dir en grey is.

No, what I'm looking for is something that tells me what this album is to begin with

Frankly, objectivity has nothing to do with what is important in music. What Arche is to you is different than what it is to me and far different than what it is to the band itself. That's always been an inherit flaw of this website and of all sorts of reviews regarding any artistic endeavor.

All I look for is something that tells me what the album is and why the reviewer thinks it is/isn't good, you know, like an actual review
Seriously what am I supposed to get about the album from an onion analogy?

The point of all your comments is about the review and not the album! What's the point of this site if all you do is find reasons to criticize the way a guy thoroughly enjoys something?

I am not familiar with this band, I was brought here by someone who thought I could give the author constructive feedback. I can't really talk about how much of a masterpiece this is if I haven't talked about the review now can I?

What I got out of this review is that Arche is something that can't be understood or categorized as a whole. It's something that offers its listeners the opportunity to make it what they want. The lyrics are in Japanese, the translations are vague and the music itself is deep, emotional, layered and otherworldly. It's a language within a language within a language, and the best you can do to describe such a thing in English alone is to acknowledge that.

Are you talking to me or the reviewer? Because if it was for Departures that is a very valid criticism, I didn't even know it was in Japanese until now.

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" and Dir en grey is perhaps the best example on earth to prove that quote to be true."

Give me a surface description at least, is it fast paced? Is it slow? Is it a bit of both? Talk about a few songs, which is your favorite and why? What do you dig about the album in general? How are the riffs? You mentioned that Dir En Grey is the best example to prove your quote, why? at least give me a sentence telling me how this is the case. These are great places to start when discussing an album, not vague analogies that may or may not have anything to do with the album.

@JohnnyOnTheSpot



I'm getting the sense that English is just not your first language and you're pretty pissed that this review wasn't more simple for you to read. But for your satisfaction:



Annex to the Conclusion





This album is worth spending your time and money on.¹



¹ I personally consider this point redundant since it can be inferred by the rating but apparently direct statements are easier on user JohnnyOnTheSpot's mind. - Departures

Wouldn't go that far, but def a bit overrated imo

Album Rating: 4.0

They're not inherently bad, but the thing is everyone treats them as if they're revolutionaries and their music is the edgiest shit you will ever hear. In reality, their just a Japanese metal band and the funny part is a lot of their stuff, especially from "Marrow of the Bone" onward is very western in style and influence so idk why every body makes such a big deal over them.