Greetings fellow users!  As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session.  It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones.  In the first week of the competition’s history, Gameofmetal won with his review of Equilibrium’s album Armageddon, which you can read here.  I’ll start the next week’s competition tomorrow via the lists section of this site, so feel free to check out the selected albums and participate if so desired.   But for now, let me introduce you to Brett Tharp, better known as Gameofmetal – a Sputnik contributing reviewer and winner of the review competition’s debut.

Authentic photo of Brett Tharp rocking out to Metallica’s ‘One’

Sowing: I’ll just get straight to the point – what’s your favorite The Bunny The Bear song?

Gameofmetal: Wow, getting right to the big questions aren’t we? I like “The Seeds We Sow” actually. Has a catchy hook even if there’s not that much more to it.

Cool, figured I’d throw you a curveball to start.  So how did you come up with the username Gameofmetal?

Well I’m generally terrible with usernames, so I just combined my two favorite things at the time, Game of Thrones and Heavy Metal. It’s a little lame, but I’ve gone by it so long now that it’d…

Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones.  This week’s winner was cryptologous, who reviewed Norma Jean’s Polar Similar.

cryptologous is more badass than you, period.

Sowing: So you’re Australian.  Elaborate. 

cryptologous: Aye matey. I was born and raised in the UK, but have spent a good deal of my teenage-to-adult years living in this brown Southern Land. As for Aussie activities, I am a big fan of the art of barbecue. I attend a good deal of gigs here, but that aside, introversion and crappy puns are my main deal. That is probably more my English side showing than anything, but ya know, barbecues. Aussie Aussie Aussie.

I love barbecues.  Do you guys grill weird shit because it’s Australia?  You know, like Koala toes or something?  Or is it your typical American fare like burgers and dogs?

Well, probably the weirdest commodity commercially available for the avid barbecue fan (or any Australian male) would be kangaroo meat. That being said, a couple years back during a road trip, I stopped off at a camping site. Some bloke rocked up in his truck and headed straight for the barbecues with a lizard he had run over during his travels. Gave us…

Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones.

This week, Sputnik mainstay Michael Snoxall won a hard-fought user review challenge with his coverage of Eternal Champion’s The Armor of Ire (here).

Foreword by Tristan Jones:

When I was in Boy Scouts as a young buck, I remember an explanation of the Scouts’ custom of shaking with the left hand, as opposed to the right. It was meant to be a sign of trust, lowering your shield in order to greet your fellow warrior. That’s a pretty good analogy of Sputnik ex-staff Eli K. (Xenophanes) and user Michael Snoxall (OvDeath) dropping their guards, allowing an exchange of deep-rooted personal musings as brethren. Honoured, I acted as the mediator, and the instigation between myself and Eli went something along these lines:

(Dramatization)
Tristan: Hey Eli would u like to do an interview for this week’s review challenge? it’ll be a real wing dinger

Eli: tbh you couldn’t pay me enough. which, incidentally, would be zero anyway.

Tristan: *at this point I typed something about likening Eli to Leonidas from the film “300” due to his rather striking beard but then I caught onto Eli’s aloof demeanour and decided against that, so I hit the DELETE button…