Review Summary: 14 years deep into their career Mastodon have risen to become one of the most relevant outfits in modern metal.
14 years deep into their career
Giving temporal context, but worded to convey that the fourteen years have led us to a point in time. So we are in the present (or, possibly, at some point in time when Mastodon was fourteen years into their career... i guess which one would depend on the tense of the inbound verb... or however much we know about Mastodon...)...
Mastodon have
Oh, I see. We are currently fourteen years deep into the career of Mastodon. Alright, I was just checking to be sure...
risen
*SCREEEEEEEEEEECHES TO A HALT* Whoa... instead of the present tense, the present perfect tense??? So you're suggesting that something done in the past is having impact in the present. Alright, I can see that, except for the fact that the immediacy of Mastodon's "rise" on our present is... nonexistant (I mean, not just because its one of those idiotic music journalist crutches used to move readers along a bull*** spectrum relied upon in order to talk about new music's relationship to old music, but also because the timing of Mastodon's "rise" really has no consequence to us since it is the first sentence of the review, and we have no idea where you expected Mastodon to be nine words ago)...
What does their rise mean to us in the present? I think this actually does more harm to your sentence by making the first part pointless (apart from throwing the number in there, which really could have been done much more elegantly).
Why is it pointless? After fourteen years, what does (or did) Mastodon do? That is the question your readers are asking themselves after the words
"14 years deep into their career Mastodon..."
So do they rise, only now? Or have they been rising the whole time? What is the nature of their rise? When did it start and finish?
If they rise just now, you should have written "Fourteen years deep into their career, Mastodon rise (or are rising)..." Admittedly, this sounds stupid and not like what you were going for, so...
Since I think you meant that their rise has been going on and has concluded by now, let's go with "By the fourteenth year of their career, Mastodon rose..."
to become
this is just way too ***ing wordy for a first sentence... why use an infinitive here anyway? you just dig the hole deeper because you need to throw more *** at an infinitive. Why didn't they just rise to *something*? Can we just say they rose to the top?
one of the most
wait, ***... now my idea isn't gonna work. Because mastodon is merely rising to a *group* of other things. Alright, I hear ya, man. If you're using this many words to talk about it, it must be a pretty important group. And a well-defined group. Because you are suggesting that we will definitely be impressed that Mastodon has risen to the likes of the other members of this group. By the way, what group is it?
relevant
what. does. this. word. mean.
Define it without using commercial or critical modifiers, because if you can't do this then you could (and should) have just used those modifiers instead... if either of those are what you meant by "relevant" -- a term so ***ing loaded with unqualified hot air that any writer looking to use the term might as well just use 'cool' -- then use those words.
You are writing about "popular music." This affords you certain shortcuts: you can say something about where the band lies in the world of "popular music" (which has two dimensions: commercial and critical). If you find yourself writing about a band like this, either explain why the band is popular or don't write about their place in "popular music." And don't you fucking dare try to skip this step by calling them "relevant" and then going off about their "progressive leanings" rofl
Luckily for us, Mastodon are both commercially and critically successful. So let's just find a better word next time around.
outfits in modern metal
lol i quit. good review greg.
s
