Just to show that I'm not trolling for its own sake, here's the primary flaws in the review:

1 - Assassination of Envy's back-catalogue with little, if any, detailed explanation (and certainly nothing convincing for me). Examples: "a band consistently on the back burner", "But the problem here is that their early stuff wasn’t very…well, good" (the explanation that follows this is weak and quite narrow-minded), "It worked despite the band’s iffy track record regarding both disparaging sounds" and (perhaps most importantly) "This has been lost for years." (Although All the Footprints gets a mention, there is absolutely zero beyond this statement regarding the specifics of Envy's supposed decline).

2 - Aside from an overly concise description of the vocals and a promising point about the post-rock aspects (which is the closest the review comes to being convincing), there is nothing else to condemn this album specifically aside from an overtone of how dull Envy supposedly are.

"I could prattle on about how awkward the mixing is or how choppy the tracklist has been set up" PLEASE DO!!! A little expansion into these areas would make the review infinitely well-founded, but on their own they stand out as empty claims (especially given the lack of persuasion from the rest of the content).

3 - The structure. It might have worked if the arguments had been supported better, but as it is the first half of this review reads as insubstantial ranting about Envy being dull and inconsequential and the second half, which pertains to the album, is left floundering because of the way in which it relies on the first half for a discursive foundation.

Protest 5, mofo

Album Rating: 5.0

Well,



Envy and AmenRa are always 4.5 to 5 for me, cuz that's how I feel about passionate music.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

this review is where eli loses his staff privileges























































again

Not without good reason.

Nothing wrong with an opinionated review, but if you can't justify your opinions convincingly then you shouldn't be writing as a member of staff.

Yea, the review does seem a bit spiteful. I like the album, it seemed a bit stale at first but it's definitely grown on me.

Dude try it. Say "fuck you" to this review and the negative culture that this site loves and be a man.

If you're staff, learn to write like it.

Album Rating: 5.0

"Hahaha....dude I'm staff. You can't fucking touch me but nice try. I'm like a god on this site don't even."



1. God is a fictional character that does not exist



which leads us to the conclusion that



2. You are nothing on this site



and maybe do us all a favor and stop writing...

Opinions in review are good. I love em. I think reviews should be personal. What is a bad idea, though, is presenting opinions as objective fact. That makes a review amateurish and sloppy.

Claiming Envy was never good is an extremely difficult statement to defend, which isn't done here. Worse, the portions of this review that talk about the band's history seem to treat their previous success as a bumbling accident and shrug off all of their qualities as bad. Like you can't even call Footprints good, you insist on describing it as something that happened DESPITE the band, not BECAUSE of them.

It's a messy review, and comes across as much less of a "review" and more of a harangue about how you never liked Envy and this album is just more of what you never liked.

"When was the last time you actually thought about Envy? I don’t mean that as in the last time you listened to their music, but rather, when you remembered that they were an actual band."

This doesn't even make sense. So if I listened to Footprints the other day, that doesn't count because I didn't remember they were a band? What? And for the record, I spin Footprints or Funeral Diner's "The Underdark" fairly frequently. Maybe YOU don't think of them all that often, but a lot of people do.

I haven't even listened to this and the review is a disaster. Maybe the album IS bad, but this doesn't read like an analysis of the album so much as taking out a personal vendetta against people who like Envy.

^excellent points.

"Dude I told you that you can't touch staff so don't even try"

All I'm getting from that is insubstantial hollow crap, much like the review.

"a person and especially a man who is greatly loved or admired"

That's a lousy definition of 'god' (although I don't take issue with your original use of the word)

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Envy is not for everyone, and this reviewer clearly doesn't "get" them. If you're an Envy fan, this album is exceptional and probably the best material they've released in over a decade.

Gonna ban me for offering criticism? The only ill grace here has been yours.

For the record, it's not bad for someone to review an album by a band they don't like. Biases are biases, it works in both directions. However, it IS worth remembering that if you don't like ANYTHING a band does, then the points you raise in a review are going to be inapplicable, and the review itself needs to bend over backwards to point out that you're both aware of those biases and trying not to let them color the review itself. Both fail hard here.

It's like if a food critic hates seafood and then delivers an excoriating review for a lobster platter, complaining about the texture of it and the "shellfish" taste and smell. Or saying a Mel Brooks comedy is bad because it's silly and irreverent. If you're not a fan of what the work is TRYING to do, then your ability to review its success at that is compromised.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

"Gonna ban me for offering criticism? "



nobody said anything about giving you infractions for being lulzy, get off your martyr high horse.

"Record was too dull to go in depth so I had to fudge the details."

Complacent.

"nobody said anything about giving you infractions for being lulzy, get off your martyr high horse."

I was being facetious, dude...

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

yeah which is what I think xeno is doing too but you people don't seem to understand that either

"I wrote a 4.5 review of all the footprints and also wrote the review for recitation so I'm kind of an envy expert"

That doesn't make this review not terrible, dude. You can be defensive and snippy all you want but this review is just plain bad. The way you wrote it, Footprints wasn't even a good album, it was just successful by accident and still not that interesting anyway. You relegate all of Envy's qualities to "meh" at best.

Actually that defense sort of explains your problem. Rather that defending this review on its own merits you try and claim that since you wrote other stuff that improves this one in the same way that most of this review is just a diatribe on the band rather than giving any meaningful insight into the sound here.

Your Footprints review is very well written. This is not. Sorry if that stings.