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Posted by MORTIMER John Mortimer.
on 8/24/2003, 5:43 pm
195.93.34.12
Ok...everybody is entitled to an opinion...even me!
It seems to me that those individuals working for the glossy mags feel that they live or die by having their fingers on the pulse of "fashion". If the sort of music Holocaust produces happened to be fashionable right now, I bet he'd have given the Primal album 4 or 5 stars.
Notice that I say, "It seems to me......". That is precisely the sort of phrase reviewers like Mr Dome NEVER use. Why do they have to come across as ultimately authoritative? Where does he get this authority? When it comes to reviewing Holocaust albums, I would have thought that authority resided with Holocaust fans. For example, If he'd begun the review with, "I've been a fan of Holocaust over the years, BUT this album...", you would most definitely pay attention to what he had to say next, wouldn't you?
If it was me reviewing an album I didn't like much, I would say something along the lines of, "I didn't like the album because.....(reasons x,y,z), and then go on to describe the album in as objective a way as possible, in order to inform readers who might be thinking about checking out the album. That is never the way with reviewers like our Malcolm, however; they have to have the definitive last word...it's not just their opinion, it's a FACT!! Seems like a bit of an ego trip to me.
The idea that Holocaust is CURRENTLY benefiting from a Metallica, "endorsement", in 1987, (yes...1987!!!), is quite simply absurd. It would seem that Mr Dome quotes all the bands that have covered Holocaust over the years in order to appear, yep....you guessed it.....authoritative.
To the best of my knowledge Mr Dome has never been in any band that has released an album, so why should we accept his opinion as somehow more authoritative than any other person's opinion, when it comes to reviewing albums?
He says that our time, "came and went", with the NWOBHM in the early 1980s........how does he know this?? In fact, what exactly does he mean? If he's talking about actual album sales then I can inform him that sales have remained stable, (neither up nor down), since the Nightcomers. Does this mean that this is still, "our time"?! It all gets back to the nebulous concept of "fashion". Why is he not bright enough to realise that the A&R departments of larger record labels are not stuffed full of experts in metal music? The problem Holocaust has with, "not achieving much", is one of financial backing. We need exposure; we need as many music fans as possible, (of ALL ages), to hear our stuff. The traditional way of doing this is to tour. In order to tour you need an initial financial outlay. Since Holocaust has never been with a label large enough to afford that initial outlay, Holocaust has never gained serious exposure. I would say that today is, in fact, "our time", because the Internet presents real opportunities for exposure, independent of record labels.
If none of the songs, (apart from the possible exception of Colossus), light his particular candle, that's fine by me, but to claim that Holocaust survives because Metallica covered "The Small Hours" in 1987 proves only one thing.....Mr Dome is too "old"...it is HE who trades off the past.
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