Reviews: the good and the bad(ly written)

Had a couple of high profile reviews in English magazines in the last week or two: a nice one by Geoff Barton in Classic Rock (7/10, 'finely crafted and acutely involving') and a rubbish one in Power Play (5/10, 'progressive rock lite'). To make matters worse, the BBT review in Power Play was on the same page as a review of one of my daughter's favourite bands, Nightwish. Nightwish are a Finnish emo band. They sound like Abba, with heavy metal guitars. And they got 10/10. This amused my daughter (Ellie) no end.

I know it's sensible not to get annoyed by bad reviews, but having a couple of years' work dismissed in a hundred words of badly written prose is a tad irritating. And, really, I'm not just being bitter; the reviewer can't write. Consider this sentence, for example:

'If your (sic) a Big Big Train fan, then I guess your (sic) probably used their sound (sic) and will get a huge amount out of this release.'

Call yourself a journalist? Journalism lite, that's what I call it.

ps - on the same page as our Classic Rock review, one of Ellie's other favourite bands, Bullet For My Valentine* had their new album reviewed. They got 5/10. Ha ha!

* Bullet For My Valentine are a Welsh emo band. They sound like Tom Jones, with heavy metal guitars.

Frost, Hyperventilate, unplugged

Do check out this cracking version of Frost's Hyperventilate, played in unplugged-style by Jem Godfrey and Declan Burke.

Jem's keyboard playing is spectacularly good and the arrangement really shows off the quality of the composition.