MASSIF - "GROOVEYARD" (ROKAROLA)
The past couple of days I have spent writing really inspired reviews of a couple of CDs (Cannibal Corpse, Racer X, Kutschurft) and the Metal Fest concert review. Sometimes my blood starts to boil with unexpectedly intense opinions, sometimes almost bordering on emotions. They can be really positive or really negative, but they all have in common that I start typing and out flow halfway decently inspired words. They will usually get you, dear reader, gripped by wild peals of laughter. Either that, obviously, or explode into a frenzy of hard-core anger and the fond desire to have my hide (or worse!) for garters. It's easy to write those reviews. The words, like I said, just flow. The nice words, or the bile, just come. However, these ideal reviewing conditions do not arise all the time. In fact they usually arise only when the object of the review is spectacularly funny, or good, or bad, or plain silly. Everything that falls in the rather greyer area of the more mundane cannot possibly get the same treatment. But you can't simply write, "this is not very good" or "this does not have what it takes to cut it". That wouldn't be, well, professional (even though I am definitely an amateur :-). Also, I feel an obligation towards the people that send me CDs. They inevitably mean well, and sometimes bands themselves send me a CD. CDs and postage are not for free, definitely not if you're starting out as a band. I appreciate every single item that people send me to review. It means they consider Metal-E-Zine serious enough for their attention. That's good, that's what I want, that's what I am doing all this for.
However, there are a lot of bands out there that each try to grab a bit of the pie that is the music business. And fact is that most of them definitely don't have what it takes. Fact, too, is that some of them do get record deals and some of these CDs do end up on my desk. Don't think I am complaining, because I am not. I think it's a privilege that people find it worth while to send me their stuff so I can write down what I think of it, let other people read it. Sometimes I slag off stuff and people can't understand it at all. I got some reactions to a review of Blackmore's Night that I did, and they were full of indignation. I will no doubt get quite a few reactions to my subjective view on the, um, talents of American Head Charge, such as I unfolded in the Metal Fest review. So be it.
What this all boils down to, what I actually want to say, is that Massif doesn't have what it takes and "Grooveyard" is just another CD that brings us one step closer to the depletion of the earth's resources. It's not bad, rather it's average. When you stop listening to the CD you wonder what you've been listening to, that's how much of an impression it leaves.
RK
Written February 2002