This reviewer noted something many of us have seen — that of the multitude of blogs, sites, magazines, etc. no one actually knows much about the music. They take two lines and a concept from the press release, and then blow that into a chatty review, in the meantime missing the point.

Here’s Ray Miller from Metal Curse on the incompetence of metal journalists:

I am fucking sick of reading bullshit reviews of this album written by clueless dickholes who all seem to think that this is the first time Cianide has ever played at a pace any faster than Godzilla’s slow march to Toyko to rape the Diet building. Satan’s speed is Cianide’s speed, you hydrocephalic living abortions! Go listen to “Human Cesspool” or anything from 1996’s Rage War (I don’t think anything here is faster than “Deadly Spawn”) onward for examples of Chicago’s Most Brutal kicking 666 spectrums of ass at whatever tempos they see fit. Almost all of the band’s previous album, 2005’s Hell’s Rebirth, is this fast or beyond. – Cianide – Gods of Death

This is him writing about the new Cianide (which is great) that has gone over the heads of most reviewers who have no idea why it’s (a) good and (b) deserves attention, but most of all are easily distracted and so have wandered over to the metalcore band that uses a harp and a female vocalist and are gushing over its mediocre music (but excellent production! ironic instrumentation! groovy name! good back-story!) instead.

Metal journalism is incompetent because record labels simply imported a new audience — hipsters — to replace metalheads. The new people have no clue and so they gush, drool, and gibber excitedly over trivial stuff. The labels don’t care — they just want a nice easy extension of their press releases. They might have had opposition back when metalheads chose magazines carefully, and read informative websites only; now, the endless sea of blogs is excited chatter with no substance, and that’s perfect for marketing.