Right, the way it works is this: we usually get the CD’s for review through distribution companies or directly from the labels. They send us a promo copy and an accompanying letter with a bunch of facts about the band and a fairly focused sales text from which it is their hope that we steal some of their praising adjectives.

These people know which tone to strike, they know that we know that half of it is bullshit because few bands are as good as they claim, but, hey, if we lift the praises directly out of their press releases, they are more than happy.

Then we have the bands who contact us directly. They have different approaches, but some of them have seen what the labels do and try to copy that. Some succeed and manage to make it look very professional, others are less fortunate.

Others again send just a CD and not a word and that’s actually fine, because that means that they have realised that they aren’t able to spread the bullshit, but have to let the music do the talking. More power to them.

I know that this is going to sound reactionary and awful: What is less cool is when someone decides to try to be different.

As a reviewer you need the facts because you often want to incorporate a bit of that here and there alongside your entirely subjective rambling, and then you want a clear indication of where the bullshit starts, because you only go there when you’re desperate for adjectives.

When the facts are muddled up with the bullshit, you get annoyed, because you have to read the bloody bullshit! Shaping the press release as a kind of interview is not good. Especially when the answers are plain narly. Examples:

‘‘”Why that Compact Disk [sic] cover then?” It’s designed to stand out, to be remembered, a marketing idea.’

Fair enough. It looks like a round Z with barcode wrongly placed on top of it. Easily forgotten and not effective marketing.

Next:

‘“Why metal?” We hear metal [sic] now big in Hollywood cinematic production. It’s a modal rebellion; extreme music is now a mainstream product. The rebel sells and always will. Beatles did the ‘white album’ and Metallica ‘the black album’, so Allguilty is doing the “primary color solution”. It’s a logical step and we’re not alone, there’s a modern movement sonically and we are proud to be part of it.’

Right…

Or how about this one:

‘“Since when did you start this crazy band?” Allguilty always exist [sic]. It was omnipresent since our birth laid on our soul [?], and craziness in many ways is a sense of intelligence. We as musicians are about to break humanly [sic?] performance barriers.’

Exsqueeze me?

Once I had finally spelled my way through the full A4 of wannabe jesting, semi-academic rants about the music industry as well as misspellings and left-out words, I could only expect to be exposed to an audio output just as amateurish.

But, much to my surprise, this was not the case!

Allguilty sound a lot like a mixture between Slipknot and a metalcore band (pick any) and it’s actually not half-bad. Their music contains a good energy and power, and the song writing could be a lot worse. As much, however, as Allguilty want to be crazy and break the performance barriers, I have to disappoint them and say that they haven’t.

You could say that 75 is not a fair rating for something that sounds good. But if you ever get the chance, then listen to the last three minutes of silly talk and noises from the band as well as a really, really annoying digital background beeping on this CD, then you know why there’s a slight reduction in the rating! Uuuuuuuaargh – kill!  

There you go, Allguilty received a lot of attention from me because of that press release anyway…too bad it wasn’t because of their music.