Best Sites for Metal Music Reviews
What are your favorite review sites? It doesn't have to be a review site only for metal, as long as metal reviews are also well established there.
This is the most important site, I guess. Very broad range of bands, very good description and most accurate genre categorisation and of course many reviews.
The site is very well arranged and if you do not find a review to an album, you'll find it most likely here. Its free for everyone to review here, so you can read a great variety of different opinions.
Just two flaws in my opinion. One is the rating system, because a "75%" doesn't tell you much and the second is the strict policy of bands that are allowed. For me it doesn't matter that much, because I listen mostly to Death Metal, but Metalcore/Deathcore fans will be disappointed.
("strict policy" also applies to the reviews itself, since track-by-track reviews are forbidden, but that's rather positive, I believe)
I agree this is the best source of credible info about metal. Also, the easiest way to understand whether a band is metal or not - if the band has no page on this site it's not metal. Also, I made a list that explains how to do this - Top 10 Bands that Aren't Metal According to Encyclopaedia Metallum.
I visit this site several times a day.
Best place to find reviews, except rock, nu metal and "core" genres aren't allowed on this site.
I live this site, it contains practically every Metal band that ever existed.
Visit Website
Not as good as the metal archives in my opinion, but the rating system is better! The reviews are usually well written and give a good overview of the album!
This elitism thing may get in their way a bit sometimes. But make no mistake, their reviews are top-notch and always a pleasure to read.
49% elitism, 51% snobbery. I think you know why I don't like this site. I have a feeling it's biased against symphonic metal and the bands with female vocalists, which are one of my favorites.
Quality reviews, for broad spectrum of bands.
Visit Website
I really like this site. Reviews are nicely written and the rating system gives you a good idea what the numbers stands for.
Visit Website
Well... its not focused on metal, but on all types of music. What this site makes so good is the clear design with its neatly arranged parts. You get a nice overview of the records and the rating system is very accurate.
A "7/10" could mean anying, but a "3.5/5 great" actually gives you an idea.
Its free to everyone to write a review and its also free for every user to vote (you don't have to write a review in order to vote).
It's a good site.
A site going for - as their credo - metal, rock and folk. But the site leans towards metal more than most. Covers old, as well as new metal in all its splendor.
Pretty snazzy and often downright excellent reviews, mostly on metal but also for some rock and folk. The site covers EPs and the odd video here and there, too.
Brilliant site - check it out!
Overall, it's more interesting to read through the opinions and lists on this site. Metal Archives reviewers tend to be very elitist. Some of the Metal Archives reviews are inconsistent and don't even make sense. For example one guy criticized Chimaira's self-titled album for not being "nearly heavy or brutal enough for my tastes" but then he gave a Judas Priest album a 100%.
The imdb of metal. Being true to its roots while acknowledging genres of metal not considered tr00cvlt
I like the Top 10 lists on Loudwire, but they don't make much about the less popular bands.
Album and concert reviews, great photos and many interviews. The site is run by an American residing in Finland.
Its one the Best Sites on the web, good Reviews a nice design and accurate info
The sites purpose is something different, but I found also neat reviews there.
This site champions melodic metal, mostly prog and power metal, but not only. Reviews are written very professionally.
I especially like the very intelligent reviews by Rustyn Rose, who also works for the Metal Nation Radio. Their polls are not very reliable because everybody can vote, including visitors - it's something like The Top Tens, with similar flaws. For example, I am pretty sure that people who run the site don't think Babymetal is the best metal band but I saw something like that on their site.
TheTopTens is a countdown-based website founded and created in 2005 which consists of user-generated content. Visitors can vote, comment, like other comments, and view user-created remixes. Registered users can use the additional features of the site - such as creating lists, remixes, posts, messaging, and following users to have content in the personal feed. It has over 200,000 lists as of 2022. It may not be a site completely intended to make metal reviews, but the blog posts feature allowed it to happen! All we need is to have more diverse contributors!