Anyway, this year I have made myself some loose resolutions, which should be reasonably easy to keep (that's the secret to keeping them- make 'em simple and something you actually want to do!). It's not about losing weight and shit (which I need to do, and sort of work at half-heartedly), but it's about metal.

This year I'm going to try to work my way through and rate everything I own which is on the site. Some things I have don't have any ratings. I've not been doing it up to now, and only rating things I review, which leaves a lot of stuff unrated. I've also avoided it a bit because I have a few odd opinions (Rust In Peace is only a 2...)

I'm going to only review stuff which isn't already been reviewed. I could get in and do the classics, like Reign In Blood and Master Of Puppets, but they all have a heap of reviews already (I did Dystopia because for once, living in New Zealand had an advantage- international dateline and all that meant I could be first to do it on day of release!), and I have stuff which other people don't, but might like. Therefore, if I review it, they might check it out.

These two go together. I've been working through the Grindcore bands, adding releases and new bands, but I've been checking some of them out too on YouTube to make sure they're in the right place on the site (can't always trust RYM!), and I've discovered a heap of new music. Sure, some of it is decidedly dodgy, some is nasty, and some is crap, (that probably goes with any genre), but I've discovered a heap of new stuff I like. I think I might be going the opposite to what most people do, in that my tastes are getting heavier, not lighter, as I get older.

Something I love about this forum is everyone seems to get along, and there are no flame wars, either serious or in jest, because it doesn't take much for something to start out fun and end up nasty. I can leave that for other forums. To that end, I've been trying to hold my tongue (fingers? This is all typed, not spoken!) when it comes to bands I dislike. I got pulled up a couple of times for being a dick when I first started posting here, and when I look at it, quite rightly so. I misjudged the tone of things here. I'm sure a lot of music I don't like has redeeming features I don't always hear. That's why we have reviews. Check someone else's opinion first, criticize later/in private/never...

As for me, I'm going to try and start and be a bit harsher with my ratings. Of course the review is really what matters, but I sometimes rate things 5 stars even if the whole or almost the whole album isn't of equal great quality. I'll sometimes rate something 5 stars first impression, but then I'll forget most of the album a few hours later. Also, sometimes I want one of my favorite bands albums rating to go up even if a realistic rating would be 4. Hopefully I'll be able to be a little more serious with ratings. 

As far as reviewing the un-reviewed, I've got quite a few albums I should review that have no reviews. It's nice getting reviews of obscure stuff, then you can get more people aware of some underrated album that was forgotten. I need to finish up reviewing 2015 stuff as well. I've been procrastinating with that. 

Yup, this is easily the nicest site/forum I've been on. While EM has more bands in their database, I take a nice respectful forum over more bands any day. Who needs obscure lo-fi black metal artists with one demo when you have a nice community is what I say. 

1. Fortunately I've kept a database of my music collection for years and have rated them all so it's pretty easy to keep on top of it.