Unlike previous Reviewer's Challenges, there is no official sign-up this time, just this open invitation to take part - in fact all reviews posted across April will be counted. Likewise, how you obtain the albums to listen to and review is up to you. Spotify and Bandcamp remain good sources for full, legally streamable albums, but maybe you simply own something in your collection that hasn't had much of a look in on MMA yet. 

The only rules we will impose here is that A) the challenge is aimed at older release reviews only. Reviews submitted for new releases, meaning 2017-2018 albums, will not be counted. 2016 or older only. This is so the new release section of the MMA home page isn't disturbed by the Reviewer's Challenge. And B) we'll only accept cross-posted reviews if they came here immediately (A.K.A. they're newly written). We won't accept any from a backlog to avoid someone dominating the event without putting in any effort. You can still post them, they just won't be scored. Cross-posted reviewed must reference the original post in this event. 

There's no prize for being the most prolific reviewer during this event other than bragging rights and the satisfaction that you've helped improve MMA's collection of reviews, and thus our charts of the top rated albums on the site. The reviews will be scored by an independent admin (not myself as I wish to take part) and the reviewer with the most points at the end of April will get a shout-out for their work via social media. 

The scoring system will be as follows:

3 points for reviewing an unreviewed album.

2 points for reviewing an album with one prior review.

1 point for reviewing an album with two prior reviews. 

Nothing else will earn points, though you are still expected to follow MMA reviewing guidelines. 

And finally the most important thing: just have fun. 

If you set minimum number of ratings to 0, maximum number of to something like 5, leave minimum average rating value at 0 and set maximum results to 100 you'll get a big fat list of albums with only have at most 5 ratings. Since albums tend to have more ratings than reviews, most of the albums on the list will fit the "no more than 2 reviews" criteria for the challenge.

If you want some real obscurities, if you set minimum number of ratings to 1, maximum number to 1 or 2, minimum average at 0 and maximum results to 100 you get a host of real obscurities, all of which should by definition count for the challenge.

What I haven't worked out is whether there's a convenient way to list all the releases on the site which have 0 ratings.

I do recommend keeping track of my yearly List Challenge series though: there's a few obscure albums on each posted so far from 1980 and 1981 that I recall don't have reviews and some of the bands were only recently added. Whether you'll be able to find them to listen to is another thing but how you track albums down this time is completely up to you. 

1980:  http://www.listchallenges.com/metal-music-archives-presents-1980-in-metal" rel="nofollow - https://www.listchallenges.com/metal-music-archives-presents-1980-in-metal

1981:  http://www.listchallenges.com/metal-music-archives-presents-1981-in-metal" rel="nofollow - https://www.listchallenges.com/metal-music-archives-presents-1981-in-metal

If you've not heard of the album there's a good chance it has no reviews!

My first planned review is still Sabaton, though, likely tonight or tomorrow, and that is one I've never reviewed before.