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Title: When the World Was Quiet
Artist: Afterglow
Year: 2018
Nationality: Unknown
Chronology: Unknown
Genre: Unknown; listening to it I would hazard maybe post-rock? Something instrumental anyway
Familiarity: Zero
Loved: Finite
Liked:
Meh: Nothing Left, Breath Taker, Ascent
Disliked:
Hated

Review: I looked everywhere for information on this artist: Wiki, Discogs, Metal Archives, Progarchives, Bandcamp, RYM, Google, but the only place I could even find the album was on Amazon, which perhaps tells its own story. It certainly was not worth all that effort for this collection of generic maybe post-rock tunes.

Rating: Meh

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Title: High Noon
Artist: Shakra
Year: 2016
Nationality: Swiss
Chronology: 12th of 14
Genre: Hard Rock
Familiarity: Zero
Loved: Absolutely everything here.
Liked:
Meh:
Disliked:
Hated

Review: Sure, these guys aren’t reinventing the wheel, and they sound about as Swiss as Jon Bon Jovi or Noddy Holder (and somewhat similar to both) but man can they rock! Nothing bad on this album, and I’d be well interested in exploring their discography more.

Rating: Excellent

Great idea for a journal TH. This is maybe what I should adopt if I ever decided to write in one again :laughing:

Well I'm known for the walls of text, so I thought this might be something different. Also, I'm not that into writing long long reviews any more, not for albums I don't even know.

Walls of text is good too, I honestly wish I could write like that. I think that’s why I struggled for time with the album club because it took me so long to pull something together :laughing: so I definitely should try something like this :)

Hey look, you know you're not required to write anything special for the Album Club don't you? You can write a full review if you want, or a few lines. No pressure. It's not so much about what you write or how much, but how the album impressed you, or did not.

In the unlikely event you ever want help writing a review, just wake your kindly old Uncle Troll up from his midday nap and I'll be happy to oblig... obl... oooozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

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Title: Purgatory
Artist: Borealis
Year: 2015
Nationality: Canadian
Chronology: 3rd of 5
Genre: Heavy Metal
Familiarity: Zero
Loved: Rest My Child, Revelation
Liked: Pretty much everything else
Meh:
Disliked:
Hated

Review: Had to listen to this twice before I could make a decision on it; it sounded poor first time and then seemed to get better near the end, so I spun it again. I’m still not decided, but there’s definitely something there.

Rating: Good, could possibly be Great on subsequent listenings.

I can't say I know this band. I see they're from Orangeville. It's no wonder they play metal. There's likely VERY little to do in that town.

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Title: Destiny
Artist: Stratovarius
Year: 1998
Nationality: Finnish
Chronology: 7th of 15
Genre: Power Metal
Familiarity: Some; I don’t think I’ve heard a full album but I’ve heard a good few tracks
Loved: Years Go By, Venus in the Morning
Liked: Anthem of the World
Meh: Everything else
Disliked:
Hated

Review: Given what I have heard from this band, this came as something of a disappointment, fairly generic power metal really. It’s telling that the only tracks I cared about were the two ballads (how predictable) though the closer was good too, and at least that was not a ballad.

Rating: All right

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Title: Rhyme and Reason
Artist: Chris Ousey
Year: 2011
Nationality: English
Chronology: First of 2
Genre: AOR
Familiarity: Zero
Loved: The Mother of Invention, Any Other Day, Bleeding Heart, Don’t Wanna Dance, By Any Other Name, A Natural Law
Liked: Everything else
Meh:
Disliked:
Hated

Review: It took me four spins to finally get into this. It’s a half-decent to decent AOR album; nothing fantastic but it certainly grows on you, and I really like it now.

Rating: Great.