My first review. Could someone take the time to give me some feedback please?

I like this review a lot -- very compact phrases! The one line that seemed out of place was:

The indie weeklys are constantly raving about bands who wish they sounded like these kids

Its attitude just doesn't seem in keeping with the more hopeful tone of the rest of the review

Good work all around, though!

p.s. please send a CD-r of First Day Back, they sound fascinating

Haha, are First Day Back from Exeter or Reading? I'm sure I know someone who's in them.

they're from st. albans. nice guys. I think the drummer posts here every so often.

J0hn - know what you mean. I couldn't get that phrase right.

Pretty good. I'm not sure about some of the belittling-seeming terminology ("whey-faced"?) used to describe an otherwise positively-portrayed band but if it's a first review then DAMN you stormed out the gates pretty well.

oh I really liked "whey-faced" though, it sounded like a good song title

This is good stuff. The line about the indie weeklies wasn't so much poorly written as just a bit glib and pointlessly sneery, especially as they are among the more likely buyers of this kind of thing. I was also unsure about the proximity of 'gubbinery' and 'Shoreditchery', both good alone but not together - you could just make the first 'gubbins'.

I thought it was fucking awful, sorry.

I didn't like it much - here's why:

First of all I didn't like the present-tense descriptions. Seems like artifice, but it's just my opinion.

Also, while you show decent writing skills, the review you present seems to me more about your writing skills and your enjoyment of unusual (made-up?) words, than about telling me what the damnned music was like. But thank you for submitting this and subjecting yourself to criticism from the likes of me.

I wasn't going to mention this for obvious reasons but i'm drunk right now so to be honest, i've submitted it to timeout for a job app as an example of my writing which explains the use of "shoreditchery". I really appreciate these comments though! I need to develop my style and i need to learnt he ropes.

Hey, keep going. You can write.

Pretty good. 'Shoreditchery' is a great word. 'Awesome' isn't. There seems to be plenty of description of what the music was like to me so perhaps Davlo wants to read it again.

I liked it. Should be more swearing in capital letters and more talk about Debord though.

Do other people have a real aversion to using "us" or referring to yourself or anything in a review? No major criticism, it's maybe a personal thing as much as anything but I can't bear it.

er can't *bare* it

I do Ronan, totally, which leads to me being criticised for being arrogant and solipsistic by readers of Stylus quite often, just cos all the other reviewers refer to themselves loads in reviews, whereas I try not too. Maybe it's a British thing? That seeking objective authority by using a non-singular voice so as to imply that subjective val.judgements are objctv truths?

I don't mind it if the review is like a long piece say for FT, where obviously I've done personal pieces and that's the style, but for gig reviews which are short and don't have the space for expanding alot it just feels kinda insignificant to me.

Also the most annoying thing about the concept of short live music reviews is that the writer describes their evening in 80 words rather than the band. Generally speaking I don't want to know about the venue unless it's new, or people in the crowd. And really my other problem is that the stuff the singer says and the crowd reaction are difficult to describe at the best of times without getting into rock appreciation cliches, and they're also kind of secondary to the music.

Plus obviously I did a 9,000 word diary piece for Stylus which was all about how drunk I was and how I wanted to believe in God but can't. Which totally goes against what I said above, but there you go.

Some random comments - thanks for submitting it, v brave!

"gubbinery" in the same sentence as "Shoreditchery" doesn't work - it looks as if you're a bit embarrassed to be using 'gubbins' and want to tart it up a bit.

"solidify the ethic" is great (do you mean "ethos" though?). Be good to have a sentence solidifying it for the readers - it feels like four super-compact reviews instead of one overall thing. "neo-classical soundscapes" is not great - too music journalist-ese.

Agreed on the 'we' thing.

This thread really helped me out and I was wondering if you could give me some feedback on this first draft of a review I am writing. I don't know what I intend to do with it yet, but I suppose it's good practice to keep writing.
One minor concern I have is whether to capitalise genre names like electro and electroclash. What about hiphop? How does one capitalise that?

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RADIOACTIVE MAN - BOOBY TRAP
(Rotters Golf Club)

It could be argued that last year’s Electroclash boom did not begin in the hip urban basements of Berlin, nor in the underground clubs of New York, but in an exclusive London drinking den known as the Rotters’ Golf Club.
RGC Records is the brainchild of Andrew Wetherall and Keith Tenniswood aka Two Lone Swordsmen who spearheaded the electro revival on the 2000 album Tiny Reminders (Warp).
Although RGC’s output to date has been patchy (Klart’s in-jokey For Shavers Only being one particular offender), the label struck gold in 2001 with Tenniswood’s eponymous debut as Radioactive Man.
This was a gift from the Electro Gods! Beats bigger than Omnicrom, synths so warm your mother could have baked them; and at the end you got to destroy your neighbour’s loft installation with the window-rattling anthem, Uranium.
Which is why Booby Trap is such a disappointment really.
A follow-up to Radioactive Man was never going to be easy, and while this is not a bad album, it is indicative of electro’s inevitable glass-ceiling.
For someone who’s name is synonymous with progression, Tenniswood’s latest is no giant leap from the first album.
Synths burble, 808s jitter, but it is largely a slow-to-cook album with only the last couple of tracks letting off a full head of steam.
Maybe this is why Tenniswood felt the need to break from the usual electroschtick with the hiphop flavoured Suddenly Projected and the new-wave Fed-Ex To Munchen; but these tunes sit awkwardly next to the rest of the album.
There are some highlights, however. Bug In Me System reminds us how great Tenniswood can be when he wants, while the pounding Twistyboomklart is all set to be this year’s Uranium.
Electro fans will not be disappointed and, turned up loud enough, Booby Trap will liven up any party; but it seems that this could spell the end for Radioactive Man if he is to continue in such a closed medium.

----

Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.

Dog.

well the electro thing blew up in 1997 in detroit (ectomorph, uax 88, dopplereffekt... uh, aaron w/andy k to thread). check out the dutch 12" "space invaders are smoking grass" by IF released in 96 or 97.

Heh, maybe I should check my facts! I had no idea that I-F track was so old. But surely Aux88 et al is more a progression from the Detroit Techno scene rather than a revival of older styles? I feel that "Tiny Reminders" was responsible for a lot of things, not to mention Wetherall's "Hypercity" mixes.

electro has been continually revived since the early 90s, hasn't it?

early warp was surely a kind of electro revival. and drexciya. and like gygax sez dopplereffekt. and then ectomorph/interdimensonal trans in detroit and i-f and all that hague disco shit.

Electro has been in continuous revival since about 1982. But I refuse to defend that outrageous statement.

Regarding the review, I liked the writing style but found myself wondering whether you might possibly elaborate on:

-the sense in which this record was, in your words, 'slow to cook';

-why this record was such a disappointment because it was slow-to-cook;

-why, if it was slow-to-cook, it would not disappoint electro fans;

-how turning it up loud would make a difference.

Also - is it possible to actually give a more detailed description of the sound of the record? Evenb at the expense of some of the introductory history?

In my defence, I did say "last year’s Electroclash boom" (i.e. the boom of 2002).

Thanks colin, I agree, the history might be a bit long on revision.