March 7, 2010

My updated rating system

I'm unsure how many of you have read my reviews from Transcending the Mundane, but if you have, you may notice that I gave a lot of very high marks to the albums I reviewed, rarely giving out scores lower than 9. That's because back then, I was rating things much like grades are given out in school, which is obviously the wrong way to rate items in reviews. So, at the beginning of the year I re-vamped my rating system for my reviews, which now looks like this:

10 - Perfect
9 - Nearly Perfect
8 - Exceptional
7 - Very Good
6 - Good
5 - Mediocre
4 - Forgettable
3 - Poor
2 - Bad
1 - Horrible
0 - Abysmal

This new rating system will be my guide from now on. And for clarification purposes, I'm also going to provide a list of all the albums that I previously reviewed on Transcending the Mundane, and their new, more accurate ratings. Some of the ratings aren't changed because the original rating is accurate, but most are different from my original score. Check out the full list after the jump:


Lullabies for the Dormant Mind by The Agonist - 9/10
The Fall of Ideals by All That Remains - 9.5/10
An Ocean Between Us by As I Lay Dying - 7.5/10
Total Brutal by Austrian Death Machine - 8.5/10
Blooddrunk by Children of Bodom - 6.5/10
Resurrection by Chimaira - 7.5/10
The Infection by Chimaira - 8/10
Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder by Cradle of Filth - 8.5/10
Fiction by Dark Tranquillity - 8.5/10
Summer of Darkness by Demon Hunter - 8/10
Storm the Gates of Hell by Demon Hunter - 9.5/10
Pray for Villains by DevilDriver - 7.5/10
Mind Tricks by Disarmonia Mundi - 9.5/10
Children of the Dark Waters by Eternal Tears of Sorrow - 8.5/10
The Premonition by Firewind - 7.5/10
The Way of the Fist by Five Finger Death Punch - 8.5/10
Earthsblood by God Forbid - 9/10
Versus by The Haunted - 6/10
Iconoclast (Part 1: The Final Resistance) by Heaven Shall Burn - 8/10
Wintereich by Immortal Souls - 9/10
Beautiful Tragedy by In This Moment - 8/10
For the Revolution by Kalmah - 9/10
Kolossus by Keep of Kalessin - 6.5/10
Killswitch Engage II by Killswitch Engage - 5/10
Wrath by Lamb of God - 7.5/10
Stormchaser by Light This City - 8.5/10
Armamentarium by Neaera - 9/10
Omnicide - Creation Unleashed by Neaera - 7/10

N by Norther - 6/10
Slaves of the World by Old Man's Child - 8.5/10
Watershed by Opeth - 9/10 (Note: two other reviewers also wrote reviews of this album, and they are all on the same page. My review is the second one on the page.)
Horizons by Parkway Drive - 9/10
Holographic Universe by Scar Symmetry - 10/10
Revelation VI by Siebenbürgen - 7/10
Love and Other Disasters by Sonic Syndicate - 6/10
The Serpent by Still Remains - 3/10
The Oncoming Storm by Unearth - 10/10
The March by Unearth - 9/10
Kerrang! Remastered: Metallica's "Master of Puppets" Revisited by Various Artists - 5/10
The American Dream by Walls of Jericho - 7.5/10
The Cancer Empire by Zonaria - 8.5/10

An additional note: Some of my scores here may contradict statements made in my reviews regarding comparisons to previous work. That's because I've had time now to re-listen to some albums and re-evaluate my thoughts on them. Take from that what you will. The scores now are reflective of my current thoughts about each album.

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