[swervedriver]

Just found a review. Don't know if there's an official thread to post it, so here it goes:
http://www.blistering.com/fastpage/fpen ... 4/menuid/2

Well, that guy has clearly missed the mark.

Past that, Ki loses its draw. The trippy “Ain’t Never Gonna Win…” fails to hit the mark, as does “Trainfire,” an ill-conceived homage to classic country music about a girl chasing a train.

(...)

The first part of a proposed three-album series, Ki drifts by and leaves perhaps not the mark Townsend was expecting. Rarely does the madman leave us wanting more, but in this case, he has. Guess that’s what the next two albums are for, eh?

Trainfire is not about a girl chasing a train. Ki is the first part of a four-album series. Ki is *meant* to leave us wanting more by never really exploding, but showing restraint all over.

Review fail.

Just found a review. Don't know if there's an official thread to post it, so here it goes:
http://www.blistering.com/fastpage/fpen ... 4/menuid/2

Well, that guy has clearly missed the mark.

Past that, Ki loses its draw. The trippy “Ain’t Never Gonna Win…” fails to hit the mark, as does “Trainfire,” an ill-conceived homage to classic country music about a girl chasing a train.

(...)

The first part of a proposed three-album series, Ki drifts by and leaves perhaps not the mark Townsend was expecting. Rarely does the madman leave us wanting more, but in this case, he has. Guess that’s what the next two albums are for, eh?

Trainfire is not about a girl chasing a train. Ki is the first part of a four-album series. Ki is *meant* to leave us wanting more by never really exploding, but showing restraint all over.

Review fail.

Agreed, people are totally missing the point about Ki (and Dev kinda "predicted" it)...but in the end, the guy wrote some positive impressions. I've seen some reviews at Rate Your Music and they're just gross, talking shit about the album, complaining 'cause it's not crazy/chaotic metal music, and so on. At the end of the day, there will be a bunch of "pointless" reviews out there, but since Ki is all about this "nothing to prove" attitude, they're not really that important or influential.

It's kind of obvious, the critics are expecting growls from Townsend than other things sadly.
The guy didn't told anything about the song "Ki"...

(And, dont' mean to be a nerd, but... "Disruptor,” ? )

Although I don't know if this review was posted earlier...

http://www.lordsofmetal.nl/showreview.php?id=13755&lang=en

Trainfire is not about a girl chasing a train. Ki is the first part of a four-album series. Ki is *meant* to leave us wanting more by never really exploding, but showing restraint all over.

Review fail.

Plus "a select cast of characters from the man’s lengthy musical career" — it's half recent people (Brian and Dave) and half completely new people (Jean and Duris).

It's kind of obvious, the critics are expecting growls from Townsend than other things sadly.
The guy didn't told anything about the song "Ki"...

For real - I was going to mention that, too. I don't understand... I just do.not.fucking.understand how someone cannot hear the end of the track Ki and not have their mind blown to smithereens!

I was making dinner for a friend of mine this weekend, and she typically likes alternative rock... and I slipped it on while cooking. I had previously tried to get her to listen to Infinity, but predictably it was a bit too heavy for her (wuss!). But right off the bat she loved Coast, Lady Helen... and when Ki came on... she just said "Wow, what the hell just happened? That was incredible". If I weren't attached, I would have kissed her right there!

“Trainfire,” an ill-conceived homage to classic country music about a girl chasing a train

that was just AMAZING. Reminds me of the dude that called Terria "rebel music"

I guess it will be like this forever, for the general critics Townsend is still the guy who wrote Detox and the singer on the Sex & Religion album.

The Terria review was on a completely different level of bullshit. I think I learned my lesson from that, so now I rarely read reviews, whether it's a swing and a miss like the Terria one, or boot-licking like "A man. A guitar. A studio. An immense overload of electronics. Above all: a vision.".

As for Ki itself, I haven't listened, yet.

The older I've become, the more pointless I've found reviews in general to be, with music being the most poignant case.

You can't review music the way you would, for example, a car. One car will go around a track faster than another car, therefore you have a winner. New CPUs will be faster than those a year old. Though trying to review music is fruitless, unless 1) you've heard every single composition ever recorded in the history of humanity, and 2) are reviewing it in the context of a certain genre (which, in this case, is pointless because Dev didn't mean for it to conform to a certain genre).

Anyway, trying to review anything from Dev without listening to it many many times over the course of at least a few months is unworthy to begin with.

This amuses me, I read the reviews, had a little chuckle to myself, and came on here to see if they'd been noticed and lo and behold everyone here is thinking the same thing

The older I've become, the more pointless I've found reviews in general to be, with music being the most poignant case.

You can't review music the way you would, for example, a car. One car will go around a track faster than another car, therefore you have a winner. New CPUs will be faster than those a year old. Though trying to review music is fruitless, unless 1) you've heard every single composition ever recorded in the history of humanity, and 2) are reviewing it in the context of a certain genre (which, in this case, is pointless because Dev didn't mean for it to conform to a certain genre).

Anyway, trying to review anything from Dev without listening to it many many times over the course of at least a few months is unworthy to begin with.

Seriously...I quote Allan Holdsworth, "If you've never tasted an orange, how would you know if you like it or not?" Different strokes for different folks, etc.

Reviews serve a purpose in giving a music listener an image of what to expect if he is wondering whether to give a certain album a listen. Unfortunately reviews are as often misleading as they are useful.

Well, atleast you can express your opinion of the album by writing a review, hopefully with some points to back up your thoughts. I'm thinking about doing some sort of review for Ki and posting it on sputnikmusic in a couple of weeks. Not sure tho, I'm not really and excellent writer in English.

That review (where the reviewer gave "KI" 92/100) reminds me of an Ocean Machine review I read many years ago where the guy gave it 87/100. I can't help but laugh because I just can't imagine how someone could come up with a score like that. It's like the reviewer just pulls a random number out of nowhere and thinks "that sounds about right". I only read music reviews when in need of a laugh because I just can't take them seriously.

0-100 system is abit ridiculous. The only way to give a specific score is to try and compare the album to dozens of others like "I think it's better than that one, but just slightly worse than that one... I gave it 90, so this one is 89!"