My name’s Gareth J M Saunders. I live near St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, UK.
If you want to contact me, I’m on Twitter @195metalcds and @garethjms or email me 195metalcds@gmail.com, or leave a comment.
I will happily review your metal or rock album. Just drop me a line.
What’s this website all about?
In June 2012 I replied to a post on FreecycleFifeEast offering “hundreds of metal CDs”. When I got them home I’d been very kindly given around 195 (give or take a few… there were some I already had, and one that I just threw straight into the bin).
Here they are stacked on my desk:
This blog is about what’s in that pile.
My musical heritage
I first got into music listening to a couple of prog records (12″ vinyl LPs) in the 1970s, mostly early Genesis and Jethro Tull. That led me in the early 1980s to get into Queen, and my the mid-80s I was listening to Metallica, Celtic Frost, Slayer and Voivod.
Oh, and did I mention that I was also a member of my local church choir, the Scottish Borders Youth Choir and in 1987 I auditioned for and was welcomed into the National Youth Choir of Great Britain? My taste in music is quite wide and diverse.
A few years ago I subscribed to Terrorizer magazine as Kerrang! in my view had gone mainstream, and a lot of what was being featured in Metal Hammer really wasn’t unearthing many of the grassroots metal bands.
I love listening to new music, and particularly unusual music. I always try to find something good in everything, I always want to like what I’m listening to, so hopefully these reviews will be fair and balanced. I’m not going to ‘gush’ about every CD, but I’m not going to completely slam them all either. Probably…
Oh, and metal is good for you
A 2018 study from the University of Australia, published in the Journal of Community Psychology found that metal identities and community helped people death with mental health problems.
They felt the music helped cope with feelings of anger and ostracization; they found community in the metal fandom, whether in-person, online, or just in their own heads; and said their metalhead identities allowed them to both keep their tormentors at bay, and forging connections with their fellow fans.
Revolver
Read the article in Revolver: New study finds metal music beneficial to mental health.
I really like your blog! It’s a really unique and inspiring way of blogging.
You also deserve credits for listening to every single album that you got, I don’t think I would be able to listen to an album as bad as a 0 out of 100.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Ruben, sorry it’s taken me about eight months to spot your kind comment.
I do like to listen to each album at least twice. I know that I’ve got albums that I do like that took two or three listens before I got into them, so I like to give each album a good chance.
Great Blog, pleased you liked the Humanity CD 😉