Torman Maxt

Hello everyone. I'm new to this forum. I have to admit I joined up because I was so baffled with all the one-star reviews, and then this specific thread, that I felt I should respond with my two cents.

I might be new here (at least as a member, I've used the site many times in the past) but I've written hundreds of reviews, both for fanzines and professional magazines/sites and have been a fan of progressive rock for some 20 years or so.

First of all I would like to tell JLocke that he should not feel guilty. He was harsh, yes, but a review should always voice your honest thoughts as objectively as possible. It can sometimes be difficult, especially when you are reviewing an album you do not like from a band you usually DO like... that's the toughest, and even moreso when you know the band members!

However, I was quite startled by some of the reviews... and, actually, mainly those by JLocke. Not really because of the opinion (to each his own) but rather because of the given reasons.

First off, track length. Some of the reviews come off sounding like "the songs are short, so the songs are bad." So in other words, just because it's prog the songs should be long? I do enjoy lengthy epic pieces when they are well done, but I feel a song should be long if and only if the material justifies it. Length for the sake of length is NOT a good thing... I'll take good short songs any day over some awful, long, boring pieces I've heard (Thieves Kitchen comes to mind *shudders*) Besides, following this logic, Echolyn's "As the world" would have to be deemed a horrible horrible album, considering its longest piece is slightly under 8 minutes and that only three out of 16 tracks go beyond 6 minutes. Personally, I think it's a masterpiece (and apparently other PA members share my sentiments on this one, considering the reviews posted here). Oh and besides, one track on Maxt's second album clocks at slightly over 10 minutes and one could say that their latest two are really made of 5 and 4 long pieces respectively (since the track listings are divided into chapters, as one can see on their website)... so I guess that would make them amazingly good albums? ;-)

Secondly, there's the bit about the influences, how they sound so much like this band or that band... No, seriously? In case you hadn't noticed, *every* band has influences. Heck, Marillion was accused of sounding like Genesis, IQ and Pendragon of sounding like Marillion and so on and so forth. I actually think Maxt does a pretty good job at blending their influences and going beyond them to create a fairly personal sound. Now you like that sound or you don't, that's another issue, but let's not diss them just because they happen to like a lot of the same bands we do, heh.

As far as the lyrics go, though, I can see how that could bother some. I'm a Christian myself so I don't really mind -- though I do cringe when the lyrics get too "in your face". To be honest, I don't know if this is the case here as I haven't really paid much attention to the words. That's a thing with me though, as I've found that if I listen to the lyrics I tend to focus on them too much afterward, so I try to take everything as a whole, at least in the beginning.

Also, I would like to clarify a few things. I came across the band's website by accident, listened to the samples, liked what I heard, came to PA to check for more info on them and... BAM! Wow. Those scathing reviews... So totally the opposite of how I felt after what I'd heard.

So I downloaded the three albums available for free through the band's website. I've listened to the first two so far, which I really enjoyed. I'll listen to the third tomorrow and will definitely order their latest soon from cdbaby.

At first I thought I'd write a review to balance things out a bit, but it felt like my review would be more of a response to the other reviews than a real review, so I figured I'd post in this thread instead, more appropriate. Though I might still write a review at some point. Will have to think it through.

Well anyway, that's all I have to say for now :-)

Oh, and sorry I resurrected the thread! LOL.

Mellotron Storm wrote:   Gnosis2000 has lots of reviews that i agree with.In fact if we looked at Gnosis rating of Torman Maxt's albums i bet they rate them all very low.Checking right now...

I'm "problematic".

That was in 2008! My worst era was 2011-2013. Funnily enough I don't recall him "getting in touch with me" or "smoothing things over" but that was almost 10 years ago so maybe memory is hazy. I quite enjoyed reading this (somehow I had missed it until now). I still stand by my review.

Much respect for an architect with a wife and three kids, but I still don't like his music.

micky wrote: hahaha..... god bless Torman Maxt. back when this site was truly great. Correct me if I'm wrong but it was Russel's review that really started teh sh*tstorm wasn't it. He left the site over the whole saga.

Really? Guess I wasn't the only one then. My review was pulled down as well until one of the Bald gals pulled it from the archived site and it was eventually put back up again.

Aww man! I wanted to be legendary

Queen By-Tor wrote: Aww man! I wanted to be legendary

ahhh... I don't think you have to worry about that darling.... As I told you before... as long as the old guard are still around.. your legend and exploits will never be forgotten

  just know that when Raff finally tires of my bullsh*t.. I'm coming for you...

hahah.. fat chance of that.. one can never hear enough BOC.  It is our #1 most played group here!

great choice.....  Secret Treaties still gets the nod for favorite..Me262 is still the go to song for blasting on Monday mornings on the way to work to shake out the cobwebs... but man alive they all are eminently listenable. Spectres has really moved up my list of favs in the last few years though..

yeah... those were the good old days..  lots of smart ones.. lots of bad ones... random drive by shootings... senseless violence.. gratuitous sex... personal feuds.. character assinations.. oh we had so much fun and yeah.. NO CAPTCHA's...  Torman Maxt was a bit of an insurections against the evil hand of M@X and his admin flunkies enforcing his bullsh*t. The more so since we offered to help pay for the site and were shot down. Which meant this was all about making money.. not 'supporting the site'. We did have a few leave the site over that crap. Good times.. as usual.. the real fun was behind the scenes.   If there had been pitchforkds and torches we would have burned out the entire admin team.

micky wrote: yeah... those were the good old days..  lots of smart ones.. lots of bad ones... random drive by shootings... senseless violence.. gratuitous sex... personal feuds.. character assinations.. oh we had so much fun and yeah.. NO CAPTCHA's...  Torman Maxt was a bit of an insurections against the evil hand of M@X and his admin flunkies enforcing his bullsh*t. The more so since we offered to help pay for the site and were shot down. Which meant this was all about making money.. not 'supporting the site'. We did have a few leave the site over that crap. Good times.. as usual.. the real fun was behind the scenes.   If there had been pitchforkds and torches we would have burned out the entire admin team.

Russell is spelt with two Ls. Most Russell's I know are pretty particular about that.

He did not leave the site over Torman Maxt debacle, he continued reviewing and posting for another 6½ years after that storm in a portapotty died down.

No one else left the site because of that either, not even you.

"We" did not offer to pay for the site, it was just "you". "You" were not shot down, "you" made a single donation using the [Donate] button, which was happily received but it didn't pay for the site.

Covering the running costs of this site requires a regular, reliable income that one-off donations cannot provide. Donations made periodically are called subscriptions, but this is not a subscriber service, nor could it ever be - a subscriber-only review site is untenable and pretty pointless. The whole ethos of this site is that it is a free review site that anyone can contribute a review to with the minimum of editorial control. Note here that is "minimum of" not "free from".

As a collaborator I was more than happy to donate my time and energy for free but I was not prepared to pay for the privilege. While there is a faint possibility that I am alone in this view, I suspect if we took a straw poll the number of people who are willing to pay to use this site can be counted on Django Reinhart's left hand.

No one likes the Google Adverts, but they are the only viable and practical solution to keeping this site subscription-free. As far as I am aware the Ad revenue just about keeps this site running at break-even but it certainly isn't the cash-cow you seem to think it is. Ads guarantee a regular income that sporadic donations never can.

Band sponsorship was a bad idea poorly executed, if Max had asked the "Admins flunkies" they would have advised against it, but he didn't. Instead he left us to run damage-limitations, which we did - it wasn't mob-rule and public opinion that changed his mind, it was Tony and the rest of us "Admin flunkies" working behind the scenes.

Edited by Dean - April 18 2017 at 01:44