Black Hole "#11" zine
[zine]
Here's a totally pro looking zine out of Brazil printed entirely on high quality paper with a high gloss coat and full color on the front and back covers. I like the fact that the zine crams in a lot of content by using a very small but legible font, and there aren't a great number of ads throughout. There are enough ads to hopefully keep the magazine afloat, but not enough to kill off any of the coverage within. There are more interviews than anything, with some reviews in the center of the magazine and one brief page of news to start things off (thankfully very little space is wasted on news). Since everything is written in English by an editor who's first language is Portuguese, a lot of the interview questions can be a little hard to get through due to the language barrier, but you can always get the point of what the question is trying to achieve, and in most cases the bands do a really good job at providing ample information (especially in the cases of The County Medical Examiners, Nile, Bolt Thrower, and Haemorrhage, among others). A handful of the interviews are really boring, but that has more to do with the bands not taking much time to answer the questions than anything else. Some of the questions aren't that interesting, but that's made up for by a lot of specific and non-standard questions that most people would never think to ask, and that often gets bands to do a little more talking. Obviously the coverage here is geared towards brutal metal, specifically death metal and grindcore, with some black metal and such scattered about as well. The only thing that I really do not like at all about this otherwise interesting zine is the reviews, because they are, if I must be so blunt... horrible. Admittedly some of the reviews are good, and they're not poorly written or anything, they do describe the music and keep things brief without getting too stripped down. My problem is that the reviewers are entirely too easy on every single item that comes in. Out of what I would estimate to be over 150 reviews, I would say there are maybe 10 CD's that received a rating of 6/10 or lower. And the vast majority of the CD's get an 8/10 or higher, with many being granted perfect scores! Now, I know that my listening tastes don't completely match up with the music that Black Hole covers, but I would love to learn about more underground death metal and grind, however, I can't trust these reviews at all, especially when I see records that I specifically remember hating due to poor production and generally unprofessional approaches being given scores of 9/10 or more in these pages. It's unfortunate, because a lot of these reviews get me interested in a few new Brazilian death metal bands and some other foreign releases that I've never heard of, but since the reviews are so lenient I have no way of actually knowing if the music is worth checking out. As far as overall presentation, the layout could maybe use some work, but everything is nice and clean, and the focus never strays from content over image, as the band photos and logos and such aren't huge or wasting any space, it's tastefully handled and looks just as nice as (if not a little better than) most of the bigger metal magazines that are out there. Also included is a 22-track compilation CD featuring 22 different bands, most of which are totally underground, and only a few of which I've heard of before. As with most such compilations a great deal of the bands are terrible, either suffering from really poor recordings or generic, sub-par songwriting. But there are a few bright spots, such as tracks from Garden of Genocide, Siege of Hate, Necromancia, Sangrena, and Fornication - five bands I've never even heard of! So there is room for improvement with this magazine, but that's always the case, and I think what's presented here is indeed commendable. Not to mention that Black Hole was recently able to get distribution in the US in Tower Records, which is a great step, so keep your eyes peeled for future issues. (7/10)
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Black Hole - http://www.blackholemag.com

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