sam_saunders

Sorry Mike - I was clicking back and forth between the review and your piece and actually thought you were the reviewer - so that's my fault. Sorry! I still think it was a poor review though, and don't accept the "opinion" defence - which is what my title and my intention had aimed at. I should have kept it simple.

A reviewer might start and finish with an opinion. And the only expert on that opinion is, of course, the reviewer. But if a review does not engage with the music at a level that the music seems to demand then the opinion is much less worth reading. The comparison with Nick Drake and the clumsy wildlife gag indicated to me that the reviewer was operating at a very low level of engagement and effort. An independently-produced album that is so clearly a serious and complex work demands more of a reviewer than first-glance word-play and over-obvious comparison. If the reviewer really knows his stuff and really didn't like the album he should have stuck to his last and written something that showed he had researched and understood enough to make his opinion stick. The silly "be mature" gibe suggests to me that Mike_Diver does feel a but abashed about not paying enough attention in the first place. Opinion is worth defending when it's based on understanding and engagement. The album is clearly not disposable - the review was, and a more honest recognition of that would have more impressive than the bluster shown here.