Vladimir Y.

One of those visually pathetic sites that hope to gain by "stylish" dark design and darker still attitude. To break in thru to membership registration is an ordeal of fighting the "not a robot" guard who apparently tests your stamina by re-sending you back. When finally one is in he/she discovers having been cheated for the sake of "beefy" membership boast whereas he/she is no different from outsider. This applies to album reviewing as all your "drafts" are rejected offhand and serve a raw matter to be further credited to the moderator/editor. The "disciple fresher" is only entitled to studying a volume of the moderator "rules" and FAQ with no hope to ever pass the exam and graduate. About same hard treatment to the visitor, information hunter. The moderator here is hugely biased and imposes his "opinions" but, ooops, zero artist's background, so you address elsewhere. When and if you manage the cheeky navigation, you are likely to trip on the small brown lettering on the black background (or vice versa). Tripping is sin and rule violation here so you get banned for good. They call it metal attitude.

Below is personal (alas, objective enough) opinion born of close indepth study of the site, regarding the essence rather than the page design and navigation. To start with, the control of int'l tourism and travel is already an overcrowded idea with number of better realized projects. What undermines the TA is the proverbial "getting something for nothing" as the project's stuff has been levelling the argument where it hardly applies - to the contributors. While for many travelers it's fun to leave (an inapt/amateurish/superficial) comment on the experienced tourist enterprise - the option clearly makes way for abuse, for generated/biased/contrived ones. The corporate Russian site tripadvisor.ru is, for that matter, particularly conspicuous for some unlikely "opinions" (hailing Moscow eateries and hotels for no good reason)... not to mention the mis-spelt site address... Apparently, what is called for are genuine traveler impressions laid with intelligence. Honesty, conviction and, not least, imagery. If you will, a novelist/reporter approach would work to define those there opinions from the competition. As wisely put by one forumist, TA seem stuck too deep to break free which they'd love to. They are missing the heat for cooking the fish real crisp. They ban aspirations of a deserving contributor - mistaking the quality for quantity of reviews... which they unwisely encourage. No wonder those are hardly trusted nor memorable.

The site, launched by singer/songwriter Iain Matthews (of Matthews' Southern Comfort fame) is flawless by language, concept, layout and navigation, design and (not least) superior contrast and color matching. Couldn't be otherwise, what with Iain's stately persona and inborn esthetics. What appeals the most, zero promotion to the artist - visitor feels on one's own and instantly at home. Even more important - Iain's artistry, vocal qualities, composition and hunch for partnerships are making him universal, not just Britain's own, Live snippets, for once, prove that. Biography and portfolio are ample for a novice to instantly dig Matthews and get prepared for his albums. This site does more credit to entire hippie idealism / folk scene era than allmusic.com or anything I can recall.

Conceived as a major community of inspired writers/bloggers, site never graduated to idiom. It shuns of its "Ru-net" identity and, apart from curio scouts, Russia watchers and audiophiles, might attract by English section - consumer audio reviews and stuff. Page design is clean and safe but under produced. In-depth reading might gratify in political connotation too but for the high demand on a world visitor's time. All said, the scribbling is justified as professing a totally unlikely outlook removed from native mentality and web projects - big, small, official, alternative or English dubbed ones.

In the country of my residence (not MY country) it's renown for decades with local clones dragging feet in its wake. As a pro reviewer, for almost any information and in every instance I revert to Allmusic.com with no contender around, on the web. There are simply no apt album reviews and artist profiles like in this space. True, there are occasional minor mistakes but what's worrisome is the American leaning with European non-English and well deserving acts ignored or scarce covered. No Polish Breakout entry, for instance.