about writing album review

1. Who is the intended audience? Is it for a music magazine or a newspaper, or on-line (like iTunes store or Pitchfork, or your own blog)? How would the audience get to read it? Why would they want to read your review? Would they be looking for a recommendation to buy it? What do you look for in the reviews you read? Why do you like certain reviews and not others?

2. Would the average reader be familiar with the references you make to other bands and/or styles of music? Sometimes it is helpful to make comparisons with other music (especially where the artist has spoken about their references and inspirations) - and I suppose you know, for example, that SVIIB was formed by an ex-member of Secret Machines, which could offer an interesting discussion about how his music has developed from a motorik-style of Americana to a sort of ethereal electronic folk; but the risk with these sorts of comparisons and references is that the review ends up reading like a list of names, or it can be seen as lazy journalism, regurgitating facts taken from other sources. It's often a delicate balance between informing your readers and showing off how much you know...

3. What about if I had just arrived from the planet Mars, and had no pre-conceived ideas on what this CD might sound like (assuming I knew what a CD is, of course...)? I think you use some interesting adjectives but I don't really know what I should expect to hear if I played this CD for the first time. How might it make me feel? Should I try and listen to this album with a particular frame of mind or mood? Or at a particular time of day?

4. Why do you like this album so much? What does it make you think of when you listen to it? Do you think it is better than their first album? Personally, based on the couple of tracks I have heard so far, it didn't have as much impact as Alpinisms - and I recently heard the Alternate version of Alpinisms which was even stronger - so perhaps I might be disappointed with the new album?

5. Finally, you could probably get a friend to read the review and suggest some editing or changes in the grammar - in places I wasn't quite sure what you meant.