I still don't get the whole, "Why rag on an album you don't like? Just listen to something else!" thing.

Sure, if it's something that you categorically were never going to like, then fair enough. You're in old-man-shouts-at-cloud territory.

But not if you *could* like it.

For example, that last Tool record. I'm not a Tool fan, never have been, and was never going to like it. So sure, I left it well alone and let actual Tool fans do their thing.

But if a band I love lay a steaming turd on Pro Tools, I *am* going to have an emotional reaction.

The two moments of teenage metal fandom that have stuck most in my brain are hearing The Black Album for the first time, and hearing St Anger for the first time.

On TBA, I was so blown away by the opening of Enter Sandman, I needed 4 goes to get to the first verse. Life changed.

Hearing St Anger 4-5 years later was like having my soul lie on a cattle grid while the 2001 Leicester pack mauled over the top of me. I have never to this day been so crushingly disappointed. And I couldn't just bury that feeling. If I'd had Twitter then, I'd have stunk it up.

If that last Immortal record had sucked, I would have needed to vent that out. I couldn't have just let it pass. (And thank fuck that didn't happen.)

The same thing applies if you're suggested something that, on spec, sounds right up your alley, but you view as appallingly bad. If it's in an area you massively care about, of course you're going to have a powerful reaction to it.

This is why I find Alestorm so offensive.

I understand - of course - that if you're a creative type, it hurts to have people shittalk your work, and that getting hate can change your attitude about negativity towards work in general.

But part of fandom does and will always involve negative emotions. Sometimes passionately so. And while obviously it needs to stop before it crosses into unhealthy stuff, it's not realistic to expect passion to be turned off if that passion results in distaste.

/end