Why do you call the site Heavy Metal Universe ?

Because it deals with all kinds of Metal and "Heavy Metal" is a term that is commonly used to define Metal Music in general. Besides, it is the name of a song that's present on the Gamma Ray's "Powerplant" album.

Why do you call yourself an International Webzine ?

Webzine is the word that usually describes the sites that do what we do : get an updated (as much as possible) news section, publish reviews and interviews and so on. We call ourselves an International Webzine because the main language of the site is english and because we deal with bands and labels coming from all over the world.

What are the pictures used for the design ?

The image on the first page is a painting (© Derek Riggs) of Eddie (Iron Maiden's mascot) extract from the "Live After Death" front cover. The landscape (© Sv Bell Illustration) used as a menu at the top of the site is taken from the Amorphis' "Tales From A Thousand Lakes" front cover.

The site is far too dark !

Not for us. Try to change the brightness of your monitor.

How can I navigate on the site ?

The site contains 2 main menus. The one at the top which provides links to the main sections of the site and the navigation board on the left side which allows you to navigate within a particular section. This menu contains a number that specifies your progression within the section. You can downgrade it using the back-arrow. The left-side menu also has 3 utilities at the bottom including a search engine.

Do you have some tips for an improved navigation ?

French-speaking people can use a cookie to automatically access the french version of our sections. You can place this cookie from every french section (news, reviews/news and comments). You can also personalize the welcoming navigation board (on the left side when you read the edito) to have direct access to most sections of the site. This functionnality also needs a cookie (see the disk at the bottom of the left menu).

What is the search engine made for ?

This is not a real search engine like Google because you can't search on the whole site and you can't use keywords or wildcards. This is just a tool that has been made to be very fast and that enables you to find stuffs very easily. Only important information can be found with this tool. If you're searching for something in particular, it's sometimes quicker to use the normal surfing-way because most sections can be browsed by alphabetical or date order.

Why are the updates so rare ?

We're doing our best. This is our passion but this is not the way we earn our living ! So we have some other priorities from time to time.

I have send you some promo material but I'm still waiting for a review !

If you have received a message from us telling you that we did get your promo material, then you just need to be patient. The review will come. The cd has been put at the bottom of our to-be-reviewed cd stock. The review may take some time to be done according to what we have to do and how much free-time we have. If you have not received any email, this means that we didn't get the cd.

Do you review mp3 files ?

No. The reason is that Metal music must be listened to on a good-quality hi-fi system. Only Limp Bizkit's fans listen to music on their computer for there is nothing to listen to carefully ha ha ! More seriously, a lot of material is re-distributed to the other reviewers, according to their tastes and other things so it's better if we have the music on cd.

Why don't you deal with Nu-Metal bands ?

Because it sucks. Their audience is not what we are aiming at and they don't need to be promoted. MTV is doing it for us.

Why do you deal with Prog Rock, Hard Rock or AOR bands ?

Because Hard Rock and AOR bands are linked to the Metal scene. The majority of their audience is also listening to Metal. Concerning Prog Rock, there are very few bands of that kind on the site even though this is a style of music that is worth listening to. The music is very elaborated and is not promoted as well as all other sorts of Rock music.

What is your definition of Metal ?

Music is called Metal when it is descended from Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Venom, Celtic Frost and/or Bathory.

Helloween is Power Metal not Heavy Speed !

Wrong ! Bands like Helloween, Blind Guardian and so on were initially playing some kind of music between Heavy Metal and Speed Metal which turned out to be called Heavy Speed (simple, isn't it ?).

Power Metal is close to Thrash Metal although it is not, and is syncopated, groovy and slower. Bands playing Power Metal are (or were) Pantera, Machine Head, Sepultura, Dearly Beheaded, Fear Factory, Eminence, etc. It appears that some people in the USA decided to call Power Metal what actually is Heavy Speed as they call Soccer what the rest of the planet call Football.

In order to be as clear as possible, we have personally decided to call Power US what should be called Power Metal. Heavy Speed remains Heavy Speed.

I always send you some info for the news section. Why don't you publish anything ?

Either because it seems not to be that important to us or because these are the dates of venues or festivals. We don't have any "Concerts" section yet, and we can't announce all the dates we are receiving in our news page. Or it's gonna be a damn mess very quickly.

I've left a message on your guestbook. Why has it been removed ?

This is a guestbook, not a place to advertise for your site. It means that you can sign the book, tell us what you think about the site (in good or bad) and leave the address of your site if you want us to get there. But don't paste any ads as if you were on an advertising site.

Can I download the mp3s which are on the site quite legally ?

Yes you can, there is no illegal material. Actually, none of these mp3s are on our own server, these are only links to official site's files. It can be the label or the band site. If they offer a sample which can be downloaded then you shouldn't have any problem. On the other hand, some links may be broken for we don't know what's done to the files we're linking to.

You have put a link to one of my mp3s but it's using my bandwidth. What can we do ?

This is a problem. If everybody puts a link to one of your mp3s, it will use a large part of your bandwidth and we cannot host all the mp3s we're linking to either. But there is a solution using htaccess technology which allows you to choose which sites can link to your mp3s while all the others just can't. So you can control your bandwidth and avoid abuses. If you don't know how to do this, tell your webmaster to contact us and we'll tell him what he has to do.

What is the list section used for ?

This is a list of various albums with a mark and a music-style given by ourselves, as well as some other info such as band's country and release date. This list is not exhaustive and will never be.

What is the meaning of the red-colored marks in the reviews/news section ?

All the albums which have a red-colored mark in the reviews/news section are said to be "highlighted". This is our way to emphasize an album. This album can be viewed as one of the bests released during the last months or as an amazing and estonishing surprise.

Can I subscribe to the newsletter without being spammed afterwards ?

Of course. Your email address is directly entered in our database and is only used to send the newsletter. Besides, it won't be given to anybody and you can unsubscribe whenever you want.