I am consistently amazed and disheartened when professional individuals and organizations neglect to pay even a modicum of attention to spelling, grammar, and style in their communications. I would imagine this is of utmost importance to PR groups where the first impression is make or break for a band.

Today, I am calling out the info sheet which accompanied the promotional copy of the re-release of XASTHUR’s 2005 Demo, which is coming out soon on Hydra Head. Yet, rather than offer a philippic on the subject, let’s just go to the metaphorical videotape:

Click ‘Read More’ to see the rest of this post.

“If your into Burzum-esque lo-fi black metal, and like… who isn’t, then your already a massive Xasthur fan… ” XASTHUR 2005 Demo Information Sheet, Descriptive Text.

First and Third Highlighted Errors: NO!!!!! “Your” is a possessive adjective, “you’re” is a contraction for “you are.” Using “your” makes it appear as though the rest of the clause is a noun, which makes no sense at all!!! “Your” and “you’re” possess two VASTLY different meanings!!!! THIS IS ENGLISH 101! There are more examples of this elementary error in the paragraph, but I’ve made my point abundantly clear already.

Second Highlighted Error: This is poor style. It makes the writer sound like a valley girl or worse, and makes the assumption that a mysterious mass of individuals all enjoy BURZUM. That interrogative part should simply read “chances are,”.

Improper Use of Ellipses: Don’t use ellipses (…) where a simple period will suffice. It either makes the sentence appear as though it has an omission in the logical train of thought, or that the writer doesn’t understand how to use punctuation.

Next Example (in two parts):

Part I

“The Xasthur record in question, 2005 Demo, is two lost, completed demo tracks that were recorded prior to the time that Subliminal Genocide was…” Id.

1) Poor prose. These tracks can’t be considered lost if the record is being re-released!!!

2) Awkward and improper use of an ellipsis (again). Instead, that part of the sentence should read “recorded prior to Subliminal Genocide, XASTHUR’s subsequent full-length release.”

Part II

“[A]nd in a sense these two previous unavailable recordings come across like a much belated extension of Subliminal Genocide. And that record rules, so that’s good news, right?” Id.

Poor style. The writer assumes that listeners and other music journalists think Subliminal Genocide “rules.” Further, the interrogative shows a lack of confidence, which is rather fatal to the purpose of a press packet.

Last example:

“Hydra Head has since mastered 2005 Demo so the listen will be enjoyable for Black Metal heads across the board, not just completest kids with b-side collections from here to Asgard.” Id.

Bah – I know what the writer is trying to say (something akin to ‘tr00′ or ‘kvlt’), but I don’t like this because it’s a completely made up word (versus a permutation of an actual word. See e.g. ‘kvlt’). It would have been much simpler to say “not just kids competing for the title of ‘Largest B-Side Collection from Here To Asgard.’” I’ve been advised by an eagle-eyed reader that “completist” is a real word, so I will recant the previous statement and merely advise that future press packets be spell-checked thoroughly.

This is seriously one of the worst press packets I have ever seen, and if I didn’t already like XASTHUR, this packet would have been sent to the circular file. In a business like PR where first impressions are of utmost importance, WHY would anyone not take the time to proofread a document that is being sent to a huge amount of talented and knowledgeable writers? It’s completely unprofessional. One tiny error is forgiveable. An entire document full of them is unacceptable.