Hopkins says:
there were some belting bumsnogger ones, i'll dig them out, one was something like
"they looked, and sounded, like a nu-metal band"
The best was from a punter near me in your audience at Bloodstock, years ago. After the first song, he looked at his mate with a wry grin and said, "This is fucking rubbish," before walking out. He was wearing a Hammerfall shirt at the time.
Excselsum surprsingly never got any bad reviews that I recall, just hilariously over enthusiastic ones from Russian webzines. Sure Podge has got them archived somewhere but he's off chasing sheep round New Zealand.
Oh, and on the Flatlands front, I just found this gem on Collecitve, re the split EP with Sunshine Republic:
"Flatlands play grunting, drawn-out sludge that’s typically morose and oppressive. Urgghhhhh. They drag two tracks across their side of this slab of grey vinyl and there’s very little joy to be had in their murky domain. Sure, there might be the brief twittering of birds on that second song, but it’s not long before things sink once more into subterranean realms of sorrow and gloom. Like I said, Urgghhhhh." [Edited by Big Si at 22:14 on 19/10/10]