Was interested to read this, but in the end, not that interesting of an article. It’s far more sour grapes and rant than insight.

What does leads you to say that ? We could have been more specific on certain “numbers” and tell some names, truth is that more than 90% of labels/bands/distributors out there will not share with you how things are really going. Wonder why ? They’ve to keep up the “show”, if not, somebody will point its judging finger and say “what ? are you complaining ?”. Nevertheless most of them are really scared to death about how things are going, because they need to make a living out of it.
Even if some individuals will deserve to be publicly exposed we won’t do it, we’re not a black metal tabloid.

meanwhile All Shall Perish sells 80,000 copies on Nuclear Blast, so someone’s doing ok in the heavy, aggressive music world.

True, but you cannot relate apples to oranges. Good for such band, but we couldn’t care less. We’ve no interest in such kind of music, for one “All Shall Perish” there are a million bands selling less than 400 copies, even on Nuclear Blast, especially in that kind of music genre (where everything is about “all or nothing”). We’ve been asked several times why we don’t sign any “big” band.
Easy answer, it’s like having a super hot looking girlfriend, if your (miserable) aim is to make other jealous it would be just fine, but in the end, when you put pros and cons on the balance you’ll soon realize that what you’ve earned is only a big headache, a lot of hype, an empty wallet and lost a lot of time you could have spent in something much more interesting.

ATMF used to release totally great stuff, but not so for the past 2 years. As a once big supporter and fan (who would buy the albums), I would point to bands on the ATMF or sub-labels as the very bands the author of the article is criticizing.

This is somewhat very personal and subjective, it is proven by the fact that what sells most is what we consider low quality music.
Two of the worst selling ever releases of ATMF have been “Semen Datura – Einsamkeit” and “11 As in Adversaries – The Full Intrepid Experience of Light”, two releases that got absolutely extraordinary press feedback and can be considered one of the best releases of their respective year of release, in the whole extreme music context.

On the other hand, in the last two years ATMF released some of the best selling ever stuff in the whole ATMF history. So you may be disappointed about ATMF releases nowadays, but you would be eclipsed by a large number of people that thinks the opposite.
For what concerns us, we can state that, letting the “golden age” releases of the black metal genre aside, no other label nowadays can put together so much quality releases in its whole history as a label.

MARCCO CAVALLINI