Guys, there's going to be dozens to hundreds of advance copies out a few months before the release of every album you're anticipating. So why bother asking people who have possibly gotten the album? They aren't allowed to tell you anything anyway. If you don't like that, work on your writing skills and general diligence, start writing for a mag and receive your own advanced copies next time around.
Ideally, you all should avoid reviews before listening to the album. The problem with reviews is that they shape the way you receive and process an album (a movie, a book, whatever). You can't help it. You start to listen with someonelse's ears. If someone wrote something bad about the drumming or the solos, your senses will be biased, a pre-conception will be there and subconsciously working. If you had not read anything in the first place, maybe you would have not cared at all. Music is a very personal experience. Reviews take it away from us!
As someone who reviews albums herself, I find problems in this line of thinking. For one, most reviewers I know are people who, in addition to reviewing what various labels/bands send to them (and it's not all good albums), trudge the seas of the underground to tell you which overlooked/underpromoted releases are definitely worth your time and money.
As for reading reviews of albums you're already anticipating, they satisfy my general curiosity of what the album sounds like and what's inside. And if you can't filter "I liked/disliked this album" from "the album contains this and that and the atmosphere is like this", maybe it's time to work on your reading comprehension. And if you can't help being influenced by some reviewer liking/disliking an album, maybe it's time to be a little less impressionable.