BLACK METAL

Black Metal: Beyond The Darkness provides an overview in an in-depth reader format, bridging the gap between conventional accounts of the scene and the new pan-academic focus on Black Metal as a conduit for socio-cultural expression.

The book is a contemporary reader on a genre often maligned by the press as overtly concerned with nihilism, destructiveness and an insular obsession with Satanism and aggressive nationalism. In reality, Black Metal is a constantly evolving vehicle for musically and ideologically progressive groups and artists, one that is increasingly forward-thinking despite maintaining a purity of expression that is tied to the past.

Black Metal features a chronological historical overview of the genre’s developments; a multitude of band profiles and case studies on classic records; information on seminal record labels, peripheral industry individuals and shops; archival visual material; and a range of essays discussing Black Metal’s inherent relationship with radical environmentalism, fine art, sexuality, transcendentalism and theatrics, amongst other topics.

Bands featured include: Bathory, Burzum, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Blut Aus Nord, Xasthur, Wolves In The Throne Room, Darkthrone, Immortal, Hellhammer, Liturgy, Weakling, Ulver, Immortal, Enslaved, 1349, Krallice, and the associated artists of the French Les Légions Noires movement. Highly illustrated with album covers, previously unseen photographs and ephemera.

Includes commentary by leading experts in the field; music and film writer Frances Morgan; journalist Louis Pattison; The Wire writer Nick Richardson; and Pitchfork editor Brandon Stosuy. Black Metal provides a unique insight into this progressive music genre

Contributors
Louis Pattison, Nick Richardson, Brandon Stosuy

July 2012
Paperback
192 pages
220 b/w and colour ills
27.0 x 22.0 cm
10.5 x 8.5 in
ISBN13: 978 1 907317 72