dimanche 21 Mar 2010, 5h47m

The thing that got me interested in this book, apart from the cover was the review by Varg on his official site, he has absolutely trashed this book and annihilated the authors for supposed misinterpretations and crediting him with interviews, which never took place. As hard as that was to believe, i still thought maybe some truth would be there, afterall you can’t write a book of lies and publish it world over. But, after going through this book once, that perception of mine has thoroughly changed. This book is nothing but utter rubbish, well to be nice, the book does have its some moments of intrigue but those are very few and far in between.
Starting on the book, the title of which is thoroughly misleading, it doesn’t depict any “bloody rise of satanic metal underground”, it is a book written for enjoyment of people interested in conspiracy theories. In fact in the mid-part of the book, the authors are on whole hearted mission to present the rise of black metal in Norway to be some kind of conspiracy by Nazis to come back to power, i mean seriously WTF ! Any author, who undertakes a job of chronicling an event such as this, has to make sure that he does this without any prejudices or partiality, the opinion forming has to be left to readers, if he himself starts presenting it in a way which makes this revolution look like a furore created by a bunch of drunken teenage punks, then the whole purpose of the book is defeated, thats where Michael Moynihan & Didrik Soderlind have went horribly wrong with this book. So, a book which could have been the History of Black Metal is reduced to a corny conspiracy theory. Now, after going through this book, i can understand why Varg Vikerness must have been miffed with the authors, because throughout the book, he has been portrayed as a mass murderer, a maniac, a nazi, a leader of a band of terrorists and what not. Every interviews that the authors conduct, and there are too many of them, eventually the discussion would come down to Varg, and how crazy he was ! After a point it tends to become funny, how the authors are going about the world asking people about Varg Vikerness. They fail to understand that the movement for Varg and likely most bands involved in Norwegian Black Metal scene, was more for going back to pagan roots then worship of some christian myth called “Satan”. The church burnings were more a symbol of going against Christianity than satan worship. But, they go on with their rhetoric, that black metal musicians practiced devil worship, witchcraft, satanic rituals etc.
Out of the 400 odd pages that the book runs for 350 pages are filled with interviews with doctors, psychologists, scientists, physicists etc. and which are totally out of context and makes the reading an absolute ordeal. The good part of the book is the history that has been documented for Germanic black metal, which i was unaware of, and some nordic mythology, which is always a pleasure to read. Anton La Vey, who is so much detested by black metallers especially Varg, has been portrayed as some kind of master of them, which reflects the total ignorance on the part of the authors, while writing the book. They have sensationalized the whole thing in a sick and perverted way.
Any metalhead who has been listening to black metal for a while and has been following its history, can easily make out the whole load of crap the authors are selling here. I had ordered this book online, and after spending ridiculous money over this, it has been a total waste of time. Skip this and read some dumbed down novels of chetan bhagat instead, atleast thats cheaper.