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 enlarge | Authors: Michael Moynihan, Didrik Soderlind
Publisher: Feral House
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $11.30
You Save: $7.65 (40%)
New (36) Used (14) from $9.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  137 reviews
Sales Rank: 46427
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 405
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0922915946
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9780922915941
ASIN: 0922915946
Publication Date: November 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Customer Reviews:
 Interesting but too long March 8, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
Although it does a good job of getting into the background of the Black Metal tools in Norway, their thesis meanders a bit halfway through. For me, it was more helpful to learn about some of the names used in Metalocalypse.
Good, not Great March 4, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a pretty good look at the genesis of the Black Metal sub-subculture for about half the book. It details the horrible acts of certain individuals of the scene and allows them to voice their own opinions, and this is how we learn that most if not all of the members and leaders of this "cult" are just reactionary idiots with too much time on their hands.
But halfway through the writers lose their momentum and it becomes a fairly unfocused look at satanism and black magic - which ultimately has little to do with the subject at hand.
The final chapters feel like repetition of much of the information in the first eight chapters, but are interesting because of the detailing of bands in different areas of the world and what different scenes are like there.
As I put in my title, this is a good book, but it could have been great with some editing.
Amazing book February 22, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an amazing book, full of rare photos and a lot of interesting stuff for black metal lovers and other metalheads.
Worth a read - even if you hate or morally oppose heavy metal November 22, 2007
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Although I have detested heavy metal ever since I was a young child, I have never been shy of reading about it, whether it be ethical criticism from Dial-The-Truth Ministries or believers in backmasking, reading about how it is actually played in music shops (i.e. shops selling sheet music and musical instruments, not records), or, later, intelligent critics who admire heavy metal.
Heavy metal is often overlooked by music critics, for a number of reasons. Variously it is viewed as standing in opposition to the attitudes of the sixties hippie culture (violence versus "flower-power"), being too virtuosic or having ridiculous occult themes. Any of these criticisms could be applied to the music studied in this book, which is referred to as "black metal" because of its Satanic themes.
In "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground" we see an impressive documentation of black metal. Beginning with bands such as Black Sabbath and the little-known Venom, who contributed to the evolution of this style of music, "Lords of Chaos" then studies not only the various bands who have made black metal, but also gives as surprisingly good outline of how black metal bands evolved, where they evolved and why. It is true that the cultural characteristics of Scandinavia that led to the evolution of black metal are quite well-known (read Who Really Cares by Arthur C. Brooks if you want clues) to anyone with a knowledge of sociology or personality theory. As few music writers possess this, the addition is very worthy. The book's desire to understand the culture behind black metal is strong enough that it even details where in Norway - the epicentre of Black Metal - the musicians in the major players came from.
The discussion of how black metal has actually been associated with violence in Norway and the way in which Satanism is seen as an exact opposite to the meek "marianismo" of Christianity are also very enlightening. The interviews with the musicians showing their desire to create an extremely individualist Nietzschean society revealing yet to a person of my knowledge utterly unsurprising. The focus on restoring the ancient Viking-style paganism of pre-Christian Scandinavia - which is mentioned as important in many of the interviews - is similarly expected but done very neatly. Politically Incorrect Guide-type conservatives who see metal as a threat to society should read "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground": it will give them a look at the culture they oppose that is better that what they are likely to know.
The main criticism of "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground" is that it does not look at why the music press (apart from specialist guitar magazines) have been unable to empbrace or criticise black metal. it would have been very helpful to go into more detail about the media's general response: the only resposnse I have seen are quite shallow interviews from old "EG" sections in the "Age". Aside from this, it is not easy to find problems with "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground" and it is in no way a difficult read even for someone who knows less about heavy metal than I do, unlike the unreadable American Hardcore: A Tribal History which is written in the same "interview"-based style.
Murder! Mayhem! Suicide! Neo-Nazis!! They're all here...and more!!! June 19, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
In the mid-1990's Norway was scandalized by a series of church arsons. The true nature of the crimes became a media sensation when it was revealed that a number of native Black Metal musicians were tied to the crime spree. Murders soon followed arson as the crimes became even more bizarre and shocking.
Lords of Chaos is an in-depth look at the scene that spawned these incidents. Moynihan and Soderlind's book is probably one of the oddest true crime stories that I have ever read. It's clearly an ambitious work, and it often suffers from trying to cover too much ground at once. It's a Black Metal history that turns into a true crime novel and finally morphs into a sociological treatise on Satanism and nationalism.
It profiles a number of the prime movers in the Norwegian Black Metal scene, and has an amazing number of interesting photographs and illustrations that provide tremendous depth of detail into the subjects at hand. Moving quickly from a short history of the development of Black Metal, the authors begin to delve into the tragic events surrounding the band Mayhem. Mayhem's leader Oystein Aarseth (stage name Euronymous) and his cohorts set out to form the most sinister band imaginable, setting a cartoonish Satanic image up against a furious wall of metallic sound. Mayhem would provide the blueprint for a generation of followers, not only in sound but in background philosophy. Mayhem intended to live out their Satanic image to the hilt, proving to all that they were no mere posers. This desire for authenticity would eventually lead to a crime wave that still reverberates today, as grave desecrations and church arsons eventually led to murders and a rise of nationalistic imagery not seen since the heyday of the Nazis.
The authors have great source material and were lucky enough to get firsthand interviews with a number of the primary subjects in the book. The writing moves along at a good pace, as the reader is taken on a whirlwind tour of the Black Metal scene.
My main gripe with the book was the substandard level of editing. There were numerous misspellings and printing errors throughout the book. Also, as I stated earlier, I thought that the authors really lost track of where they were going with the book. It's a crime book with a lot of music history and cultural observation......or maybe it's a music history intertwined with a true crime novel.....or perhaps it's a sociological deconstruction based on a true crime story with Black Metal for it's background source. I don't know......it's confusing, but it somehow all works out in the end.
Truth is certainly stranger than fiction. There is no way that a writer could make up this cast of characters or the storyline that accompanies them. It's a truly amazing ride into a netherworld of Satanism and extreme music, where violence and aggression are rewarded and civilized society is reviled.
Highly recommended.
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