Category: Reviews – Books
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Murder In The Front Row – Shots From The Bay Area Thrash Metal Epicenter
A beautiful full-colour, hardcover affair, this perfect-bound 270-plus page coffee table piece is as extravagant and captivating as it is compelling, informative and exciting. From essays by the authors/cameramen to reflective contributions from genre mainstays including Robb Flynn, Alex Skolnick and Gary Holt, there’s an inescapable air of enthusiasm, adoration and importance to Murder In…
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Book Review: The Bloody Reign of Slayer
Overall, a fine, well-researched read, worth getting for the amazing story of Slayer’s support slot with the mighty Venom, which brings new meaning to the phrase ‘taking the piss’!
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Deep Purple and Beyond: Scenes From The Life of a Rock Star
I won’t ruin this wonderful rollercoaster ride through the history of rock with spoilers, but man! I will say it’s like the reader suddenly enters a time machine and travels back to through the history of rock and metal, and finds it’s both better and worse than they ever believed. And of course, everyone from…
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All Pens Blazing: A Rock & Heavy Metal Writer’s Handbook, Volumes 1 & 2, by Neil Daniels
All Pens Blazing is less a guidebook and much more a map to heavy metal writing. Anyone interested in a back-stage view of the rock music industry will get a kick out of these two volumes.
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Orgasmatron: The Heavy Metal Art of Joe Petagno
If the title, or Orgasmatron image on its cover, wasn’t enough, the foreword – in the words of Lemmy Kilmister himself – marks this coffin table eye-catcher a worthy piece of Motörhead paraphernalia. And it’s Petagno hand, after all, that gave the band’s viciously iconic mascot its unmistakable face.
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Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal by Jeff Wagner
Mean Deviation is an amazing compendium of everything weird in the world of metal—a book as grand and unlikely as the music it documents.
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AC/DC: High-Voltage Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Ultimate Illustrated History, by Phil Sutcliffe
“Written by veteran British music writer Phil Sutcliffe, High Voltage Rock ‘n’ Roll follows the model set by the Jim DeRogatis book on the Velvet Underground: a good sized, hard-bound book crammed with extensive essays and a plethora of band photos and memorabilia. However, seeing how a) we’ve already seen numerous AC/DC biographies come along…
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Book Review: From The Graveyard Of The Arousal Industry By Justin Pearson
From The Graveyard Of The Arousal Industry isn’t a perfect book, but it’s a very good one. Metal and punk fans often greet the world with a raised middle finger and a grimace; this book is about how a wry smile and a good joke will take you much further.