Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore
So, wifey is strongly considering writing a thesis paper on women in death metal. As a fan of death and grindcore for almost 20 years now (and her better half), I might have had something to do with this, over the course of the last 11 years. Anyhow, she’s been grabbing scholarly papers about metal that I didn’t know existed (which I’ve been reading too) and she grabbed a few books from Amazon after I gave her my old copy of Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground a while ago.
Two nights ago, Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore, by Albert Mudrian came in. I actually tore into it before she did. I really enjoyed the book. Years ago, when I read Lords of Chaos, I was really impressed by the writing. The authors, Moynihan and Soderlind, are both journalists and did a great job. Its a very objective and detailed work. It took me a little while to read though, because as much as the subject matter interests me, I’m not the biggest fan of black metal.
Choosing Death, however went by much quicker for me. Its nearly as well-written as Lords of Chaos, and for me, it was much more readable (evidenced by my having read through it in one day). The subject matter is also near and dear to my heart, and reading it was like reliving history. I learned a lot of things about what was going on in the background with many of the pivotal bands and labels at the time as well, which I really like.
Ugly Bass Face 