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A review by glenvisceration
Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Didrik Søderlind, Michael Moynihan
2.0
Well researched and contains some interesting interviews and snippets of information, and the first half in particular is a pretty well put together timeline of the Norwegian black metal scene and its influence. It's also self-contradictory and at times directionless, and often feels just as sensationalist as the media it so readily implies was fanning the flames by giving so much attention to the black metal scene.
It feels like the author wrote a book, about satanism in relation to this underground music scene, and then did the interviews and dotted them throughout with little regard to the fact that they largely contradicted the author's agenda. This book will interview a bunch of people, who all say something along the lines of "the Satan stuff was just to provoke, what I actually care about is being very racist, homophobic, ect", "it was all a retaliation on behalf of my ancestral religion, I don't believe in satan, a Christian deity. " or "I don't care about satanism, I just want to be as horrible a person as possible" and then moments later we loop right back round to the rise of satanism. There will be an interview with someone actually identifying as a satanist and they talk like well rounded people who seem to want little to do with the attention seeking nerds in the BM scene, and then we're right back to the evils of satanism.
Occasionally we get an interesting view into the political leanings of some of the interviewees where they describe their support for actual fascism, ethnic cleansing, and mass murder, but for some reason less weight is given to that and shortly after, where do we find ourselves, chatting to Anton lavey about satanism? As interesting as some of the content is, the author's obsession in relating it all back to satanism in spite of context or relevance just irritated me.
It feels like the author wrote a book, about satanism in relation to this underground music scene, and then did the interviews and dotted them throughout with little regard to the fact that they largely contradicted the author's agenda. This book will interview a bunch of people, who all say something along the lines of "the Satan stuff was just to provoke, what I actually care about is being very racist, homophobic, ect", "it was all a retaliation on behalf of my ancestral religion, I don't believe in satan, a Christian deity. " or "I don't care about satanism, I just want to be as horrible a person as possible" and then moments later we loop right back round to the rise of satanism. There will be an interview with someone actually identifying as a satanist and they talk like well rounded people who seem to want little to do with the attention seeking nerds in the BM scene, and then we're right back to the evils of satanism.
Occasionally we get an interesting view into the political leanings of some of the interviewees where they describe their support for actual fascism, ethnic cleansing, and mass murder, but for some reason less weight is given to that and shortly after, where do we find ourselves, chatting to Anton lavey about satanism? As interesting as some of the content is, the author's obsession in relating it all back to satanism in spite of context or relevance just irritated me.