I’m 11 chapters into Dayal Patterson’s excellent new tome, Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult and I’m really enjoying it so far. As a black metal outsider, it’s been pretty cool to learn about the history of the genre and some of the bands that had a huge influence on what we now know as black metal. Some of the bands never really caught my ear, like Venom and Hellhammer, and I’ve had only a passing interest in some others, like Mercyful Fate, but it’s been a lot of fun “discovering” bands like Bathory, Samael and Rotting Christ through Patterson’s words. As a heavy metal blogger, I’ve always felt like I was missing out on a huge chunk of metal due to my lack of black metal knowledge, so I think this book is a great intro for me into the dark abyss. I’m looking forward to covering more black metal on The Blog of Doom someday, when I get it figured out.
Speaking of reading, there’s a pretty boss new project going on over at Despumation Press, where a talented group of writers are putting together collections of fictional stories based on metal songs and meant to evoke the sound of heavy metal while reading. They’re also publishing some metal-related essays and articles. The first issue of Despumation is now available on their site and they’re looking for submissions for future volumes. I’m looking forward to watching this project take shape.
For my illiterate readers, here's another new video from the upcoming Arch Enemy album, War Eternal, due out June 10 on Century Media Records.
Lastly, The Blog of Doom stickers are now available. I usually have a stack on me when I’m out and about, so if you see me at show come say “Hey” and ask for one. You can put it on your Trapper Keeper or something.
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