FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
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 The Front Row.
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’!
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 Yul Brynner, Ozzy, David Coverdale (which is as it should be!) to Tony Iommi turns up!
Metalion is one of the greatest books about metal ever produced.
Oh, I loved reviewing this book, it was like a time machine back to a golden age, one that importantly still continues, as Motorhead are still as awesome as ever.
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.
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.
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.
“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 over the years, and b) the band put out an illustrated coffee table book as part of last year’s Backtracks extravaganza, just how essential is Sutcliffe’s volume?”
Adrien Begrand reviews AC/DC: High-Voltage Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Ultimate Illustrated History, the new book by Phil Sutcliffe
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.