Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal

Here rock journalist Wiederhorn (senior writer, Revolver) and music writer and radio producer Turman paint a broad but limited picture of metal and its cultural significance. Rather than regurgitating the same old stories about metal forefathers Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, Wiederhorn and Turman dedicate the bulk of their book's considerable girth to an examination of the genre's new heroes—Pantera, Lamb of God—along with subgenres—nu-metal, industrial metal—often ignored by metal's old guard. While this considerable collection of commentary on the genre's most famous characters has considerable merit as an exploration of the art form, it's diluted by an overload of repetitive, salacious stories of chemical abuse, sexual deviancy, and self-destruction. It's disappointing, because the book also dissects metal and all of its subgenres in a thoughtful, unbiased way not often found in cultural critiques of the music.