Extreme Metal: Blood, Fire, Death: The Swedish Metal Story by Ika Johannesson and Jon Jefferson Klingberg (2018)


Blood Fire Death: The Swedish Metal Story
by Ika Johannesson and Jon Jefferson Klingberg
240 pages, Feral House, $19

As we get past the glory years of underground metal — roughly 1987 to 1994 — more histories are emerging such as Blood Fire Death: The Swedish Metal Story which came out two years ago and presented itself as a history of Swedish underground metal. It achieves that and more, but falls short of its ultimate mission, which is to explain Swedish death metal and black metal, world-renowned for their intelligence and intensity.

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SMR – Dispelling the Magic of the Pretenders

O Mars! God of War! Infernal battles and bestial devastation have ensued on this week’s Sadistik Metal Reviews! Unholy wars between the true and the pretenders, the golden race and the plastic one. Which shall prevail?

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Analysis – Mayhem “Life Eternal”

Let us momentarily forget the ridiculous circus act that surrounds the legacy of Mayhem at this time and focus on what earned the band all the praise they deserve. “Life Eternal” provides a particularly interesting example composition because it consists of a collaboration between multiple musicians during the long creative process that led to the release of the album. Featuring the final lyrics Dead ever wrote as a parting gift and some incredible ideas from Varg Vikernes and a large number of ideas from so many other musicians, it encapsulates the original vision that the Norwegian Black metal originally possessed in its purest form.

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Lords Of Chaos (2018)

In an industry crammed with anti-hero biopics, Lords of Chaos follows the self-destructive rock star trope while sensationalizing the events that occurred during the black metal movement in Norway. Instead of simplifying the story to tell a more accurate tale of actual events, it adopts the more complex and clunky Hollywood cliché of the anti-hero rockstar who must “confront his own demons” instead of the more interesting story, as happened in real life, of a clash over artistic, philosophical, and personal differences. (more…)

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Zloslut – Sahar

Zloslut is a Serbian Black metal that initially consisted of sole founding member Agnarion who had produced all the records by himself but here on Sahar, Agnarion is joined by a full band that changes the dynamic of this album compared to previous works. All the previous rough edges have been rounded out from the production all the way to the riffs themselves. While this does create a certain amount of sterility, it also allows the band the freedom to explore and to develop their own style.

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Overview On Creativity : The Plasticity-Divergence-Convergence Model


On the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, the young programmer protagonist, under the instructions of an Aldous Huxley inspired game developer, has the option of picking up a record by Tangerine Dream – Phaedra. As the young programmer and the viewer struggle with paradox in order to finish his game, we find a chance to do a casual DMU reflection on the parallels between metal and game programming, madness and the collapse of western civilization by substituting learning for entertainment.

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