The Merciless Book Of Metal Lists, by Howie Abrams & Sacha Jenkins
(Abrams Image)
The Merciless Book of Metal Lists will Slay you with useless metal info you never needed to know… but always kind of wondered about. This Overkill of a book is jam packed with 208 pages of metal knowledge, ranging from which album covers feature goats to metal fashion faux pas. The past 40 years have been a Tenacious time for metal, and not all of it has been good. The Merciless Book of Metal Lists covers it all–even some of the stuff you’ll wish you didn’t know.
The Merciless Book Of Metal Lists, by Howie Abrams & Sacha Jenkins
(Abrams Image)
The Merciless Book of Metal Lists will Slay you with useless metal info you never needed to know… but always kind of wondered about. This Overkill of a book is jam packed with 208 pages of metal knowledge, ranging from which album covers feature goats to metal fashion faux pas. The past 40 years have been a Tenacious time for metal, and not all of it has been good. The Merciless Book of Metal Lists covers it all–even some of the stuff you’ll wish you didn’t know.
The foreword is written by Howie Abrams and is presented as an interview with Slayer’s own Kerry King. King talks about his youth–how he first got into metal when his father gave him a guitar, and he heard Judas Priest on the radio. The interview is a true Testament to what is to follow.
You will feel like God Smacked you in the face with all of this new metal knowledge once you hit the first chapter. The authors were clearly Possessed by the ancient metal gods to dig up the entire history of metal. They discuss how metal, when it reached a standstill in the mid 1990s, began to transform. Branching off from heavy metal were new genres like math metal, Viking metal, and stoner metal. These are discussed in great detail–and often criticized and ridiculed.
You will just want to KISS the author for presenting this information in an easy to read listing format, and with such Razor like accuracy. One list that evokes Suicidal Tendencies is the list of “200 Embarrassingly Bad Album Covers.” This includes the cover for Fistful of Metal by Anthrax, Fueled by Fire by Spread the Fire, and the entirety of the Metal Massacre compilation series (see below).
Reading this book is like a Nuclear Assault on your brain, and you might just become Sick of it All. But if you are a die-hard metal fan, to the point of being a Sinner, you will keep reading because someone needs to have all of this knowledge in his or her brain. Or maybe just because you are just Killing Time.
This books lists, in the author’s opinion, the best guitarists, bassists, and drummers, as well as the worst. You will have to De[i]cide for yourself whether they have made an accurate assessment, or if they need to attend Metal Skool to get their facts straight.
Go and pick up your copy of The Merciless Book of Metal Lists so you can become a Manowar for metal. (Get it? Man of war… for metal….)
