Rock Reads: Precious Metal -: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces
by Kevin Wierzbicki
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Decibel Magazine's Hall of Fame for extreme metal albums is full of titles like Orchid by Opeth, Cause of Death by Obituary, Scum by Napalm Death and Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath. Heaven and Hell extreme? Well according to Decibel, yes, and they're making the rules here. Precious Metal is a collection of twenty-five interview pieces that have already graced the pages of the magazine in conjunction with an album being inducted into dB's Hall of Fame. Another rule that the mag has for this feature is that every member of the band in question has to be interviewed for the piece so, for example, you won't find the story of the making of Metallica's Master of Puppets here because the late Cliff Burton is no longer taking questions. Nor are the twenty-five albums investigated here touted as the 25 best of all time---Decibel admits that these titles were chosen simply because they are staff favorites. So the type of act honored here varies wildly; from Kyuss to Carcass and from Monster Magnet to Emperor. That in itself is the book's biggest drawback---those who want to know all about the shocking voiceover on Cannibal Corpse's "Addicted to Vaginal Skin" from Tomb of the Mutilated probably have little interest in reading about how Black Sabbath pulled themselves back together (minus Ozzy) more than a decade earlier to record Heaven and Hell. So it's okay then to skip a chapter or two but otherwise you'll get a good idea of what was going down when these albums were recorded; who was strung out, what the hell is that supposed to be on the album cover, and in the case of the making of Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse, who was wanted for murder. Some of the interviews get bogged down a bit in technical minutiae but overall there's plenty of good reading here doled out in chapters that are just the right length for visits to the porcelain throne.Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces
Edited by Albert Mudrian
Da Capo Press
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Rock Reads: Precious Metal -: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces
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