Customer Reviews

Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My copy of CHOOSING DEATH arrived in the mailbox last Tuesday. I cannot recommend this book enough to both fans of death/grindcore and people who are not as familiar with this type of metal. I have been an avid fan of death and grind now for over 5 years and I still learned a lot about this book. For instance, I had no idea how important Napalm Death really are/were to death metal. After reading this book I have a better idea just how important Napalm Death are. The author also does a great job in covering bands from the late 1990s to the present day who are pushing the envelope in every sense of the word by combining other influences (Opeth, Nile, Slipknot, In Flames) and bands who continue to push the envelopes of speed and brutality, (i.e. Krisiun and Hate Eternal). Over 2 years of collected interviews make this book something special. Plus, at the end of the book the author provides a list of essential death metal albums throughout the years. To conclude this review, CHOOSING DEATH is essential reading. You will not be disappointed.

Having not caught the death metal bug until 1991, there was a lot of pre-90's groundwork that was being laid while I was in high school listening to Slayer, Megadeth, Testament, Anthrax, etc., thinking they were the heaviest bands on the planet. This book shows exactly what was going on under the radar during those formative years, which led to the death metal explosion in the early 90s. This book tells you exactly who made what happen and how some of my now favorite bands came to be, and how they first got their exposure. It details how the major label feeding frenzy of 93-95, combined with other factors, almost destroyed death metal, and who kept the genre going after the dust had settled. It documents how the genre was reborn in the late 90s and covers some of the key players who now carry the torch into the new millenium. Tons of interviews with bands, label execs, producers, and others involved in the scene and lot of never-before seen photos to add to the visual component. I read it all in one sitting, couldn't put it down. Get it.

As a teenager in the early 90's craving the most extreme metal sounds available, I was a huge fan of the death metal underground. Having just read Choosing Death, I can honestly say that there exists no substitute to capture the thrill and intensity that filled the minds of so many listeners in those days. This book transported me straight back to those golden years where so much excitement abounded within the death metal scene. Having just finished the book, I'm all fired up!! I'll be digging out all my old CD's from the attic tonight!! This isn't a fan-based death metal bio book...no...this is the story of the music from its earliest rumblings through to its international buzz told by the major players in the scene. The story is spun through the words of band members, label owners, record executives, artists, etc... Mudrian does a fantastic job at letting the band members, etc tell the story themselves. It's a perfectly balanced take of the death metal scene from all vantage points. Loaded with incredible photos. Tons amazing stories. I have been hoping someone would do this genre some justice and put out the definitive story. The wait is over!! The definitive story has arrived!!!

After reading this book I was slightly disappointed by Mr. Mudrian's first book. As a fan of this type of music, I give him credit for writing about a genre of music that hasn't really been looked at or even taken seriously or even respected (which it deserves a lot of). But the book is almost completely filled with this type of storyline/writing: "so-and-so" starts a band, later he leaves that band and forms a new band. Later on, one of the members of this band leaves and joins the original band that "so-and-so" started. You can just go on with names of people and bands and who joined who and then left and then rejoined...on and on and on....

In other words, it rambles on and doesn't really grab the reader or spark enthusiasm. You can save your time and money and just basically go on a website and look up one of these bands find out about the members (original, new, who came left and joined again) and what other bands sound like them or who they influenced or where influenced by, etc.

What would have made this book great was if there was more of a cohesion between good storytelling of interesting and amusing stories, setting and time details, more fan and outside reflections, etc. The author definitely needs to work on his writing skills (there were a few grammatical and spelling errors - maybe the editor's fault) but stay on this path of writing about interesting and underground subjects.

I bought Choosing Death last Christmas after seeing the quarter-page plug in the back of every issue of Decibel magazine (Decibel's editor-in-chief is Albert Mudrian, author of this tome of death metal history). After literally years of seeing this ad, I decided it was time to give it a chance and see if the book was really up to snuff or not. Even though my taste in metal doesn't lean too far into death metal territory, I still thought it would make for an interesting read, and maybe turn me on to some bands I hadn't heard of before. Choosing Death turned out to be a perfect choice for opening my eyes--and soon after, ears--to all the extreme music I'd been missing out on.

Starting out in Birmingham, England in the early 1980s, Mudrian examines the formative roots of death and grindcore (hardcore punk and crust), before moving into death metal's heyday (popularity explosion in the Floridian and British scenes), its worldwide spread (Swedish death is given a chapter-long examination) and its gradual demise in the late 90s. The final chapter of the book, Altering the Future, recognizes the influence formative extreme music bands have had on current death and grind acts like Nile, Nasum, Arch Enemy, etc. One of the greatest features of this book is how Mudrian's smart and seemingly effortless writing style compliments the exhaustive interviews he's conducted with members of the death metal scene. The unique thing about this book is that the vast majority of its content is all culled from interviews from the musicians, promoters, producers, and artists who were there, making the scene. This gives the book a very genuine, omniscient feel, which at some points lends itself to humor. Another great thing about Choosing Death is the inclusion of so many old flyers, album covers and band photos. It's hard to turn a page without getting another glimpse at what these bands looked like during their prime.

As some reviewers have pointed out, Mudrian's scope of death metal does skew a little heavily toward four biggies in the scene: Carcass, Death, Morbid Angel, and Napalm Death. But I don't feel this was an unfair decision; realistically, these four bands are what defined the genre from an early stage, and its story could not properly be told without giving these acts due credit. Second-wave bands like Entombed, Deicide, At the Gates, Obituary, et. al are also given a close look over, but the real gem in this book is learning about all the underground DM bands I might never have heard of without reading this book. Peripheral metal groups like Repulsion, Autopsy, Grave, Siege and Nihilist are all given several pages (instead of a few cursory sentences) examining their contributions to the genre. Whether you've heard of these lesser known acts or not (most of them were new to yours truly before this book), Choosing Death is your key to unlocking more than you probably ever wanted to know about death metal's woolly history.

One great decision Mudrian made was the inclusion of three appendices in his encyclopedia de metallica. The first one, Cast of Characters, is in the beginning of the book (just before legendary radio producer John Peel's fascinating introduction), and is there to help the reader keep track of the many names that occur again and again in the book's 284 pages. Following the body of the book is a 'Life After Death' section which keeps tabs on where the scene's living causalities wound up after leaving the underground, as well as an awesome 'Choosing Death Essential Discography'. I have actually taken my copy of Choosing Death into my local record shop more than once to remind me of which classic death metal albums my collection is missing (trust me, based on their list alone, my collection is looking pretty shrimpy).

The only gripe I have about Choosing Death is its lack of focus on grindcore. With the notable exception of Napalm Death, whose storied career acts almost as a sturdy timeline as the book progresses, few grindcore acts are given much in-depth coverage. Some important bands get a brief shout-out or two (Brutal Truth, Extreme Noise Terror, Pig Destroyer/Agoraphobic Nosebleed), but after the first couple of chapters, the book focuses almost solely on the advancement of the death genre, and grindcore progenitors are left unexamined toward the end of the book. Another disadvantage of this book is its publishing date; since being published in 2004, extreme music has experienced quite a resurgence, and some of the cream of today's death metal crop weren't even formed or widely noticed four years ago. Then again, this is a slight shortcoming at best, since the book is really meant to offer an in-depth examination into what paths the genre's first and best acts took, and in that sense, it delivers the goods on every page.

Before reading Choosing Death, I had a moderate interest in a few of the bands covered within, and a passing knowledge on those I wasn't so crazy about. After reading the book, I feel much closer to being a bona fide headbanging expert to this interesting cult of popular music history. Whether you just bought your first Carcass album, or were one of the dudes in the pit at those formative Napalm Death shows in Birmingham, there's guaranteed enjoyment in picking up this book. I'd also recommend the superb Choosing Death soundtrack cd as the perfect companion piece. This book would also make an awesome gift for any self-respecting metalhead who does not currently possess it! Bottom line, Choosing Death is extremely informative, flawlessly written, and a ton of fun. What are you doing without it?

Albert Mudrian, editor-in-chief of Decibel magazine, one of the best music magazines out there today, pens an excellent celebration of the darkest, fastest, and most intense music out there: death metal (and grindcore). Mudrian's format is simple, for a reason. It streamlines the vast reams of information within these genres and pares it down to the true essence of the keys bands - Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Carcass - and the key record label - Earache Records.

I used to spin records for the imaginatively titled "Metal Show" at the University of Texas college radio station, KTSB (now KVRX), from 1988-1990, right when the grindcore/death metal movement first appeared in the United States. CHOOSING DEATH brought back numerous amazing memories for me such as the time I received the Napalm Death SCUM LP at the radio station; when I saw Sepultura's first U.S. show at the DK Zone at the CMJ Music Fest in NYC; and also when I met Digby Pearson and Martin Nesbitt of Earache Records at the same convention. As one of the first college radio DJs to spin the majority of these bands that appear in this book, I loved learning even more about these groundbreaking musicians. And I thought I knew it all!

Mudrian's research is impeccable, his writing is tight, and his subject matter rules. CHOOSING DEATH may not please every metal fanatic out there, but then we're a picky and bitchy lot, aren't we?

Kudos to Mudrian for an excellent piece of work.

Corey Mitchell - author of HOLLYWOOD DEATH SCENES, DEAD AND BURIED, MURDERED INNOCENTS, and EVIL EYES.

I'll make this quick. If you are a major OR minor fan of this type of extreme music or if you have an interest in becoming a fan, I would say this book could be the instruction manual! From NAPALM DEATH's 'SCUM' to the current scene, this book fills in the blanks and then some. BE WARNED: you may not be able to put the book down until you finish it!!! ARAUUGGHHHH!!!!!!

Former Terrorizer editior Nick Terry states up front in his introduction that this book isn't intended to be a thorough cataloguing of all the second and third string death metal bands that have come about over the last 15 years, and "Choosing Death" is the better book for it. Every book that I've read thus far on the history of heavy metal (in general) gaffs when they get to the part about the extreme bands. For instance, in listing the seminal forebearers of the genre they'll commonly cite bands like Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel, etc. and then - just to appear they really know their stuff - they'll throw in a mention of some extremely minor band that I've never even heard of half the time, despite the fact that I've been listening to death metal voraciously since 1990, even reviewing the genre in various periodicals up until a few years ago. Which is not to say I've heard of every death metal band worth listening to, but if they were a huge influence on the genre there's no way they've escaped my notice all this time.

On the other hand, "Choosing Death" is the first overview of death metal, comprehensive or otherwise, that has trimmed the fat completely. Except for the final chapter which discusses various spin offs that were influenced by death metal (a guaranteed controversy if there ever was one) such as "nu-metal", there is no mention of any bands that weren't extremely important to the genre.

I do, however, have to knock off one star for the later chapters, which offer little insight into the decline of death metal in the mid-90s aside from the usual "market saturation" issues. And hey, there may be nothing more to it than that, although it's debatable, but nonetheless it makes for uninteresting reading to have so many sources repeating the same opinions just to fill an appropriate amount of space in the book. I'm sure the author didn't want to gloss over several years worth of death metal, but in his quest to avoid relying on third stringers to tell the story of death metal's history and evolution, he focuses too much on the Earache, Roadrunner, and Nuclear Blast bands and ignores the minor acts that were carrying the torch during the time period.

The loss of a star also carries over into the aforementioned source material, much of the quoting coming from either Earache head Digby Pearson or various ex-Earache acts. There is very little input from the heads of other labels, such as Roadrunner or Nuclear Blast, and though Earache is without a doubt the go-to label for the early history of death metal, Digby himself admits that he kind of lost sight of where the extreme metal frontier was in the mid-to-late 90s, favoring hardcore techno acts long past the point where the fans demurred (in fact, to this day Earache is far from having made a comeback, most of their current roster being filled by a variety of third-string non-sellers). Century Media has been the backbone of the metal scene for going on ten years now and the label's influence is shamefully neglected in the later chapters.

Nonetheless, four stars, if nothing else for the excellent history of the scene up to and including the Columbia/Earache licensing deal falling apart. Hopefully in a later edition the author can go back and further flesh out the aftermath of that event. In the current edition, the subsequent chapters just read like one long anti-climax.

As a death metal fan, I found this book to be very insightful as it becomes rather difficult over time to remember all the members of bands long since past, it helps bring them back into the light to a new generation of metal heads. I don't read much, but once I got this book, I read it in a matter of days, it's that good! Many would think that a book with this kind of topic would lack comical retorts, but I would have to say the Glen Benton interview damn near made me spit pop across the room! If you're a metal head, or looking into becoming one, you should read this and see where the roots of death metal are...you might be surprised!

While I enjoyed the book fairly well and was glad to see a book on death metal at all, it seemed a bit like the introductory comments about "not skipping around for your favourite band (or yourself)" were almost attempts to justify a rather unjustifiable centering on Napalm Death. Yes, the subtitle of the book IS "The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore," I know, but Napalm, as influential and originators are best kept with grindcore and the title of the book *IS* Choosing "Death" not "Grindcore."

Between this (strange) focus and the less intense focus on Death, Morbid Angel and Obituary, the book feels inaccurately titled. Thrown in the absence of a band that brought a new vibe and "style" in the form of the very dense and complex Suffocation (outside of vague mentions toward the end of the book--and even mentions how many imitators they've suffered) and the claims to any history of death metal seem a little inflated.

Of course the presence of what is probably a 1:1 ratio on Napalm Death:Everyone Else photos is a bit of a giveaway that this is practically "Napalm Death (And Some Other People)" moreso than "Choosing Death."

Interesting, but quite disappointing.

Oh well. At Least Lords of Chaos is a pretty solid book.