Lords of Chaos cover art

Lords of Chaos

The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground

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Lords of Chaos

By: Michael Moynihan, Didrik Soderlind
Narrated by: Fred Berman
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About this listen

“The most incredible story in the history of music...a heavyweight book.” (Kerrang!)

“An unusual combination of true crime journalism, rock and roll reporting and underground obsessiveness, Lords of Chaos turns into one of the more fascinating reads in a long time.” (The Denver Post)

Lords of Chaos focuses on the scene surrounding the extreme heavy metal subgenre black metal in Norway in the early 1990s, with a focus on the string of church burnings and murders that occurred in the country around 1993. A narrative feature film based on this award-winning book has just gone into production.

©1998, 2003 Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind (P)2019 Audible, Inc. Europe Murder Music Sociology Spirituality True Crime

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Critic reviews

“The most incredible story in the history of music...a heavyweight book.” (Kerrang!)

“An unusual combination of true crime journalism, rock and roll reporting and underground obsessiveness, Lords of Chaos turns into one of the more fascinating reads in a long time.” (The Denver Post)

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Both a fascinating insight into a subculture and a horrifying sociological study of human behaviour.

Fascinating and horrifying.

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A compelling trip through not only black metal and it's rise but nationalism also.

compelling

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The fist half of the book chronicling the birth, rise, influence and contoversy of Black Metal interested me as I recall reading the articles at the time. However, the story the takes a turn to deep dive into the musings of Varg (aka The Count). Given his significance to the scene this is understandable to a degree, but I just didn't find it interesting. it really is the ramblings of a mad man.

Extensive less than critical coverage is given to a man who is basically a nut job scumbag. Varg's knowledge for esoteric subjects seems to be characterised as "intelligence". Just look at the guys actions and beliefs - he is obsessive and warped - but not intelligent.

At this point I stopped listening and skipped to the sections toward the end that looked at Black Metal's broader societal influence. The UK coverage is quite telling; that the petty moronic actions of a small group of youths from a band of zero significance make it into the pages of this book are an indicator that Black Metal's influence is really quite limited.

I'm sure people more into the scene will take more enjoyment out of this than I did. But it left me - a lifelong Metal head - with a sense that BM is an overblown sham.

Couldn't finish it.

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The Narrator does an excellent job of reading and the book itself provides a really good insight to the mindset of black metal artists. Thee film was quite good too

Not for the faint hearted

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Excellent narration. A must listen for anyone who has an interest in Black Metal. Shame the movie based on the book was terrible.

Excellent Audiobook

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I have had an interest in Black metal for some time so this book was of interest to me and its very good however it looses pace after about chapter 8

Starts well

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Despite significant interest in the subject matter, I found this really a test to get through. It tangents off at times into sociological and psychological perspectives on rebellion in general and gives far, FAR too much airtime to the incoherent, grandiose rants of Vikernes and that Absurd guy without any critical appraisal or editorial. Ultimately, it ends abruptly, feeling as though perhaps 25% of the book was spent recounting events that happened. The rest was ‘research’ done I suppose to contextualize this in wider society. I’d also say some voices were given far too much legitimacy, considering they are, outside of the music, your basic domestic terrorists. I was interested to hear more about the music, performances and aesthetic origins of black metal. Instead it’s hours of Varg driveling about ragnarok or whatever. Someone needs to do a better book on this subject.

Just tell the story

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