LORDS OF CHAOS: THE BLOODY RISE OF SATANIC METAL, MICHAEL MOYNIHAN AND DIDRIK SØDERLIND

A key title in recent cultural journalism, Lords of Chaos is a seminal book focused on one of the most radical and least explored musical movements of recent years. It goes far beyond mere music chronicle to offer a comprehensive and exhaustive journalistic portrait that touches on culture and crime, sociology and true crime, occultism and religion. Moynihan and Søderlind meticulously dissect the history of Norwegian black metal, analyzing its musical, political, and social roots as well as its artistic, ethical, and criminal consequences. They reflect not only the most sensational and savage aspects of the movement but also its most elegant and passionate side: the life-or-death struggle of a few dedicated young people determined to rise above the prevailing mediocrity and complacency, even if it meant resorting to extremism.
Lords of Chaos is the fruit of years of work dedicated to the study of the black metal movement, and the care and attention given by the authors is evident in their effort to capture the contradictions and differences that exist both within the welfare state of one of the world's most stable, secure, and affluent democracies and within the alternative music scene itself, dismantling the simplistic portrait offered by the sensationalist press. For Moynihan and Søderlind, the world of black metal offers legitimate reflections on art, ethics, and politics, but they never lose sight of just how strange its inhabitants can be. Beyond the fantasies of Satanism, neo-paganism and National Socialism, beyond the burning of medieval churches and the drift towards more serious crimes that would end up giving the phenomenon a sad reputation, Lords of Chaos is above all a first-rate journalistic work about a phenomenon that, despite having been born as a genuinely marginal and underground movement, ended up shaking the society that spawned it at all levels.

• Hardcover with dust jacket
  
• 480 pp. 16.5 x 24 cm.
  
• Cover art by Miguel Porto