The Devil's Cradle by Tero Ikäheimonen

One of the (many) perks to being a world famous black metal blogger {{citation needed}} is that you get free shit from all kinds of publishers. Usually I get promo downloads or links to pre-release albums to check out, but every so often I get something really bad ass like a full PDF download of a book such as The Devil's Cradle and I think to myself, "damn I've made it to the big time! But I digress...

Over the years there have been a shit load of books published on the subject of black metal. While some of these are far better than others, I think it's important to document the black metal scene and it's "roots" from as many viewpoint as possible be it from the bands involved or those who were instrumental in helping establish the genre. For the most part much of black metals history seems to revolve entirely around the more well known pioneers who established the foundation of what is (or isn't) black metal today. But at times it seems as if bands such as Venom, Celtic Frost, Mayhem and others overshadow many equally influential bands who just don't get as much recognition as they might deserve.

To be completely honest I didn't know much about the history of the Finnish black metal scene and only heard of a handful of the bands interviewed for this book. But after reading the first few chapters I have to say I'm really glad that Svart Publishing sent me a copy to check out.

The book itself has pretty standard content like interviews, photos etc. for each of the bands featured. Not that there is anything wrong with that and it's entertaining enough to see the shitty photos and Xerox copies of cover art used during the tape trading days of black metal. The author has definitely done his homework and spent a great deal of time interviewing the key players for each of the bands featured in the book. Given the incredible amount of information found within it's 500+ pages (and the fact that I'm only about 300 or so pages into it at the moment.) I will spare you specific details. What I will say is that I have a much deeper appreciation of the Finnish black metal scene now than I did a few days ago and have expanded my music library to include many of the bands I didn't know about before reading The Devil's Cradle. Overall I would say if you are a fan of black metal and want to learn more about it's history from as many different parts of the world as possible this book would be worth picking up. 

The Devil's Cradle by Tero Ikäheimonen will be dropping 3 November 2017 from Svart Publishing.

pre-order here - www.svartrecords.com/product/the-devils-cradle