Wicked Things for Heavy Metal Life, by Bazillion Points publisher Ian Christe
Recently I got the chance to write a quick tribute essay about Grave for a collection covering their Century Media years. I’ve been as guilty as the next man of overlooking and taking Grave for granted, but gazing into the six-foot-deep pit holding their full output, the words of praise came quickly.
Here’s the tribute:
And here’s the collection for eight bucks:
BrooklynVegan posted this street scene from yesterday’s Brooklyn Book Festival, depicting Sonic Youth’s giant emeritus Thurston Moore flanked by two great accessories: Ian MacKaye, and the Swedish Death Metal book. If I could have been there, I would have given Ian Senior a copy of my Van Halen book (which outs him as a lifelong fan on page 55), so they could be a matched pair of metal-literate independent thinkers. Cheers all around–these two and their pals extolling the DIY mindset made this book possible.
Now I’ll sit back and wait for Sonic Youth to catch the fever and record a Bathory cover.
Photo by David Shankbone
Time Out New York has splashed a bucket of cool water on the ongoing gnawing heat of anxiety and alienation in my individual stretch of bones. Just look! In less than a page, the esteemed Elisabeth Vincentelli finds things to like about my creaky old Sound of the Beast metal history, the new Swedish Death Metal book, and in fact the entire modus operandi of Bazillion Points Books. So now I guess I have to live up to something and publish some more books. Or go swimming. In my experience, the calming effect of a nice piece of press lasts a few days– but I’ve honestly never had one this nice. I think the Nightwish book will be out in December, the Andy McCoy book in January, and Jeff Wagner’s magnum opus next summer–when he’s done swimming in the prog metal ectoplasm.
Man does not live by blog alone, and in fact the monster project for the past six months has been getting all the pieces in place to publish SWEDISH DEATH METAL by Daniel Ekeroth in a fat, dark new edition. The cover test and page proofs arrived from the printer a couple weeks back–take a look for yourself. By the end of July, every household of ghouls around the world will be able to own a copy, suitable for endless obsessing and secondary use as a butcher’s block. More to come, in the meantime check the pulse here:
The demo digitization program has slowed a little lately while I prepare the the US edition of Daniel Ekeroth’s outstanding Swedish Death Metal for press. This is the first book through my new indie publishing house, Bazillion Points, and everything takes twice as long the first time through. I’ll unveil the appropriate hoopla in the next couple weeks–for now let me just say this is the best document of any underground music scene that I’ve ever read. More soon…
Thanks to recently-reactivated At the Gates drummer Adrian Erlandsson (also ex-Cradle of Filth) for posting three great demo songs recorded in two days in 1994 by his Terror project. Fulfilling some kind of Gothenburg headbanger fantasy, this is basically Erlandsson, the Björler twins from At the Gates, and dearly-departed Dissection frontman Jon Nödtveidt doing a tight-as-hell take on catchy Terrorizer-style death metal/grind. Nödtveidt’s vocals are especially cool, with occasional effects and a lower-range delivery of his trademark ghastly approach. With a total running time of exactly five minutes, the songs are called “Radiation,” “Destruction,” and “Terror”–what more do you need to know?
TERROR * 3-song demo 1994 [4.5MB .rar]
UPDATE: There’s been trouble with this link–hopefully it’s a bandwidth issue and the demo will be back online soon.
Thanks, Adrian Erlandsson!
While getting the manuscript for Daniel Ekeroth’s Swedish Death Metal ready for print, I picked up a good copy of Obscurity’s 2nd demo, “Damnation’s Pride,” from 1987. I don’t think the world could have been handed a bigger hint that Sweden would take over everything in five years’ time.
Their truth-in-advertising band name aside, Obscurity had a commanding presence. A far cry from their chaotic first demo (where the guitarists dubbed in drums after recording everything else!), “Damnation’s Pride” is just a triumph of ripping madness. The thick guitars, the gut-spewing vocals, the intense speed, and most of all that loveable Swedish death-groove are already in full swing here. If you like Nihilist’s 1988 demos but want to go deeper into the genesis of death metal, look no further:
OBSCURITY * “Damnations Pride” demo 1987 [14.9MB .rar]
My friends at Scarlet Records in Italy reissued both demos on CD back in 1998. The band themselves host a cryptic web site HERE, and their minimal MySpace streaming the four songs from this demo is HERE. Now if only the band would reform…
