Thursday 25 October 2012

Book Review: 'Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore' by Albert Mudrian


In Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore, author Albert Mudrian aims to detail the birth, rise, near-downfall and revival of the death metal and grindcore scenes, beginning in Birmingham and venturing to Florida and Sweden among other places on the death metal map.

The book is competently written and full of ample black and white photographs and historic concert fliers with a foreword by the late John Peel. Bands including Napalm Death, Carcass, Death, Morbid Angel, Entombed, Repulsion and Possessed are discussed in microscopic detail with interviews and anecdotes that will raise a few eyebrows and shed light on complex relationships and situations.

However, despite the prominent focus on Earache Records bands and the aforementioned acts, other later death metal bands are merely name-dropped with no further investigation. The writing becomes flimsy and cursory after 1994 compared to the earlier years, for instance Death's eventual success after infusing progressive metal into their sound is largely ignored. The book would have additionally benefited further with the inclusion of the classic New York death/slam death metal scene, technical death metal, and modern (post-1994) grindcore bands - all paramount to the current death metal scene (although melodic death metal receives a few pages). Besides, it seems strange for a book concentrating on death metal and grindcore avoids examining goregrind - a hybrid between death metal and grindcore.

Nonetheless, this is a solid read for those new to the genre or veterans wanting to supplement pre-existing knowledge. Highly recommended reading that remains as interesting as the music it studies.