Dayal Patterson and his crew at Cult Never Dies are responsible for re-release of this expanded and renewed version of the book by dungeon synth/dark ambient godfather Mortiis. This interesting creature from Norway has his roots in black metal scene having played bass for Emperor in their early and decisive days of demos which later brought them to legends they are. Then he decided to go his own way and start his one man alter ego Mortiis which is so much more than mere music and project and this hard cover rich book is a best proof for that. This book contains rich illustrated poems and texts by Mortiis which explain his Era I as it is called, meaning his first opuses and later era with more songs and albums with vocals on, and less dungeon synth/dark ambient as in earlier opus. Illustrations are superb, courtesy of Mark Riddick, Juha Vuorma, David Thiérrée. Besides texts and poems, this book contains unreleased drawings and interviews with Mortiis(interviewed by Dayal himself, very interesting and extensive), interviews with all the illustrators, Proscriptor, Balrog, Forgotten Kingdoms, Chaucerian Myth and more. This is worth having and reading, I will get back to it every once in a while and read some parts again. Great release indeed.
Good people at Cult Never Dies never cease to amaze with quality books and zines that they release. After Cult Never Dies trilogy, this is the fourth installment which can be read separately, no matter if you read the first three or not. As the title says, this is a book length zine formatted original work, with beautiful layout and totally reminding me of nineties and a time when we did all those cut and paste zines with master copy being taken to photocopy shop and distributed via mail with tape trading and flyers coming all the way late for gig announcements hehe.
If you read any of previous works you will know that this book contains interviews with many bands and individuals, mainly from black metal side of things, but also from some other aspects of extreme music. For me personally, best interviews in this book are with artist Gareth Elliot. whose work is just fantastic. Also, I love the interview with photographer Ester Segarra who does such perfect job with photos of extreme metal personalities and bands. Jon Metalion from Head Not Found label is also an interesting read. From the bunch of bands, my highlights are Ancient and Mysticum interviews. This one is a worthy read done as love for zines and extreme music. Go check this one out, also other three books from the series.
Wow! This is all I can say after I finished this 500+ pages monstrosity by Daniel Lake with a foreword by legendary Tom G.Warrior of Celtic Frost and Hellhammer fame. I always somehow held European black metal in higher worth and regard than American black metal scene, but now I understand how wrong I was. Leaning more into punk rock and hardcore back ground than its European counterparts, American bands and projects have managed to create their own identity and large quantity of originality not trying to sound like third grade clones of Darkthrone and Burzum, rather evolving and thus becoming hated by some black metal purists circles, but also becoming original in their diy and free spirit. This book covers it all in shape of articles and rich interviews, from old school masters Judas Iscariot, Absu, Von, across Inquisition, Deafheaven, Panopticon, Krieg, Leviathan, Xasthur and many, many others. This book is a worthy document of a scene and its worth cannot be grasped in one reading, so I am definitely going to have to read it once or twice more soon. Great book!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 