Lords of Chaos

The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground

By: Michael Moynihan, Didrik Soderlind

Narrated by: Fred Berman

“The most incredible story in the history of music...a heavyweight book.” (Kerrang!)

“An unusual combination of true crime journalism, rock and roll reporting and underground obsessiveness, Lords of Chaos turns into one of the more fascinating reads in a long time.” (The Denver Post)

Lords of Chaos focuses on the scene surrounding the extreme heavy metal subgenre black metal in Norway in the early 1990s, with a focus on the string of church burnings and murders that occurred in the country around 1993. A narrative feature film based on this award-winning book has just gone into production.

©1998, 2003 Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The most incredible story in the history of music...a heavyweight book.” (Kerrang!)

“An unusual combination of true crime journalism, rock and roll reporting and underground obsessiveness, Lords of Chaos turns into one of the more fascinating reads in a long time.” (The Denver Post)

fascinating

started off great, then the last half feels a bit like a long tangent, but wasn't bad at all. hard to put down.

pretty sensationalistic, which is saying a lot

i feel like this book functions less as a history of black metal, or even a documentation of the criminal elements of the early scene, and more as like a tabloid. at some point it openly abandons whatever premise it might have had and starts covering racist criminals or vaguely musically aligned murders. there's a lot of good stuff here if you're a fan of the genre, or very entertaining stuff if you're not, but it's mostly located in the first half of the book, the back half is very much filler if you're interested in "the bloody rise of the satanic metal underground"

Decent but disappointing

Author spent entirely too much time expounding on Varg Vickernes of Burzum in particular and entirely too little on other subjects and individuals. At times it felt like I was reading a biography on him, or the transcript of a speech by him, there was just that much focus on him, his life and his interviews with the author. Now I do understand he played a large role in the early Norwegian scene criminal events, but this book almost gave the impression that it all had to do with him to the exclusion of others. There are some interesting and valuable points about other bands and members especially in the first quarter to half of the book though.

Like the movie? You'll love the book!

Absolutely awesome!
I Enjoyed the Lords of chaos movie & had to read the book

Very Interesting, but Not Really About the Music

I picked up this book on a recommendation, expecting it to be all about the music scene of early Norwegian black metal. While there's certainly a lot of that at the beginning, the focus of the book seems to be more about the ideological and political motivations of characters in the scene. It delves super deeply into sociology, politics, and religion. I was interested the entire time and the performer is great. It's really a very entertaining book, I just want people to understand the contents before they pick it up.

A wonderful true crime approach to Black Metal.

A lot of people complain about this book. But as a black Metaler I love it. It offers a great look at early Black Metal. Is it biased? Probably, but its use of interviews and first hand accounts really helps to back up a lot of the positions presented in this book.
Black Metal has been marred by the violence of the late 80s and early 90s, but despite all of it, I really feel that this book is a great, true crime, approach to the stories of both Mayhem and Absurd.

If you buy this book, I recommend that you also get the hard copy for the imagery. Also, please keep in mind that the violence of the past does not reflect the music of the present.

Compelling Story, Poorly Edited

I'm endlessly fascinated with the core story of the original Norwegian scene. I'll also say I thought the movie "inspired" by this book did an excellent job finding a relatable, human angle to follow (though I'm sure scene purists probably hate it). Having said that, this book reaches a point where it gets tiresome. The writers state up front they don't feel the need to step in and balance the discourse. The result is long stretches of interviews that are basically Nazis complaining about political correctness, with little or no follow-up questions or serious probing. There is one stretch of Varg Vikernes interviews that seems endless, in which Vikernes goes on a long-winded aryan nationalist rant. It feels like you're being yelled at by a crazy person on the street who won't leave you alone, and all you want to do is get your groceries to the car. The interviewer does little to dig into the reasons why Varg became a crazy Nazi asshole. They seem to think it best to let him talk, and it's often not enjoyable to listen to. And I'm not saying that just because I disagree with his politics. I mean it actually becomes boring. Having said that, if you are into niche music subcultures like I am you will definitely find this book compelling.

Flawed but worth it

Feels for a good portion of the book like listening to a guidance counselor talk to you about the history of black metal, but in that it is a least very thorough and I feel I learned quite a bit

Very entertaining are the bad reviews defending some of these bands as being “good guys” (just watch an interview, man!) while I very much enjoy black metal I accept that many of its founders had less then desirable views on the world.

This book should be promoted if for no other reason than to upset edgy hipsters who want to have their cake and eat it too

Entertaining though meandering in spots

Half the book is about what it portends to be about, while a quarter of it is a psychoanalysis of Varg and another quarter is about various political & philosophical ideologies of various musicians, which sometimes is interesting enough, though; also seems like irelevant filler.

Pretty crazy story

I already knew these guys were nuts from the things I've read and heard over the last 30 years, but I never heard the full story with all the details of the things that happened in between. When you hear it with all the details and reasoning it just makes the entire situation even worse. I always thought they were nuts, but I never realized just how thoroughly insane they actually were until after this book. Wow!