Precious Metal
There have been a distinct lack of books mentioned on Guitar Noize of late, in fact the last non-ebook book review was back in September 2007! so I thought it was about time to feature something that I think many of you may find quite interesting.

Precious Metal is a behind the scenes look at 25 Metal albums featuring interviews with the original band members from the recordings. The book is edited by Editor-in-Chief of Decibel magazine Albert Mudrian. I am not familiar with Decibel, so I did a quick google search and found their website which has the following introduction:

Decibel is America’s only monthly extreme music magazine. Since 2004, Decibel has delivered in-depth and intelligent coverage to the doorsteps of a legion of dedicated fans.

So it seems only fitting that Decibel’s Editor-in-Chief has written a book not only cataloguing “25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces” but also the stories behind the making of these albums straight from the horses mouths so to speak which are expanded versions of interviews from Decibel’s “Hall Of Fame”. I’m not going to pretend I know all of the albums featured in this book but there a many that I do and there was enough to have me reading way later into the night than someone with a 7 month old daughter should!

The book is in chronological order starting with Black Sabbath’s first album without Ozzy and replacement Ronnie James Dio Heaven and Hell, Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations, Slayer Reign In Blood, moving into the 90′s with albums such as Morbid Angel’s Altars Of Madness, Kyuss’ Welcome To Sky Valley and Meshuggah Destroy Erase Improve and has just 1 album from this century Converge’s Jane Doe.

I skipped a few albums that didn’t interest me but that is the good thing about this book, you can read it in a non-linear fashion. It has some pretty informal interviews where the band members really open up and aren’t afraid to talk about band conflicts during the production process which is what makes the book interesting. I don’t want to read that everyone turned up, played and it went well I want to hear about Ozzy’s alcoholic decline and how Paradise Lost covered a drumming recording mistake with sound effects which is exactly what you do get.

You really need to be into “Extreme Metal” to fully appreciate this book, I was hoping that there would be some classic Metal albums included such as Megadeth’s Rust In Peace or Iron Maiden’s Number Of The Beast but I suppose it was not always possible to interview certain bands and maybe they didn’t consider these albums “Extreme” enough to be included in Decibel.