By: Peter Beste Publisher: Vice Books Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Vice Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 208 Publication Date: 2008-05
Book Description: "When we’re on the road, all we watch is VBS, and our favorite series is Norwegian Black Metal." (Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters) Documentary photographer Peter Beste has spent the last five years working in the milieu of the Norwegian black metal scene. This scene, with its notorious events of murder, church arson, and self-mythology, is absolutely sealed to outsiders. The international black metal fan base is one of the most devoted, fanatical, and proprietary in the world. Beste’s access and insight into this world is unprecedented and has yielded an amazing photographic journey, along with a very popular documentary series on VBS.tv, also available on YouTube. Beste, together with Johan Kugelberg, noted writer, editor, and collector of documentary photography, has brought the images into a hermeneutic narrative that makes for a compelling experience along the lines of Anders Petersen’s Café Lehmitz, Ed Van Der Elsken’s Love on the Left Bank, or William Klein’s Life Is Good and Good for You in New York.
A Big Book for Extreme Music First off, what a deal Amazon has on this. Pretty much half off what a person would pay in the store.
Anyway, like the other reviews here, this book is no slouch. It's meant for the coffee table and if you don't have a coffee table then it garners an extra seat on the couch. When people visit they have to sit next to the large front cover of Nattefrost holding up his inverted crucifix. It's definitely a conversation starter.
I've been a fan of this sub-genre of metal for a while now. I'm not going to lie and say that I've liked it or even knew about the "second wave" when it was happening. I was happily listening to my death, thrash, and classic metal albums at the time. But, when I finally did discover it, I found a new form of extreme music that paralleled my tastes at the time (around 1996).
Pros: Peter Beste's True Norwegian Black Metal captures some of the most memorable photos of the scene throughout the years. My favorites are in here and it's nice to have them on hand and just sit and look at the various photos in detail. There is additional information and old reviews/interviews with the Norwegian black metal alumni near the back as well as a tribute to ex-Mayhem vocalist "Dead". I was expecting to see Dead's body (Dawn of the Black Hearts) but alas, it was nowhere to be found. I'm neither disappointed or elated.
Cons: There is an index with page numbers and names of individuals and/or bands, but a lot of good the page numbers do when the pages have no numbers printed on them! That's probably my only gripe.
Objectively, looking on the scene then and now, my opinion remains slightly mixed on the scene's ideals, chest thumping, and rebellion. On one hand, some of the pictures such as Kvitrafn of Wardruna standing in Bergen is one of the most sociological telling pictures of the 20th century. The look on the woman's face passing on the left side is priceless next to Kvitrafn's grim countenance. The lone pictures of single individuals amidst forested backgrounds, vast plains, or in front of large mountain ranges hints at an even more darker, and to a certain extent, the lonely place where these musicians dwell in their minds and hearts. Cut off from the world and insignificant when compared with the majesty of nature, they emit a feeling of solitude which only the strong-willed are able to withstand.
In other parts of the book though, we see the less majestic to the point of the absurd and just plain sad. Nattefrost seems evil and armored for battle in most of his photos. But in one (almost candid?) shot we see him lying in his bathtub, shirtless, grasping a bottle of booze, yet still trying to ham it up for the camera even though his persona has been whittled down to little than a drunken buffoon. Unfortunately I have to say that as much as I love Immortal, Abbath hams it up for the camera even more. I'd much rather see Abbath in a more grim mode ala Pure Holocaust than say...At the Heart of Winter (which is an awesome album, but the band photos...meh).
That's about it. I love this book. Frontwards and back. I'm looking forward to sharing it with my metal buds who I know will appreciate it as much as I do.
Keep those horns raised high.
Very nice coffeetable book. When this came in the mail I was initially mainly impressed with how big it is. It's a coffeetable book because it won't fit on the f###ing bookshelf. Anyone visiting me is doomed to have to stare at the large photo of Nattefrost covered in blood on the cover because it's always sitting out. At least the stupid cross he's always holding matches his shirt. I can't say anything against his fashion sense. Flipping through the book, one finds little in the way of text aside from a few quotes, some short essays and a timeline detailing things like the birth of H.P. Lovecraft and the death of Dead.
The bulk of the book is comprised of photos, mostly of members of Gorgoroth, Carpathian Forest (though only two of the photos of Nattefrost covered in crap in his bathtub), Darkthrone, 1349, Enslaved, Mayhem and a few others. There are some photos of fans, sheep heads, houses, trees, and some unidentifiable strips of black stuff in Nattefrost's sink. The last several pages are on non-glossy paper and reproduce old interviews and articles.
The magazine articles were kind of hard to read, so I was glad I had read them elsewhere. The zine articles were reproduced well and were more fun than the magazine stuff anyway, though I'm terribly sick of reading interviews with Varg, as he tends to come off as a pseudo-intellectual halfwit. In general a nice book though, good photos, some interesting text, nice binding.
Cool as hell! If you are a fan of Black Metal, you probably already have this, but even if you don't know and love the music, this book is still worth purchasing. The photos and presentation are gorgeous, and I was happy as hell with the book even before I reached the last few pages which offer a quick historical record of the rise of Black Metal, from a smiling Euronymous and Count Grisnackt, to the early magazine articles, burning churches and through the aftermath of the infamous homicide. Horror fans will also enjoy the images in this book; it looks like stills from the greatest horror movie never made. Truly inspirational!
Amazing.. ....congratulations to Peter Beste, there is only one word to describe the work on this book, amazing.
had it b4 borders!! Was able to purchase my book and recieve it before Borders even called to tell me they could get the book. Thank you!!
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