Tonight It’s a World We Bury: Black Metal, Red Politics

This book reads like the best infodump on black metal and how its tropes can be thought of through anti-capitalist lense you didn't really know you wanted, in other words I loved it and I didn't want it to end. With a mix of passion and carefully thought-out analyses, Peel lays out ideas that sometimes come across as a little bit of a stretch but it's never boring.

I particularly enjoyed the segment where the author talked about the aesthetics of heresy, I think a lot of people are familiar with the idea of representants of the status quo, especially its most aggressive champions, positioning themselves as part of the counterculture while violently reinforcing the dominant culture and ideas when it pertains to “news” media and it was interesting, if somewhat to be expected, to visit the notion in regard to such a niche musical genre.

You don't need to know much if anything at all about the black metal genre to read and understand this book (Peel does a phenomenal job explaining the key elements of the genre and introducing some of the “important” players), but I'd say you need at least a passing familiarity with perspectives that are critical of capitalism to be comfortable with it. That being said, it's a pretty approachable books and generally free of needless jargon.

I received an eARC of this book from Repeater Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.