The Metal God himself, Rob Halford - lead vocalist of Judas Priest and author of the critically acclaimed and reader-beloved autobiography, Confess - delivers a bible of hard rock and heavy metal, all in his enlightening, hilarious, and one-of-a-kind voice. Rob Halford has long been known for his legendary voice. As the front man of Judas Priest, his vocals have always been tremendous, and tremendously influential. In 2020, he brought his voice to the page with a glorious autobiography. Fans and readers loved Halford's frank and open narrative, as well as his terrific insight and sense of humour. Now, in Biblical, Halford runs his expert eye over all facets of the hard rock history and the heavy metal world. Biblical is a lively encyclopaedia in which Halford shares his opinions, memories, and anecdotes regarding every element of the rock and roll work and lifestyle from tours to tattoos, riffs to riders, and drugs to devil horns. In Halford's relaxed and honest tone, the book mixes serious and in-depth pieces with whimsical reflections on lessons learned during his fifty years of a life in music. Biblical is a handed-down-from-on-high holy tome that transports fans behind the scenes and back into their record collections, to the almighty ways of rock.

Decades after the rise of rock music in the 1950s, the rock concert retains its allure and its power as a unifying experience - and as an influential multi-billion-dollar industry. In Rock Concert, acclaimed interviewer Marc Myers sets out to uncover the history of this compelling phenomenon, weaving together ground-breaking accounts from the people who were there. Myers combines the tales of icons like Joan Baez, Ian Anderson, Alice Cooper, Steve Miller, Roger Waters and Angus Young with figures such as the disc jockeys who first began playing rock on the radio; the audio engineers that developed new technologies to accommodate ever-growing rock audiences; music journalists, like Rolling Stone's Cameron Crowe; and the promoters who organized it all, like Michael Lang, co-founder of Woodstock, to create a rounded and vivid account of live rock's stratospheric rise. Rock Concert provides a fascinating, immediate look at the evolution of rock 'n' roll through the lens of live performances, spanning the rise of R&B in the 1950s, through the hippie gatherings of the '60s, to the growing arena tours of the '70s and '80s. Elvis Presley's gyrating hips, the British Invasion that brought the Beatles in the '60s, the Grateful Dead's free flowing jams and Pink Floyd's The Wall are just a few of the defining musical acts that drive this rich narrative. Featuring dozens of key players in the history of rock and filled with colourful anecdotes, Rock Concert will speak to anyone who has experienced the transcendence of live rock.

Steeped in foreboding mythology, the dark underbelly of heavy metal ignites debate to this day. Guitars playing abrasive, discordant riffs, the thunderous double-kick of the drums acting like an accelerated heartbeat, and porcine, guttural vocals pummeling twisted lyrics. Courting controversy from inception to its modern day iteration, death metal presents a number of contradictions: Driven and adventurous musicians compete to make uncomfortable noises; it is crude and far beyond parody and yet consistently popular; and the music is pig-headedly uncommercial despite making a few labels, albeit briefly, wealthy. This book explores the history and methodology of the genre, charting its aims and intentions, its crossovers to the mainstream, successes and failures, and tracks how it developed from the bedrooms of Birmingham and Florida to the near-mainstream, to the murky cult status it enjoys today.

Gene Simmons was born Chaim Witz in 1951 in Haifa, Israel, to a carpenter and a Nazi concentration camp survivor. When he was nine, his mother brought him to New York, opening up his mind to American culture and sowing the seeds for Kiss. Kiss gave people great rock 'n roll music with an awe-inspiring theatrical show. Each member had their own look - Gene's was "The Demon" and his bat-like make-up, on-stage fire-breathing, tongue-waggling and blood-drooling made headlines worldwide. Simmons' life is extraordinary and his personality contradictory. He has witnessed and partaken in the highest level of debauched rock and roll behaviour, but has never touched drugs or alcohol. This uncensored book tells the real story of the man behind the make-up.

The religious ferocity of Heavy Metal fandom is one of the most fervent in the history of subculture. The display of this fervor has been channeled and distilled throughout time into one sacred object: the battle vest. Often referred to as the Kutten (German for monk's robe), the battle vest serves a multitude of purposes: as a musical CV, a badge of authenticity, a creative practice of identity, and a fashion statement. Defenders of the Faith documents the timeless and universal concept of fandom through the elevation of the battle vests, revering them beyond the sweaty bodies they adorn and the pits they live in, to the status of religious artifact. Photographer Peter Beste has been documenting subcultures for over 20 years. His first book True Norwegian Black Metal (Vice Books) was a portrayal of the extreme end of the genre and the stunning photos contained within translated far beyond the niche fans of the music, selling tens of thousands of copies. His critically acclaimed follow up book Houston Rap showed his breadth as a photographer and Juxtapoz called it "An astonishing and important insight into a great American cultural narrative." Defenders of the Faith is Beste's fourth book that has been edited by Boo-Hooray's Johan Kugelburg and his photographic treatment of traditional heavy metal culture and dress code is similarly striking. Metal fans, fashion enthusiasts, and subculture geeks will come to the book naturally but the images have a gravity of humanity that speaks to universal expression of passion and devotion and make the book instantly relatable. Heavy Metal has survived and evolved through the decades, always maintaining a deep connection with its audience. The decorative armor of the battle vest serves as a visual history of the genre, memorializing the bands and also telling a personal story of each fan. This collaborative nature has always been at the heart of metal, elevating the individual and the communal beyond the dynamic of performer/audience. As Peter Beste put it himself, "For many, it shows how "true" one is by how authentic their patches are, which festivals they have attended, or which bands you got to see way back when. It is an object that gains in value as it deteriorates, and is pretty much never bought or sold. You have to create your own." Recognizing these personalized artifacts as timeless and artistic expressions of the universal human experience of devotion helps shed light on metal's place within our cultural history.

Taking cue from the do-it-yourself attitude of their country's punk movement, Britain's up-and-coming heavy metal bands that comprised the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) were not content to wait for record labels to come knocking. Instead, they took to issuing their own music, typically in the form of 7 inch singles but also 12s and full-length album, many indie, some on small labels, and some on the major labels smart enough to get on board (essentially EMI and MCA). Martin Popoff, writer of more record reviews than anybody in history across all genres), has undertaken the task of documenting virtually every record large and small from heavy metal's most fabled period (beginning essentially in `79 with a hard stop at 1983) providing catalogue information, mini reviews as only he can do, plus a gob of thumbnails of those wonderful 7" picture sleeves and LP covers. Additional features: * Includes hundreds of rare 45 picture sleeve and album cover images. * Every record rated out of 10. * Layout designed so that LPs are distinguished from 7", 10" and 12" singles/EPs. * Label, year of release and catalogue number for almost every entry. * Two appendices, displaying all 9's and 10's for singles as opposed to LPs.

Rock City, Narita, Fire Down Under, Restless Breed, Born in America... These are the pioneering, superlative heavy metal records that represent the classic first decade of Brooklyn's Riot's, before the band would break up, eventually storming back with Thundersteel and The Privilege of Power, existing to this day as Riot V after the shocking death from Crohn's disease of guitarist and leader Mark Reale. Riot's is a tale of opportunities missed, of a band ahead of the curve, and of a band from which both its classic era lead singers - Guy Speranza and Rhett Forrester - are now dead, as is, of course, Mark Reale, a quiet man who, fatefully, wanted to leave the business to others and just play his heavy metal. But this book is not just about the '75 to '85 period of the band that spawned one of the finest metal records of all time, 1981's Fire Down Under. Even if the classics framed by those ten years get the full, dedicated chapter, track-by-track Popoff treatment, the subsequent rich and substantial catalogue of the band is discussed as well, right up to the present day where Riot shines on. But still, the focus is on songs like `Warrior', `49er', `Road Racin'', `Outlaw', `Don't Hold Back', `Altar of the King', `Violent Crimes', `Vigilante Killer' and of course the insanely anthemic `Swords and Tequila', as we celebrate a New York institution that is perhaps the shining example of the term, "honorary New Wave of British Heavy Metal" band.

"Decibel "magazine is regarded as the best extreme music magazine around.

"Precious Metal" gathers pieces from "Decibel"'s most popular feature, the monthly "Hall of Fame" which documents the making of landmark metal albums via candid, hilarious, and fascinating interviews with every participating band member.

"Decibel"'s editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, has selected and expanded the best of these features, creating a definitive collection of stories behind the greatest extreme metal albums of all time.

Black Sabbath's "Heaven and Hell" * Diamond Head's "Lightning to the Nations" * Slayer's "Reign in Blood" * Napalm Death's "Scum" * Repulsion's "Horrifed" * Morbid Angel's "Altars of Madness" * Obituary's "Cause of Death" * Entombed's "Left Hand Path" * Paradise Lost's "Gothic" * Carcass' "Necroticism- Descanting the Insalubrious" * Cannibal Corpse's "Tomb of the Mutilated "* Eyehategod's "Take as Needed for Pain "* Darkthrone's "Transilvanian Hunger "* Kyuss's "Welcome to Sky Valley "* Meshuggah's "Destroy Erase Improve "* Monster Magnet's "Dopes to Infinity "* At the Gates' "Slaughter of the Soul "* Opeth's "Orchid" * Down's "NOLA" * Emperor's "In the Nightside Eclipse "* Sleep's "Jerusalem" * The Dillinger Escape Plan's "Calculating Infinity "* Botch's "We Are the Romans "* Converge's "Jane Doe "

With all the fun of a heavy metal parking lot without the beer stains and moshing, this activity book for kids and adults is an entirely new take on the coloring book genre. Headbangers get the chance to color legends like Metallica, Danzig, and Pantera; help get Spinal Tap through a backstage maze; complete the Black Metal word scramble and hair metal crossword; and solve heavy metal Sudoku. The cover features lettering by text master Aaron Horkey and design by graphic icon Brent Rollins, and will be appreciated by anyone who loves to rock.

In This Means War: The Sunset Years of the NWOBHM, Martin Popoff and dozens of his UK rock buddies document the frenzied fruition years of the movement, namely 1981 and 1982, and then the many facets that caused the genre to implode by the end of 1984, with cracks in the armour beginning to appear the previous year. Why did metal disappear in Great Britain with the first hungover light on January 1, 1985? And where exactly did it go? The answers are enclosed, in the words of those who were there... and then nowhere fast! Utilizing his celebrated oral history method-rich with detailed chronological entries to frame the story-Popoff blasts through all of the big events from 1981 to 1984, in this action-packed book that serves as concluding volume to Wheels of Steel: The Explosive Early Years of the NWOBHM-same easy reading format, same attention to documenting the subject at hand with visuals from the glorious era. And by the way, this one's way more packed with historical images, with more substantive text as well. It's a beefy follow-up and conclusion to the well-received volume one, and the two together serve as a grand and exhaustive study of this momentous metal movement. So come join Martin, along with dozens of the rockers themselves, as they together tell the tale of this ersatz genre's maturity and demise, a demise that is ultimately laced with the pride that a platform had been created on which metal was to thrive for all of the rest of the loud `n' proud `80s.

It's one of the great debates in musicology and the answer is as complicated as it is hotly contested. Popoff's Who Invented Heavy Metal? provides the most detailed, well argued, reasonable, ridiculously complete, and most lively and readable telling of the early history of heavy metal yet, arming the argumentative headbanger with all the facts and figures one needs on hand to win those bar room bets around this provocative question. Ultimately, Who Invented Heavy Metal? aims to be a book that doesn't limit itself to heavy metal fans. The book provides wide instructional scope of teachable moments through unfolding, subconscious, telling by osmosis of the very history of heavy metal's origins through events inside the genre but, surprisingly, many events outside of its own kerranging reverberations. Divided into four parts: Trace Elements: 1250 BC - 1966, beginning with the Battle Of Jericho through shocking concerts in ancient Greece, Vikings, Paganini, the blues, the invention of the electric guitar and why Little Richard, Elvis, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis - but most notably, Johnny Burnette, might be called the first headbangers. Lead: 1967 - 1969: Discussing extreme vocals, distortion, feedback, guitar heroes, psychedelics, amplification, the first riffs, the first power chords and the first heavy metal songs. Steel: 1970: where Martin argues for the "real" or "correct" answer to the titular question being Black Sabbath given their groundbreaking Black Sabbath album, but also that band's Paranoid, Uriah Heep's debut, and most important of this set of three, Deep Purple's In Rock. Dozens of other bands are discussed as well. Titanium: 1971: In the final stretch Popoff talks about the wildest, heaviest full albums of 1971. Readers should come away with a new way to look at this question, whether they become convinced of Martin's arguments completely or not!

Belzebubs is a "trve kvlt mockumentary" focusing on the everyday challenges of family life: raising kids, running a small business, and making time for worship. Except the kids are named Lilith and Leviathan, the business is a blackmetal band, and the worship... isn't exactly aimed upstairs. In a few short years, what started out as improvised socialmedia doodles has now become a wildly successful webcomic with hundreds of thousands of fans. The irresistible cartooning of JP Ahonen (Sing No Evil) combines relatable sliceoflife humor with overthetop occult antics and references from metal music to Lovecraftian horror, making Belzebubs a devil of a good time. The official Belzebubs tiein music CD comes out January 2019 through Century Media (the world's largest heavy metal record label). Has over 200,000 Facebook fans. For fans of Adult Swim's Metalocalypse and other lighthearted spoofs of heavy metal & the occult (which includes pretty much everyone in those subcultures)

* Laina Dawes is not always the only black woman at metal shows and she's not always the only headbanger among her black female friends. In this book, she questions herself, her hardcore heroes and dozens of black punk, metal and hard-rock fans to answer a knee-jerk question she's heard a hundred times 'What are you doing here?'.