'Precious Metal': Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces

Edited by Albert Mudrian — Editor-in-Chief of Decibel magazine — "Precious Metal" (due July 15 via Da Capo Press) takes you inside the recording studios where the most intense heavy metal albums of all time were created, providing background on the savage guitar sounds and bloodcurdling screams that have defined a musical genre.

To compile this book, Mudrian pored through Decibel — renowned for its metal "Hall of Fame" interview series — and expanded its interviews to bring you face-to-face with each and every band member who contributed to twenty-five immortal albums. Revealing the operatic scope of each band's vision and their uphill battles to lay down tracks that would endure, the pieces offer a fly-on-the-wall look at three decades of rocking out.

Highlights include:

* Ozzy Osbourne's devastating departure from BLACK SABBATH — and their reinvention with "Heaven and Hell", which captured a new generation of metal fans.
* The quick rise and fall of DIAMOND HEAD, whose proto-thrash classic "Lightning to the Nations" (a one-week recording demo) catapulted them into the pantheon.
* SLEEP's 52-minute one-track release, "Jerusalem", and the 1.316-second song "You Suffer" that earned NAPALM DEATH a world record.
* A double arrest for EMPEROR — the guitarist for arson, the drummer for murder — that threatened the completion of "In the Nightside Eclipse".
* The grotesque, taboo-shattering lyrics of CANNIBAL CORPSE — and the shocking "Tomb of the Mutilated" cover art that decimated the limits of zombie pornography.

Delving deep into the bands' diverse influences — ranging from the usual suspects like LED ZEPPELIN to Wagnerian opera (KYUSS) and reggae (NAPALM DEATH) — "Precious Metal" celebrates the legacy of their landmark albums and amplifies the risks taken along the way.

Albert Mudrian is the author of the cult classic "Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore". He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.