Swedish Death Metal [Paperback]

Sweden is a remote country in the freezing northern Europe, with less than nine million inhabitants and a reputation for Volvos, hockey players, cheap furniture, vodka, and blonde women. Since the late 1980s, however, Sweden has produced over a thousand extreme heavy metal bands, creating one of the most respected regional music scenes in the world. This is the improbable history of how a marginalized teen movement crawled from Sweden's small towns and suburbs, and found a lasting place on the world stage. Daniel Ekeroth captures the epic tale with enlightening detail, beginning with Sweden's violent loss of innocence in the 1980s, through the metal's virtual chokehold on the country during the 1990s into the lasting legacy and influence in the turbulent 2000s of the Sunlight guitar tone, the Gothenburg Sound, and the countless offshoots of Sweden's most lethal cultural export.

This ultimate blow-by-blow account of Sweden’s legendary death metal underground is based on exclusive interviews with members of Nihilist/ Entombed, In Flames, At the Gates, Dismember, Grave, Hypocrisy, Opeth, Unleashed, Marduk, Morbid, Mob 47, Deranged, Edge of Sanity, Merciless, Therion, Liers in Wait, Carnage, Carcass, Tiamat/Treblinka, Afflicted, Repugnant, and the Haunted.

Book of the Year 2008, Decibel Magazine

Vastly entertaining —Time Out New York

”Finally, the true story of Swedish death metal! This book brought me back to the good old days”—Tomas Lindberg, At the Gates/ Grotesque/Disfear

“Death metal ruled my adolescent years. The problem is I don’t remember half of it! This tome of dark recollections is the chance to set things straight.”—Nicke Andersson, Nihilist/Entombed/The Hellacopters

“Read this book if you are willing to be subjected to the story behind the extreme face-melting, flesh-ripping, ear-slaying, gut-blasting phenomenon known al³(