– Customer review on 16/07/2011

Choosing Death by Albert Mudrian
**** - Flawed but Excellent

This is an excellent book. As others have probably noted it is a little too weighted towards the Napalm Death/Morbid Angel side of things, and flows a little unevenly. Where some better history books would be set out in a more coherent and chronological, (or at least sectional) fashion, this book does tend to be one long line of events relating to late eighties early nineties death and grind, with the occasional sideways step to cover other separate areas of development (such as the swedish scene, and norwegian black metal). Offsetting these faults is a staggeringly detailed and impressively large amount of information. If like me, you will be returning to this book as a reference point, it will be an invaluable (and at this point only existing) tool. It's hard to imagine anybody having been left out, and it's usefulness as a death/grind geneaology is also invaluable. But it's biggest plus on a basic reading level was my inability to put it down. Being based around a scene that metamorphosed at such a staggering rate, this is hardly surprising, but the book captures this pace of development perfectly, leaving one constantly wanting to know what happened next. In short, not well structured, but absolutely loaded with information, and highly readable.