Really, it would have been impossible not to notice it. "Louder Than Hell" is 718 pages of hardback metal mayhem and by any standards qualifies as a "Big Damn Book."
I find myself obscurely pleased that a book about the world's loudest, most OTT music form can be used as an impromptu weapon.
The idea behind this book is very simple: To try and tell the story of Heavy Metal through the words of those involved.
Each of the 13 chapters covers a different scene or point in time, starting with the first bands to crank up the amps and ending with the American bands of the 21st Century.
Naturally there's many tales of bands living on ramen and sleeping on floors, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, groupie abuse and just plain old-fashioned violence.
Some of the tales are well-known (Ozzy and the bat, Alice Cooper and the chicken, the horrific deaths of Randy Rhoads and Cliff Burton) but there's plenty of other stuff that's not so familiar.
My favourite would be the afternoon Paul Di'anno spent down the pub with Lemmy. He was matching the Motorhead mainman drink for drink and, he thought, doing quite well. But then he realised he couldn't move. Turns out they'd been in there for 6 hours but while Paul was utterly destroyed, Lemmy was barely affected. As Di'Anno puts it "How the hell does he do this every bloody day?"
Not everything is so funny.
The most disturbing chapter would have to be the one about Norway's infamous early-90s Black Metal scene, which spiralled into arson, feuds and eventually, murder.
Even if you know the bare bones of the story, Count Grishnakh's own account of the day he stabbed rival Euronymous to death is a chilling read.
"His cowardice made me angry and I saw no reason to let him live"
My one big gripe is that "Louder Than Hell" is very US-centric. The chapter on Black Metal aside, European contributions to metal after the mid-nineties are a bit of an afterthought. So the explosion in bands playing Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, Folk Metal, Viking Metal, etc, receives no mention whatsoever.
And no doubt there are purists out there irate at the space devoted to Nu Metal and Metalcore.
Pedantry aside, I enjoyed "Louder Than Hell" enormously, to the point where I resented any moment not spent reading it. It really is that interesting.
Is this book the definitive history of heavy metal? Not quite. I'm not even sure such a book could be written. Heavy Metal is too big, too diverse and too bloody confusing to fit inside the pages of one book.
If you want to know more about Black Metal or US Hardcore or 80s Hair Metal then you'd be better off tracking down a book specifically about those scenes.
But if you want a quick intro to the many facets of Metal and a few new anecdotes for the next time you're down the pub then I'd call "Louder Than Hell" £20 well spent.
That's all folks.
I bet a book like this really does put the dragon among the pigeons BigD. I see quite a few hours argued in pubs around the world.
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Sounds like an interesting read. There have been some good stories in the recent BBC4 series about the US rock scene. It's worth a watch if you've not seen it yet.
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