All Known Metal Bands (Mcsweeneys)

All Known Metal Bands (Mcsweeneys) Review

This volume contains the names of over 50,000 metal bands. Presuming that each of these bands had an average of four members, and multipling that by the number of bands, one might figure that at least a quarter of a million humans have pledged allegiance to one of them at some point is his or her lifetime. Never has a genre of music relegated to the underground of a civilization had so many devotees; no radio needs to transmit the power of this music, for it is sought out fiercely and freely by the doomed and the dispossessed, whose ears are never soiled by songs of love and weakness.

These names are invisible tokens to be spoken aloud, each representing a human quest for superhuman spectacle: shaking floorboards and quivering walls, split ears leaking blood, with faces painted and ornaments pointy, voices uttering eternal truths shunned by woman and man alike.