Review by Ian Keogh
As preposterous as heavy metal music and its myriad subdivisions can be to outsiders, it’s a genre inspiring perpetual devotion, with the oldest performers and fans now of pensionable age. Devotees will argue long and hard about the classifications and labels, indeed Motorhead’s Lemmy led a band high on the genre recognition list, yet rejected any classification other than rock’n’roll. While hardcore fans will find plenty to agree with and enjoy, it requires putting up with the designations applied by Jacques de Pierpont, Belgian rock journalist.
He’s careful, though, separating bands, styles and themes into a chronology, enabling readers to make their own mind up about the birth of Heavy Metal, for instance. Was it with ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks in 1964, Led Zeppelin in 1969 or Black Sabbath in 1970? American and British readers may feel some bands have been omitted in favour of European acts unknown outside their own country, but with all music instantly available now, isn’t the chance of discovering French band Trust or the German Doro Pesch worth minimal acknowledgement of Def Leppard, Saxon or Motley Crue? It depends what kind of guide you want.
As seen by the sample, de Pierpont’s method is to acknowledge the influences and group bands into categories, but anyone he considers especially important is allocated a page to themselves. In Black Sabbath’s case it’s two pages. As the years progress from the 1970s the categories increasingly splinter and sub-divide, in some cases into very dark areas. A few controversies are covered.
Artist Hervé Bourhis very much sticks to copying band photos and album covers, and there’s not a great deal of effort on display. You’d be hard pressed to recognise anyone if a name didn’t accompany the illustration, and it’s not as if there’s a shortage of visual reference online.
Ultimately this is little more than a list, with little space for anything more, which is unsatisfying. Few fans are going to be told anything they don’t already know, and Heavy Metal is hardly a topic of interest to a casual reader. The series title is The Little Book of…, but if that only leaves space for a poorly drawn list, what’s the point?
