As well as holding a wide selection of popular culture artefacts in the Arts Collection, we also love and lap up many examples of highly unpopular culture.

One of the more notorious niches well represented here is the wonderful world of extreme metal music. And what better way to start your journey into the area than through one of the best breakdowns of the sub/umbrella-genre than through the touchstone work by Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris, available on the shelves in the Arts Reading Room.

Extreme metal : music and culture on the edge

From there, you may well want to hone your studies by focussing on individual works on definitive titles, such as Slayer’s Reign in blood, of which there is this brilliant little book from the recent 33 1/3 series of tiny (yet not insignificant) historical and anlytical works.

Reign in blood

This and many others in the series are also available on the shelves in the Arts Reading Room, just check the catalogue.

With any thriving sub-culture, however, anecdotal histories are often the best reference point when getting your head around the many paths taken to beautiful works of noise. For that, then, we have this wonderful tome of personal histories of the creator’s of many of the most well renowned extreme metal works, from Darkthrone’s chilling Transilvanian hunger to Napalm Death’s grindcore masterpiece, Scum.

Precious metal

This title can easily be requested through our catalogue to view anywhere within the library.

But what is noise without a chance to sit down and soak it all up? Our music collection contains many gems to clean out the cobwebs in your cochlear, with a special focus on local Victorian music.

Why not check out an important piece of extreme metal history with the politically fierce genre-defining unblack metal masterpiece Hellig usvart (Norwegian for True unblack) by Horde?

Horde - Hellig usvart

Or the blistering industrial death/grind album by The Berzerker (now no longer a masked entity) entitled Dissimulate?

The Berzerker - Dissimulate

And no journey into the screeching underbelly of Melbourne’s music scene would be complete without a good hour and a half spent soaking up the epic and experimental doom metal of the fierce Whitehorse.

Whitehorse

All of these compact discs can be easily requested through our catalogue, then listened to on one of our many listening posts in the Arts Reading Room.

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