Simoulin, Jean "Valnoir"

***Between the late '80s and 2000, a fringe of the extreme heavy metal youth culture decided to secede from the contemporary scenes to express their deep disgust and hostility towards organized religions, democracies, human rights, the modern world, and humankind in general. Driven by hatred, misanthropy and Satanism, fueled by juvenile passion, and with very limited means, they produced myriads of home made Black Metal recordings which left no room whatsoever to tolerance, mercy, or any kind of positive energy. Some were spoiled brats in search for a reason to rebel, some were convicted murderers, arsonists, grave desecrators or rapists, others were merely incredibly talented artists with a sincere will to put their work in the service of a greater evil. Little consideration was given to sophisticated production, and given how much money was available in the scene, fancy options were not on the table anyway. Home-xeroxed duplicated tapes were spread hand-to-hand within local scenes, or worldwide, via snail mail, amongst a network of individuals all gathered around one idea : to remain an elite that stood alone against the modern world and prayed for its annihilation. A lot of them disappeared, a chosen few became legends—before falling into disgrace to represent the embarrassing circus that Black Metal mostly stands for a quarter of century later. 300 page hard bound book documenting over 370 bands and featuring 550 visual archives of black metal demo tapes.