This was a fun anthology for metal and horror fans! Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Note: I received a free unpublished proof of this book, for a limited time, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.

This review features some spoilers.

As with many of the horror titles I review, this book contains a great deal of NSFW and violent content and is hence only appropriate for adult readers (18+). The book contains death of adults, children, and animals; violence, injury, blood, mental illness, murder, cannibalism, torture, police violence, military violence, ableism, racism, racist language, fatphobia, misogyny, sexism, transphobia, guns, knives, needles, fire, toxic relationships, bullying, frequent mentions of sexual topics, animal cruelty, and animal abuse. There is a lot of graphic gore with regards to most of these topics. Virtually every common content warning applies to this book.

I held off on reviewing this anthology, not because I didn’t like it but because there is just so much to cover.

If you are familiar with my Quora content, you may know that I like horror books and anthologies. You may also know that I like rock music of various subgenres. So I naturally had to read an anthology of horror stories written about rock music.

The main “hook” of this anthology is that all of the stories surround one fictitious heavy metal festival called “Dethfest.” (Yes, spelled like that.) It is technically the sequel/companion to another book I also read and will review shortly, Try Not to Die at Dethfest, which is sort of like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book for adults. (By “for adults” I mean with graphic violence/gore, sexuality, and adult language. Don’t worry, the bad endings are just as disturbing as the ones in the original books for kids!) That said, having read this anthology before the companion book, it actually makes more sense to read the anthology first, because the companion one doesn’t actually explain very much, so it feels like one of those weird never-ending dreams you had as a kid where you’d keep getting followed by the monster, the evil guy, or something in your head no matter where you went, or you’d keep getting sent back to some evil hellish world no matter what you did.

If you imagine these are individual stories giving individual perspectives on the event, and that some of the narrators might be unreliable, it makes sense. However, incorporating it all into one narrative is difficult. I get the sense these stories were written after the companion book was written, because very little of it is even mentioned in there. Hence, I am going to review each story separately as I usually do, and then comment on the one or two that really mess up the continuity of the thing.

“B is for Brother” by Daemon Manx—An alright start to the anthology, but not the strongest piece in the book by far. I think the first work in an anthology usually needs to have a really neat core idea and/or some shock value to set the tone (cf. “The Iron Shroud” in Ghosts by Gaslight by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers), and this one doesn’t quite do it. There’s a serial killer, which isn’t really a spoiler, who may or may not have part of his evil brother’s brain. (That’s how it’s presented, but he may or may not be a reliable narrator.)

“Phantasmagoria Ursus” by Steve Stred—On bears, people making bad decisions, and people making bad decisions around bears. One of those darkly-comedic “well, what did you expect?” stories. Not great writing—it’s mostly about a gory bear disaster—but it does tie into the companion book’s narrative nicely.

“Pigsty (Remastered)” by Jay Bower—Your typical demon-summoning heavy metal anti-society incident. With a touch of that one scene in Hannibal by Thomas Harris. Everyone is bad here. While I don’t think the author was necessarily trying to make a political statement, there is a something a bit “modern Conservative Satanic Panic bingo board” about a story where a heavy metal musician, who is also a demon worshipper, who also kills people, kills a bunch of police officers. In a band called “Systemic Collapse,” no less. It just seemed a little too on the nose in that regard so I was not a huge fan. Obviously all stories have some viewpoint behind them, but I would have liked to see some more original take on the concept.

“The Gothika Dethfest Incident: An Investigation by Agent Violet McMaster” by Violet McMaster—This one was a definite tone-shift from the earlier entries, in a good way. The transphobic radical feminists are the real evil, the protagonist is sympathetic but flawed, and there’s actually something supernatural going on separate from whatever is causing the rest of the general mayhem. After the one before this, which included a note explaining that the author doesn’t actually hate police officers—which seemed overkill, given that the actual number of people seeking to abolish the police is actually pretty small—it was nice to see something from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

“Eat Me (Extreme Warning)” by Caitlin Marceau—This one sort of fell flat for me. The elements of “cheesy metal group called SeXXX that is mostly trying to be provocative,” “singer who is sort of tired of being in the group,” and “random cannibalism” didn’t really mesh together in my mind very well. The information we receive at the end of the book sort of holds this together, but not terribly well.

“Walk the Plank” by Robert Essig—A pirate-themed metal band called Red Jolly Roger (a fictional analog to groups like Alestorm or Santiano) finally makes an appearance, which I thought was clever. The disaster that befalls them seems more unfortunate than scary or supernatural, though. The story doesn’t feel so much like a horror piece as it feels like one of those weird stories you read in elementary school about some kid who falls into a well because he doesn’t listen to his older sister.

“A Horrible Day to Have a Curse” by Zachary Ashford—I also appreciated the inclusion of Viking metal in this anthology. (Think Amon Amarth, Sonata Arctica, Tyr, Brothers of Metal, that sort of thing.) The fictitious band Vykyng’s understanding of Viking music, horse sacrifices, Viking funerals, and various other things seems more based in modern misunderstandings than reality—most Viking funerals did not resemble Balder’s—but that’s what makes it darkly funny. I’m 50/50 on whether Odin’s behavior is overblown based on mythology or totally plausible.

“Die Forever (Extreme Warning)” by Simone Trojahn—This one was also underwhelming. I thought it was kind of weird that Bluttrinker—which sounds like a vampire-inspired band in the vein of Blutengel, or the look that Eisbrecher had for their videos like “Vergissmeinnicht”—would get a werewolf-esque lead singer, with the other band members dressed like a doctor, a hunter, and an executioner. I don’t know. With other German heavy metal references right there that seemed a little out of left field. The story itself mostly felt like pure violence and was a bit much.

“Reappraisal” by P.W. Feutz—We finally get to the part of the book where we meet Bone Rivet, this collection’s take on bands like Ghost. I mean, they’re sort of compared to Gwar in the story, but a European group with skeleton costumes that’s often accused of being cheesy…yeah, this was inspired by Ghost. The story was quite good—epistolary in style, with different bits and pieces the reader has to put together going backwards and fowards in time. I liked that some things were left open to interpretation, or at least to be inferred by the reader. I also liked the themes of the ups and downs of the music industry, fans’ tastes changing, disagreements between fans on what is ‘good,’ and good old rivalry between bandmates. Plus the implications of the whole thing are actually pretty creepy.

“Faceless” by Renee S. DeCamillis—I liked that this story was more tame in regards to what was going on most of the time. The main character is simply recounting the story to a reporter. I don’t remember all the details super well so I don’t think I was really impressed by it, but I thought it was good overall.

“It Stared Back (Extreme Warning)” by Thomas K.S. Wake—This one was a little too “all over the place” for me. Actual demons, setting a house on fire, the Russian government doing experiments on people…a lot of the stories can be seen to kind of mesh with the other aspects of the overarching plot but this one seems to have been written without the larger narrative in mind. I’m willing to believe there was a demon and that a company wa involved; I’m not willing to believe that Russia was somehow connected to this and the demon and the company. I think the editors should have maybe tried to keep a little more consistency with what plot elements the stories had to include, refer back to, or at the very least not negate or overwrite.

“Fighting Fire With Fire” by John Cohn—I like the theme of “chemistry students causing chaos and setting things on fire,” with a bit of politics and other drama. Not a standout but a good filler story to explain some of the events of the companion book.

“All Men Must Die” by Duncan Ralston—I particularly liked how this one was formatted like the script to a documentary. I like film-themed horror, like Night Film by Marisha Pessl, Ellen Datlow’s film-based anthologies (Final Cuts and The Cutting Room), and Public Radio Alliance Podcasts “The Last Movie” and “The Black Tapes,” so I enjoyed this fresh entry to the genre. The explanation and finale were a bit silly—a little overly simple and Joseph-Campbell-esque to be believable, especially as those mythological birds are not all the same—but I liked the general idea overall.

“Memento Mori” by John Palisano—This one was way more wholesome than the others and actually has a positive ending. As someone who genuinely enjoys this kind of music, I felt it was a good tribute to the rock and metal bands that actually do care about their fans and the communities that their music fosters.

“Grand Finale” by Joe X Young—It was nice getting a whole explanation for what was going on. The explanation was…interesting. I didn’t expect to be putting on my medicinal-chemist hat for this book, but here we are, I guess. Basically some disgruntled band singer decided that it would be a good idea to drug the free drinking water to lower people’s inhibitions so everybody would have fun like in the good old days before metal music became more commercialized…only it went wrong. Which I guess explains the violence, fighting, and cannibalism, but not all the demons, Irish goddesses, and Russian experiments. As for the drug in question, EPHEASOS…well, ethylphenidate is a real thing, and it is, in fact, a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor, so that bit checks out. As to whether electrophilic aromatic substitution actually makes it easier for ethylphenidate to cross the blood-brain barrier, I’m not sure. I suppose if you substituted something smaller, or if the substitution changed the pKa, it might cross more easily, but it would not necessarily have the same effects. Similarly, the oxidative stress creating free radicals…yes, that happens, but I don’t know if that would necessarily increase the effects of the ethylphenidate; that process is more widely known for causing cancer, inflammation, heart disease, and organ failure. Nevertheless, I’m happy to see someone doing a science fiction/horror take on medicinal chemistry, as that is not nearly common enough in the genres!

Overall, this collection was a mixed bag. If you really like heavy metal and adult-oriented, often graphic horror, you’ll love it. If you are looking for something more atmospheric, eerie, thought-provoking, or science fiction/fantasy-heavy, you can skip this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this book. I read the book "Try Not to Die: Dethfest" so I thought I'd read this one also. I didn't find it very entertaining; the book just dragged on. This one was definitely not for me.

Sooo fun! I loved this collection of horror. I received a free eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this opportunity.

Such a fun little twist of a book with different stories to entice and keep you going. Kind of have me queen of the damned vibes??

Okay I had to read the other DethFest of and I loved it.
The second is never as good right?
Wrong, I forgot Mark and Duncan are genius, them you add Jon Cohn, done done done.

This had me kicking my feet like some dskr hearted little school girl.

Check it out of you haven't yet