Tero Ikáheimonen — The Devil’s Cradle: The Story of Finnish Black Met

Black Metal is a genre that has always intrigued me beyond just the music. Many bands have drawn on fascinating events in history and folklore to create their own personal mythology by which they live. Much is particularly known about the Scandinavian Black Metal scene which has seen numerous attempts to catalogue its near 30 year history. Most famously Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind, with its contentious front cover of a burning church, and more recently and less controversially Dayal Patterson’s Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult.

One thing that has always been treated like a footnote in all of the Black Metal literature that I had previously read was the Finnish Black Metal scene. Author Tero Ikáheimonen has decided the time is right for Finnish Black Metal to rise from the shadows and show itself to the mainstream metal community through this lovingly constructed tome. At well over 500 pages it is a comprehensive look at the scene in Finland from the perspective of the bands and others who play an important role in the scene. Ikáheimonen started work on the book in 2014 interviewing bands, writers and anyone else active in the scene to gain further insight into this music that he so obviously loves.

The Devil’s Cradle is like an encyclopedia highlighting the key movers and shakers of the Finnish Black Metal scene, those who have risen to the top like Beherit and Impaled Nazarene are featured alongside those less well know but equally important in developing the sound of a nation. Interspersed between band histories are chapters that act to guide us through the Black Metal scene in Finland during the last 30 years or so. Ikáheimonen even manages to broach the subject of the NSBM with a sensible rational approach, pointing out that in Finnish Black Metal it is but a minor problem, but one he felt needed to be addressed.

The Devil’s Cradle is a well-crafted tome that has taught me a great deal about the Finnish Black Metal scene and will continue to act as my initial reference point when looking for information on bands from the region. The interviews are informative, and the book is crammed with some fantastic images, both familiar and less so. Tero Ikáheimonen’s writing style is extremely accessible and his writing flows well. As far as I can see this is an essential book for anyone interested in Finnish Black Metal, in fact I would deem it the seminal work on the topic.