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In a way, Birth School Metallica Death: Volume 1, the first Metallica book by this esteemed pair, was easy. It covered the early years of Metallica’s career, when controversy was at a premium, and it was easy to view them as metal heroes.

But with this second volume the story becomes a lot more complicated. So it’s to the credit of the authors that they tackle the relevant issues with a keen journalistic objective appraisal.

Into The Black… covers the era of the St Anger album, the Some Kind Of Monster documentary and the Napster dispute; all of which are written about with an insight that draws on both the writers’ personal experiences and other people’s recollections.

By the end of the book, although you don’t actually like Metallica as people, you still have respect for them as a band. Well, it’s more interesting than believing they’re into pressing wild flowers. A good and thought-provoking read./o:p

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.