The introduction to this edited collection notes that ‘as third-generation metalheads begin to approach adulthood, first-generation metal scholarship has emerged’ (p. 12). While it took a surprisingly long time for scholars to seriously turn their attention to this commercially successful genre that can now be found across the globe, volumes such as this (originally published as an issue of Popular Music History in 2011) show that a late start doesn't mean a lack of maturity.

The book is divided into two sections, entitled ‘Controversies’ and ‘Countercultures’. Ultimately I'm not sure this division is entirely effective, as so many themes run throughout the whole book that there is no clear sense of two separate sections. Almost all of the chapters deal in some way with questions of transgression in metal and how this is a constitutive part of the genre, and in relation to this most also deal with boundary creation and inclusion and exclusion in metal in some way. This is ultimately a strength of the book; one is left with a sense that while metal is a complex phenomenon that is constantly shifting, there is also agreement about what it is that makes it metal and not something else, not just in terms of what it sounds or looks like, but in terms of how it is positioned in a wider social context.

These themes emerge very strongly in the chapters of the book that explicitly deal with misogyny and racism in the metal scene. Lee Barron's chapter on ‘porngrind’, a subgenre that features the use of pornographic images and sexually violent lyrics, and Benjamin Hedge Olson's chapter on metal bands that subscribe to Nationalist Socialist politics detail how far some bands now need to go to be still seen as transgressive. What emerges from these chapters is a tension between metal needing to transgress, since this is so fundamental to its character, and how pushing the boundaries in these ways makes maintaining the apolitical stance that is also so often a feature of metal culture difficult. The chapter by Nicola Allett on the extreme metal connoisseur complements these discussions nicely with her consideration of how the notion of being ‘extreme’ has itself become incorporated into the mainstream, making it harder for metal to occupy this space.

A further dimension to these ideas is provided by Kevin Fellesz, who shows how the dominant ideas about race in the metal scene have had very real negative effects on the career of African American band Stone Vengeance, regardless of how hard metalheads might work to sidestep ‘politics’. Michelle Phillipov also takes issue with the tendency for scholars examining metal to downplay or dismiss the actual violence that sometimes is a part of the scene, and provides a thoughtful analysis of the notorious incidents in Norway in the 1990s to show how violence, although rare in metal, is fundamental to how it is thought about and discussed. At the same time, other authors caution against a too literal reading of what can be observed. For example, Rosemary Overell uses ideas about affect to show how the Melbourne grindcore scene, ostensibly an extremely masculine/misogynistic space, can also be thought about in terms of femininity because of the centrality of emotions to the enjoyment of the music.

The growing history of metal is also a focus of the book, and it starts with three chapters looking at changes that have taken place over metal's 40-year history. Andy R. Brown contrasts the ‘moral panics’ over metal in the 1970s and 1980s to the coverage of emo in the 1990s, arguing that the ability of emo fans to effectively protest against the negative characterisation of themselves and emo music in the press represents a significant shift in how these events play out, and may require a rethinking of what moral panics are. Moral panics are also central to Brad Klypchak's examination of how major metal stars such as Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons – once the subject of such panics – have transitioned into much more wholesome figures. Hélène Laurin examines how the attitude of the music press towards heavy metal has changed over time, but also how the accepted wisdom that the press have traditionally been anti-metal does not hold up to scrutiny, and may indeed be a useful myth that helps metal maintain its sense of being ‘outside’. These chapters work well together in giving a sense that metal now has a lot of history, and that the utilisation of this history needs to be considered in thinking about metal's current position. The historical enmity between metal and Christianity, for example, can be seen to play a central role in both the ‘doubly transgressive’ position of Christian bands (discussed in Marcus Moberg's chapter) and opposition to the French ‘Hellfire’ festival (covered by Gérôme Guibert and Jedediah Sklower).

Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures comes together well as a volume and covers a wide range of metal artists from the universally recognisable to the obscure, and presents a number of different theoretical and methodological approaches to the genre. The discussions it provides on topics such as scene formation (in Jeremy Wallach and Andrea Levine's chapter), authenticity, what it means to transgress, and genre give plenty of food for thought for popular music scholars generally. The lack of perspectives from non-Western scenes (the Jakarta scene gets a brief look in) stands out as an omission, partly because the editors themselves note in their introduction how important the global scene is becoming. However, the rich and nuanced data that is presented throughout the book, and the demonstration by the authors of a deep engagement with the music and scenes results in a valuable contribution to the growing body of scholarship on this genre, and to popular music studies more broadly.