When Giants Walked the Earth

In Led Zeppelin's 1970 opus "The Immigrant Song," singer Robert Plant mouths the cryptic utterance "Valhalla, I am coming," and if this book is any indication, the celebrated British band did indeed live the life of Nordic warriors. Although much of the material in this book is now the stuff of legend, Wall, a British journalist who spent some time with the band, adds new insights, such as guitarist-leader Jimmy Page's obsessive interest in the occult as well as the band's early admiration for Joni Mitchell. Simon Vance reads the work as if it's a Tolkien odyssey or Shakespearean tragedy, immensely dry and proper. This style might seem ironic, given the band's exploits, but it perfectly fits their quintessential Britishness in a way fans will surely appreciate. J.S.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

July 18, 2011
Drama attends few mainstream heavy-metal bands more than Metallica. Veteran rock writer Wall (When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin) opens this massive, unauthorized tome with the pre-dawn bus crash on a curvy road in Sweden that killed original bassist Cliff Burton in 1986, an event that forever altered the musical and emotional course of the band. Focusing primarily on Metallica's founders, singer and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, Wall chronicles the band's many struggles on their way to becoming one of metal's most-successful acts. The group has survived divorce, drugs, legal battles, image reinvention, fan alienation, and the filming of an award-winning documentary chronicling Metallica's turn-of-the-century turmoil. Though the band was not interviewed specifically for this book, Wall draws on over 25 years of personal interactions with the group, numerous published interviews, and an intimate knowledge of their catalog to offer a no-holds-barred take on the controversial band. A mélange of musical criticism, first-hand narrative, and retrospective analysis of the band's impact on metal and beyond, Wall's latest is a rich resource for metal-heads and pop-culture aficionados alike. 32-page color photo insert.