Lords of Chaos (book) - Critical Reaction

Critical Reaction

Reviews of Lords of Chaos have been mixed, with several critics praising the book for offering an informative or at least interesting view on a relatively obscure sub-culture, and the book won the 1998 Firecracker Alternative Press Award. The publication was sometimes criticized for a perceived lack of distance towards its subject matter. This was considered especially alarming to groups and figures that had accused Moynihan of right-wing sympathies, charges which Moynihan has denied.

German online magazine Telepolis questioned Moynihan's neutrality towards the ideologies portrayed in the book, as it leaves several far-right and racist statements by interviewees such as Vikernes uncommented on and uncriticized. The author's questions during these interviews are noted to resemble "cue-giving" at times.

While a reviewer for the left-oriented German newspaper Die Tageszeitung did not appreciate Moynihan earning royalties from the sales of Lords of Chaos, he still called it "the most thrilling non-fiction book since the Old Testament". Televangelist Bob Larson stated that he and Moynihan were "poles apart spiritually and philosophically", but that he respected the book as an "exhaustive resource regarding the seamy and Satanic side of pop music and culture".

Journalist Kevin Coogan wrote an essay titled "How Black Is Black Metal?" in which he discusses several of the ideas purported in Lords of Chaos. Coogan considers Moynihan's personal political beliefs to be "at work just below the surface of a text ostensibly devoted solely to analyzing an extremist musical sub-culture" and ultimately counters the book's apocalyptic thesis with the conclusion that the black metal/fascism connection hangs largely "on a thin evidentiary thread", namely Varg Vikernes, who had shown extremist tendencies well before entering the scene. Coogan states that Moynihan is "an extreme rightist whose fusion of politics and aesthetic violence shapes a not-so-hidden sub current that runs throughout LOC". Coogan writes that the book itself:

...is not a "fascist" tract in the strict sense of the term, in part because Moynihan co-wrote the book with Didrik Søderlind, a former music critic for a mainstream Norwegian paper who is now (as of 2005) an editor at Playboy. Moreover, Feral House editor Adam Parfrey clearly wanted to publish a popular book on the strange universe of black metal rather than a political polemic.

Moynihan, in turn, has denied Coogan's allegations.

Varg Vikernes, a primary focal point of the book, has expressed criticism towards the book. Vikernes states that the authors of Lords of Chaos have no "insight into or even good knowledge about the subjects discussed" and "don't understand one bit what Black Metal was about on 1991 and 1992" and that they "have managed to fill the heads of a generation of metal fans with lies".

However, an article on www.burzum.com that is allegedly written by Varg Vikernes evaluates the book differently. There it is said that "the book is pretty much objective", and although this statement is followed by a criticism of some of the people that were interviewed, it is far less polemical than the one on burzum.org. Vikernes states that www.burzum.org is the official site where he speaks out and has asked burzum.com to be shut down, though they refuse to do so for the reason that they believe that Vikernes does not understand what he is asking. Still, content from burzum.com should not be seen as Vikernes' official statements, since that site is not affiliated with Vikernes himself, whereas burzum.org is.