To Hell & Back Again: Part I: My Black Metal Story

by Varg Vikernes

Dive into pure chaos with Varg Vikernes, a key figure in Black Metal, as he talks about the rebellion of the Norwegian Black Metal scene from 1991 to 1993.

Vikernes provides a unique insider perspective on the birth and evolution of the Norwegian Black Metal movement. Explore the shocking stories of notorious musicians, church burnings and the intense ideological struggles that defined this subculture.

Feel the raw intensity and unapologetic authenticity as Vikernes reflects on his personal experiences. Understand the background for the profound impact of Norwegian Black Metal on global music and culture. Gain a deep understanding of the mindset that fueled the movement and its lasting influence on the metal genre.

Immerse yourself in the story of the Norwegian Black Metal scene by grabbing a copy of Varg Vikernes' book. Uncover the secrets, controversies, and the rebellious Pagan spirit that shaped an era in heavy metal history.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

150 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2024

About the author

Varg Vikernes is a Norwegian musician. In 1991 Vikernes conceived the one-man music project Burzum, which quickly became popular within the early Norwegian black metal scene. In Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, director Sam Dunn described Vikernes as "the most notorious metal musician of all time".

"After creating in the course of four early albums an impressive body of art that essentially ended black metal as it was by raising the bar beyond what others could easily participate in, Vikernes was imprisoned for sixteen years for his alleged role in church arson and murder. During the time he was in prison, he put out two more impressive keyboard-based albums and several books’ worth of writings before falling silent around the turn of the millennium." (source: www.deathmetal.org)

Since then and after his release in 2009, he has authored several writings on Nordic/Germanic neopaganism and European nationalism from a primitivist and naturalist stance focused on cultural values in the community and family.

Reviews

[Helmut Kleve · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very interested to see what I could learn from this book, as I am generally very interested in the subject matter. As anyone familiar with the topic knows: Vikernes has already told most of his side of the story several times on other occasions, for me most memorably when the book "Lords of Chaos" came out; I remember printing out all his "corrections" he published online, putting them into the book in accordance with the sections he was commenting. So that is my first problem with this book: Nothing much feels new here.

In my view the title "My Black Metal Story" is also kind of misleading, as I felt it was mostly about the Euronymous killing and his - well-known - view of the topic. While some of his views on the music and scene are interesting, I feel it is a lost opportunity to add something worthy and lasting to the targeted topic (black metal in the early 90s), losing focus in dwelling on and on about the killing and legal proceedings.

If you are familiar with Vikernes' work / lines of thought, it will not come as a shock that he is of course still smarter than everyone around him back then and today (read: in his view, not mine), and he will let everyone know several times in this book. And of course there is not only a fine share of mixed conspiracy fairytales in here, but fat slabs of them. He blames the mass media for basically everything that happened to him, people he claims were communists, and jewish people get their fair share of blame as well, and one part can almost be read as holocaust denial. As said, nothing new from Vikernes here, even that "blue eyes" vs. "brown eyes" topic comes back from almost 30 years ago. As I believe that most of his Burzum listeners, and thus, a majority of his readers will not buy into such nonsense, I feel it is again a waste of pages and the reader's time to add all this to a "black metal" book.

A minor aspect is the lack of spell checking and the number of typos, but it seems anyways that the text was just written down in a short amount of time, without corrections to the text itself.

One has to note that I read the book within 2 days split in two sections, so it shows that I really had interest in the book, that however was disappointing overall.

It is undeniable that Vikernes has created music that has had a huge impact on a whole musical scene, and that many hold dear to this day despite everything that surrounded and surrounds it. I am fine with everyone making up their own mind about this, while I myself am happy that the music had much more of an influence than his views on the world outside Burzum.

And I am sure many more will buy the book like me, out of interest if there is anything new and interesting to be found here. Spoiler: The answer is no.

[Michael (Horror Gardener) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The black metal scene in the 90's was a big pile of horseshit, though producing some fantastic music, Burzum and Varg Vikernes being the best.

This book is nothing new to learn that hadn't already been told in various books and online blogs over the years, though there is now the addition of blaming the "main stream media" for a lot of woes.

The "sigh" count is off the chart in this.

That said, Varg is living quite a peaceful life now, learning Permaculture gardening and raising kids. 30 years of distance from the events have not really changed his opinion on himself and the actions of those times. If his politics weren't lacking all empathy for anyone else he might be alright to talk gardening with.

[ATWA · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8
It's not a particularly well written book, but I enjoyed it because I'm fascinated with the early BM scene, and hearing Vargs unfiltered, first hand account is always interesting.

Another takeaway from this book is that Fenris from DarkThrone is just a really cool guy.

[James Mordechai · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an entertaining short book (I read it in 2 hours) in Vikernes's typical style. It felt like reading his tweets on Twitter, more than a book. I feel this has been a missed opportunity, though. Nothing new about Vikernes or the black metal scene.
Looking forward for the second part.

[AJ Devine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the stuff in here doesn’t seem to line up too well with a lot of the information from his old youtube videos, but it’s still a really fun read. Interesting back story if you enjoy Burzum or Black Metal at all, this peek into the Oslo scene with Darkthrone, Euronymous and Varg is interesting, especially the retelling of the killing of Euronymous

[Adam Jäger · Rating 2 out of 5]

What surprises me about this book is how badly written it is, considering Varg has written many books before (this is the only one I have read though).

Had anyone, even Varg himself, simply looked through the text a few times and corrected the many mistakes, it wouldn't have felt like it was thrown together in 3 days without any checking before it was sent to the printer, which would've been nice, but anyhow. In many respects, reading this often feels more like a series of blog posts than an actual book.

Ignoring the many typos and sometimes very odd sentences and overall structuring of the thing (oh and some ridiculous racist outbursts would you believe!) the book is still entertaining to read if you are interested in the subject matter.

As you might guess, much of the content is to be taken with one, dare I say even two grains of salt, but hey, the entertainment value is surely there!

[Jason Schneeberger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Typo after typo after typo

Sigh

Typo, I’m Varg and I think I’m smarter than you. Typo

Sigh

I’m Varg and writing a half assed “story” of my time in the godawful black metal scene and regurgitating literally everything already known because I know people will buy it and I need money. Typo. Typo. Typo.

Who needs to proofread? Typo

Sigh


That is pretty much this book: written by a miserable narcissist, racist prick who is as bitter as they come and uses the word “sigh” on every other page.

Hard pass. Don’t waste your time or money on this. Thankfully my library had it and I didn’t waste a cent on this drivel

Sigh

[Simon Pérusse · Rating 1 out of 5]

Same old story.

[Jade Prejean · Rating 2 out of 5]

People who say this book is not insightful and there's nothing to learn from it or very wrong. It's extremely insightful, just not for any of the reasons that varg hoped.

This book really showcases what a cruel, narcissistic and ABUSIVE person varg vikernes really is. That's right - abusive. His treatment of euronymous was, and continues to be, downright abusive. Don't believe me? Read this book as if it's written by a husband who killed his wife, or a parent who killed their child, or any other relationship. People would point out how abusive it is. Just because it was a relationship between peers doesn't change the fact that it was extremely abusive and varg was the main problem.

As be expected, he rants about euronymous, but nothing he says justifies what he did to him or how much rage he continues to have against him to this day. It doesn't make sense. Nothing euro did to him justifies any of this whatsoever. If you believe that euro was really planning to kill him, which he probably was not, it was only because varg was terrorizing him so severely that he was fearing for his life. Euronymous was actually trying to get him thrown in prison because he knew that his life was in danger.

And why did varg do this to him? Ultimately the motive for the crime was that varg wanted to overthrow the leader, and become the leader, the alpha male, himself. But varg doesn't want to admit this, because he failed miserably at this plan, and he wants to maintain his delusions of victimhood, like he was persecuted for doing nothing but defending himself. It's a complete lie

Speaking of lies, the stories he comes up with are so ridiculous I can't believe he expects people to believe them. He must really think that everyone is extremely stupid. And he has absolved himself of all responsibility for everything, trying to make himself sound like he was just a pious, quiet, peaceful dude who did nothing but walk through the forest and make music. He didn't participate in the church burnings, he didn't participate in the metal scene in any way, he was always so much above it and always so much better than the people around him.

It's actually quite funny. He'll be explaining how he was completely innocent of all Church burning activity, and was wrongfully persecuted for it by the Norwegian government. Then on the next page he'll start explaining the motives behind why the people who did the church burnings, who certainly were NOT him, might have done it, in great detail. But of course that was just what other people said, you know, the people who actually did the church burnings, which he wasn't involved with in any way. Yeah. Ok vargypoo.

I read the prison story one before I read this one and I was actually feeling sympathetic for varg but that is all gone now. He completely deserved every day of those 15 years he had to serve and probably even more. This book is still worth a read if you look at it the right way. It will not give you anything near the true story but it will give you a lot of information nonetheless

[Ryan Farrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s not much to say about this book. If you’re interested in the early black metal scene enough to want to read it, you almost certainly know everything written here already, but it’s interesting to see it from Varg’s perspective, even if that perspective is conspiratorial, paradigmatically warped by his prejudices (all individual evil motives are entirely indicated by race, ethnicity, or association with groups Varg otherwise dislikes, so the evidence he is correct really is overwhelming!), and generally just meandering. Like most of Varg’s later posturing, this book is a barely-disguised attempt to cash in on his earlier credentials, whilst simultaneously placing himself outside and above the black metal scene, though it’s hard even for him to escape accepting that he played the part. Even still, it’s an easy and entertaining read, and I do enjoy Vikernes as a character, though his ideological commitment are idiotic, primitive, and even cringeworthy (he brags on one occasion about greeting the police interviewers with a Roman salute while clicking his boot-heels together, and telling them that his name was “Adolf Hitler”, for example). Nevertheless, as someone who is a fan of black metal and enjoys getting a glimpse into the dedication, idealism, and hypocrisy of such a mixed and messy scene, this is one more piece of the puzzle, and consuming it in an afternoon reminded me why I found it fascinating to begin with. More than anything, this book actually contributes to stripping away the mystique and “true cult” veneer than a lot of other accounts do, and that’s one reason to give it a look.

[FB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite entertaining, but...

The most interesanting parts are a out the scene, not the man.

Vikernes gives an interesting but brief summary of the development of second wave black metal scene in Norway in 1991-1992, but after that, he wastes too much effort trying to make Euronymous the bad guy. Not content with having murdered him in August 1993, Vikernes seems determined to also kill his memory. In that sense, this has been and continues to be the great weakness of all Vikernes' writings: his revisionism.

Vikernes is not a stupid and knows how to split hairs, but his efforts become so blatant, a person sentenced for murder himself, describes Euronymous as a criminal. Not bad, mmm? Ha!

Based on the number of pages, it could be said that Vikernes'greatest contribution to black metal was murdering Euronynous -the man who promoted the whole norwegian black metal thing- and trying to defend himself against the accusation of first-degree murder (Vikernes brilliantly presents his version of the events, but, of course, he has had 30 years and a lot of time to polish it).

Also, his point of view is so right-wing biased that he uses the fact that Euronymous was not racist as an argument against him. Hahahahaaaaaa

The victim role definitely does not suit Vikernes at all, anyway, and, furthermore, we should not allow a far-rightist to rewrite and manipulate the history of black metal.

[central Jersey forever · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it.

Not a fan of Varg politically speaking don’t care for him.

That aside I enjoyed the book he’s an interesting character. I generally believe he is being honest throughout the book. I think you can make an argument he intended on killing Euro when he went over with the contracts, he just intentionally put himself in a self defense situation.

But it doesn’t matter Euro was a piece of shit who had it coming, not someone worth mourning. I hope Varg continues to release more books as I do find him to be a solid author.

I can ignore the grammar problems, grammars not a concern to me. and the fact he says “sigh” every other page.

Worth a read if you are casually or very interested in the black metal scene. I learned a lot about some of the other bands and characters I grew up listening to.

[jc · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read the whole thing in a couple of hours. it’s really short and most of what is said in this book varg has said before in a million interviews, youtube videos and twitter threads, which this book read as: a loooong twitter thread, complete with bad spelling and grammar but in a font way too big for a real book (making it normal sized would’ve made this book 20 pages long lol) just to tell half truths and twisted versions of the facts (like the self-defense story we all know is not true because he killed euronymous over money and ego). very little in this books is new but it was a quick, fun read even if very amateurishly written. definitely for fans of black metal and/or burzum only.

[Juanma García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aquellos que conocen de sobra todo lo acontecido en Noruega durante 1991 hasta 1993 dentro del metal extremo y, concretamente, dentro del black metal, no verán en este manuscrito mucha novedad salvo algunos detalles que merece la pena conocer como curiosidad y que no voy a ser quien los nombre.

Esto es un resumen de todo lo que Varg ya contó en su día a través de los vídeos de su extinto canal de YouTube y la verdad, creo que si no sabes de qué estoy hablando aquí, merece la pena echarle una lectura. Al fin y al cabo son 150 páginas y se lee bastante bien.

Entretenido documento.

[Gabriel Tamaș · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you followed Varg's online presence this book doesn't bring much novelty to his side of the story. Truth being told,his blog posts and stories posted on his site seem more cohevise than this. Compared to the videos he used to do on the topic, this fares no chance. But one must not forget that at the root of this book stands Varg's newfound twitter persona, as he himself mentions.

Nevertheless, this book still brings some new perspective to the Black Metal "Inner Circle" and it's a must have for anyone interested, especially if you missed Varg's ranting

[Cthulhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am glad to finally be able to read a detailed account of events from Varg's perspective, versus all the reports and interviews from people who weren't there. I thoroughly appreciated his ability to not only share his experiences, but also poke fun at himself and shed new light on the utter ridiculousness of the mainstream media and the railroading by so many different entities during that time period.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick read, detailing Varg’s involvement with the early Norwegian musical scene and his… extra-musical exploits. While refreshingly honest and direct - even about his more unsavory opinions and beliefs - there’s little here that hasn’t been covered or shared elsewhere, including by the man himself. I do appreciate some of the later chapters’ answering of listener question - kind of reads like a disembodied Twitter thread.

[Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book about the early BM scene coming from Varg vikernes himself and his account of the murder and trial.

Amazing musician, let down by his outrageous point of view on political themes and in general.

I have made it my goal to read through all the To Hell and Back Again as I'm interested more in how one man band can create such cool music, especially the atmospheric side of things and I'm kinda interested to see how he handle moving to France and living of the land.

[Петър Хлебаров · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of it was a tiresome rant about the "self-defense" murdering of Communismos, ofc stabbing some half-naked unarmed guy is a 100% legit self-defense. Another fun part was about Fantoft. What I could agree on was the bashing of the posers from Venom - those $ noobs have nothing in common with BM, except the word in the title of their album. In conclusion: almost nothing new in this pamphlet.

[Jared King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspective into early black metal. Varg sucks and I'm not sure that he's 100% truthful in this book, but it was entertaining. Decently written. I saw he's put out a couple books since then from after the black metal story, but I doubt I'll read them. Read this one for a different perspective of the black metal origins.

[Soumitro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realised MSM meant Main Stream Media till the last but 1 chapter of the book. It was strange but cool at the same time, I was thinking this was a sub-par reading experience before that, that made it significantly better.

[Ashley Hana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I nearly died from the laughing fits I had reading this, lmaoooo. I read this because I find the black metal lore super intriguing, but damn, it was hilarious how ridiculous all of this was.
And the racism in this book is absolutely disgusting. (Not that I expected any better from Varg tho.)

[G. Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Varg is so full of s*hit. Great musician but a delusional idiotic human.

[Benjamin Hanussek · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent read for people interested and knowledgeable in Black Metal History as long as you can sift through the lies (and typos).

[Daniel Foo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loled a few times, and was thoroughly impressed with varg’s usage of the words cope and cringe

[Ken Mcintyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good for a Neo-Nazi homicidal larper.

[Bart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vikernes self-published this short booklet of 150 pages via Amazon’s print-on-demand. It’s basically a long rant about how and why he ended up killing Euronymous – founder of Mayhem, another seminal group, and Deathlike Silence Productions, an underground label based in Oslo.

Vikernes spent 16 years in the Norwegian prison system, and the book is interesting from a psychological perspective: Varg admits incarceration injured him spiritually, and that is clear from the obvious emotions displayed in this book about the events that led to his conviction.

To Hell & Back Again would have benefited from some heavy professional editing, but nonetheless it should be read by anyone with a genuine interest in the matter. Except for the title, there is no mention of a part 2, but I’d welcome more insight in the music and artistic proces of his albums, and the surrounding scene.

[Καιρὸς · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the information in this book, to Varg's anecdotes and stories from the black metal scene in Norway to his influences when it came to the music he created. I however dislike how this book is written it feels like I'm reading an interview or a post from his twitter (now X) account. That being said I'm looking forward to part two.

[coffee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main takeaway is Varg’s admission he is neurodivergent. That shines a huge light on all his behaviors, opinions, music.

[Zak · Rating 1 out of 5]

The trve Thulêan perspective is cornflakes should be crispy. Chapter Six covers the infamous murder well but the rest was too sulky.