Review: Performances of a Death Metal Bard by Rob Leigh

Blurb:

Unfortunately, Death Metal doesn’t get much play in this sleepy, peaceful, actually kind of boring kingdom. Of course not. It’s tough inventing a genre on your own, and it doesn’t help when all the instruments you’ve tried up to this point don’t match the brutality necessary for a dark and heavy performance.

My coin only seems to be enough to get me to the next run-down village, and it’s dwindling fast.

To make matters worse, my newest lute is not normal. It never stays in tune, it’s barely holding together, and it keeps whispering to me. Over and over, demands for vengeance and murder echo in my head, with the promise that I’ll find the sound I need if I just listen to the voices.

So what’s a starving bard to do?

Performances of a Death Metal Bard is a brutal fantasy adventure inspired by The Witcher and Metalocalypse, merging the episodic travels of a musical elf with the darkness, blood, and raw riffs of the heaviest metal the kingdom has ever seen.

Review:

Rob Leigh’s Performances of a Death Metal Bard: A Brutal Novella delivers in ways both expected and unexpected. Composed of five parts (or performances), it’s full of death, metal, and moshing, but it also offers a nice bit of found family, honor, and optimism. 

And we would make sure that we took this full opportunity for justice. Raw, brutal, pitch-black justice.

Ozzymandius, or Mandy for short, is a broke elf bard determined to bring death metal to the world. After acquiring a cursed lute that speaks to him in disconcerting whispers, he’s given the ability to bring his music to life, as well as death to his enemies. While he uses the lute to make his dreams reality, he also grows closer with the cursed object. As their friendship grows, so too does the mystery of how the lute ended up this way. 

Scattered with tons of metal and thrash references (which as someone who grew up worshiping Megadeth, I appreciated) and humor that made me laugh out loud more than once, the novella is a rocking, enjoyable time. 

“And then we murder?”

I hailed the barkeep and waited for another glass of Slick Leg, “if it calls for that, yes.”

The dialog throughout is fun, whether it’s Mandy talking to his lute or a love-stricken, hopeless proposal, Leigh brings his characters to life in a triumphant way. The side characters breathe life into the novella and nearly jump off the page within moments of meeting them. 

While the dialog and references are entertaining (and sometimes tragic), there are a few fight scenes that don't feel tense enough, equating more to a hack-and-slash than a life or death bout. Additionally, there’s a few moments of convenience, but the payoff it delivers eases both issues. 

Overall, if you’re a fan of metal, inanimate objects with lots of character, or friends looking after each other, check this novella out!