That’s the world of Jonathan Traynor’s new novel. Less than a year since releasing Race the Undead, he’s brought us another book that playfully examines our fears of an uncertain future with a simple plot:
Joe Murphy has magic in his fingertips. His guitar playing evokes emotions he cannot control. His family and friends revel in his genius. It offers a way out of poverty and a destroyed climate. But in the 22nd Century, playing live music is a crime. The corporate companies want control over all that people watch or listen to. Joe's ability threatens that control.
Very Rush, very Steve Earle (both of whom are listed as inspirations), also very ‘At War With Satan’ era Venom (which lasts 21 minutes and 12 seconds). But there is a genuine love and affiliation that permeates the text in a way that a non-metalhead would struggle to recreate.
Writing in 2010, Traynor discussed this mentality that has long kept metal from going truly mainstream:
This thing we all love, hard and heavy music, is a difficult beast to grapple with for outsiders. There are the hardcore metalheads, there are the thrashers, there are the hard/classic rock fans, there are the devotees who never miss a Distortion Project gig (all hail James and crew!), there are those who avidly attend the rock tribute acts, there are the many thousands who will flock to Metallica, there are the couple of dozen in the Rosetta [RIP] or Auntie Annies [RIP] headbanging away, there are rural outposts like the Diamond in Ahoghill where the flame is kept alight outside Belfast - in other words there are many faces to this beast. Psychologists and social anthropologists would have a field day: but too often the cliched comments focus on the stereotypes. They'll happily rant about Norwegian church burning and murders…or will glaze over as we rant about 'last night's gig'. Then there are the rabid opponents who cast biblical quotations like confetti.
Like Race the Undead, societal issues (the rise of AI, the fear of rigid conformity and the growth of the multi-national corporations) are examined and dealt with in a fashion that engages the reader without once feeling preached at:
The usual paranoia from his Ma. But perhaps she was right. Even he had heard the hysterical rants of politicians, the corporates warning of the danger the black market posed to the stock prices, and the priests and ministers warning of hell. Joe thought hell couldn’t be any fucking worse than this.
Another gust of dust choked wind pushed his bike skittering to the side and broke his ruminations. He stopped. He had a little bit of one his ma’s specials in his bib pocket. Might as well eat it in case he was stopped by some police drone or worse some of the corporate patrol cars with an officious lump warning he could go to the mines if he didn’t get some gainful employment.
Fucking corporates ruling over everything, telling everybody they were working to make a better world. Not for Joe nor any of the folks round here.
He finished the last piece of cake and gazed up at the hazy sky. The hulking stations grinding through the heavens. Server farms and where the super-rich lived away from the dying planet. He wished some of those could live for a day in this hillbilly waste.
Jonathan Traynor, 2025, Chords of Chaos. Excalibur Press. ISBN-13: 978-1910728673
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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