New photobook God Listens to Slayer is a fitting tribute to heavy metal fans

In Iron Fist Magazine editor Louise Brown’s brilliantly written foreword to God Listens to Slayer, she compares heavy metal music to religion, and the journey from fandom to concert hall to a spiritual pilgrimage. “In the last British census, heavy metal defeated Scientology when 6,242 people claimed to follow it religiously,” Louise explains. “It was official: following Slayer to the ends of the earth was confirmed as a form of worship. But we who live and breathe heavy metal already knew that.”

Her opening words set the scene perfectly for Sanna Charles’ photo series, a collection of photographs of heavy metal fans in various circumstances; asleep on the tarpaulin of a tent at a festival, eating an almond Magnum, carving the word Slayer into a forearm like it ain’t no thing. Above and beyond being a subculture to be observed and smirked at from afar, heavy metal is a religion for many, and Sanna’s photographs do it justice where many would fall short.

It’s a good job then that she found such a willing counterpart in Ditto Press, a small indie publisher based in London who don’t cut any corners when it comes to creating dedicated publications. They’ve immortalised her series in a hardback book, interspersed with passages written by Slayer fans printed on fluorescent paper with corrugated edges. It’s a sensitive and befitting document of Sanna’s work anchored in personal and powerful anecdotes about the experiences of her subjects.