Heavy Metal Gift Guide

One of the most popular video games launched a Metallica version this year. It includes 28 Metallica songs including "Enter Sandman," "Battery" and "One." There are also songs from artists that influenced Metallica such as Diamond Head, Motorhead and Judas Priest. Lots of people have first heard metal music via video games, so it's a good gift to expose the next generation to metal.

In their heydey in the early 1980s, the Canadian metal band Anvil had a minor hit with the song “Metal On Metal,” did a lot of touring, but never really “made it.” Their story, like that of countless bands in all genres of music, would have been relegated to obscurity. Enter Sacha Gervasi. The band’s former roadie became a filmmaker, and two decades after his time with Anvil decided to find his old friends. He did, followed them around with cameras during their daily lives, a tour and the making of their latest album This Is Thirteen. The result is Anvil! The Story Of Anvil.

Magazine subscriptions are a great gift for metal fans. Revolver is an excellent choice, and some other recommendations would be Decibel, Outburn, Metal Hammer, Terrorizer and Zero Tolerance. Here's a whole list of The Best Heavy Metal Magazines.

A lot of music books are passive, where you just read and absorb the information and go on your merry way. That’s not the case with The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists. After reading it you’ll want to make your own list, email Joel McIver to argue about his list and seek out music to revisit or discover these outstanding guitarists.

The great thing about books like this is that they are completely subjective. One hundred different metal fans or experts would have 100 completely different lists, which leaves things open to discussion, debate and argument. McIver's descriptions of each of the 100 best guitarists are well-written, combining basic biographical information with insight on their playing style.

The newest addition to the iPod line is the Touch. It uses the same technology as the iPhone with the touchscreen display. It has a 3.5 inch display, perfect for watching your favorite metal videos. It has the coverflow feature that displays the album art from your music collection.

The iPod Touch allows you to use wi-fi to connect to the internet for surfing, watching YouTube videos or downloading songs from the iTunes music store. This device has audio, video, photos and the internet. You don't get as much storage space as you would with a traditional iPod, but the added features are a reasonable tradeoff.

The history part of the book alone makes it well worth buying, but there's also an extensive guide to Swedish death metal bands. It includes a short bio, band members and a discography. It's a great way to discover bands you may not be familiar with. For fans of death metal and the history of metal in general, I highly recommend Swedish Death Metal. The massive amount of information and interesting stories about the rise of death metal in Sweden plus the photos and band guide make it an essential metal book.

North America and Europe are the commercial capitals of heavy metal, but the underground has spread across the globe. With Global Metal, Sam Dunn and Scot McFayden explore the metal scenes in other parts of the world. Dunn is the on-camera host, and takes the viewers to Brazil, Japan, India, China, Indonesia, Israel and Dubai.

During each international stop, the metal culture in each country and area is explored. Interviews with artists, journalists and fans give a firsthand perspective of the similarities and differences in heavy metal around the world. The love of the music is universal, but in some countries fans of metal face more than just being outcasts from society for their fandom.

You're not likely to hear much heavy metal on regular radio, so satellite radio is the way to go. Sirius has several channels that play harder-edged music, including Hair Nation, Hard Attack, Octane and Buzzsaw. Sirius and XM have now merged, and the music channels are now the same on both services. The Stiletto is really cool because it's portable. You can even use wi-fi to listen to Sirius via the internet. You can also store up to 10 hours of Sirius programming and purchase individual songs for download.

Instead of playing a video game simulating a guitar, why not learn to play the real thing? This Washburn guitar has a great look and sound and is much more likely to attract the opposite sex than a video game.

You can use the cheap ear buds that come with your Stiletto or iPod, but it's well worth your while to spend a few extra bucks for a good pair of headphones. If you want to go really high end, you can't go wrong with Bose, but on the lower end of the scale JVC makes a really nice pair of headphones.

The HANC-100 headphones have excellent sound quality for regular, at home listening. Then, when you go on the road, use the noise-canceling mode to reduce outside noise by 75 percent. It's perfect for travel because the headphones fold down into a smaller size, and the cord retracts into the earpiece. There's even an airplane adapter.