Dethlok plays House of Blues (308 Euclid Ave.) tonight, with Soilent Green and hometown metal heroes Chimaira. The group started as a joke and became the biggest death metal band in the history of the Billboard album chart. With a simple but esoteric premise, Cartoon Network’s Metalocalypse seemed guaranteed to create a cult hit with a rabid fanbase of hundreds: What if the world’s biggest band — Dethlok — was an extreme metal group, who live a reality of guts and gore that the genre’s musicians (usually) only sing about. And what if they had fanatical legions who lived — and died — for the group? …
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2008.