Soilent Green

Black metal, just like soccer, is a recreational activity in which Americans routinely have their asses handed to them by the Euros. With all the inevitability of the Netherlands national team delivering a smackdown to Team U.S.A. in the quest for the World Cup, American black-metal wannabes pale in comparison to their church-burning counterparts in Sweden and Norway. They have Immortal. We have the Black. That's kind of like fencing with a sausage link.

But one stateside act that does hold its own with the blizzard beasts of the Scandinavian black-metal scene is Louisiana's Soilent Green, a snaggletoothed extreme music ensemble forged from the seemingly disparate genres of death metal, sludgecore, grind, and yes, black metal. While the blending of cheetah-paced blast beats with lumbering, devolved riffs that sound as if they crawled out of the La Brea tar pits may sound like a contradiction in terms, in the hands of the Green party, it's music to the adventurous metal fan's bleeding ears. Add some choice psycho-sexual lyrics and arrangements as gnarled as Grandma's hands, and the death toll damn near approaches that of one of those riot-prone, uh, "football" games abroad.