3 Inches of Blood and the Black Dahlia Murder

Check subtlety, pretense, and the last decade at the door; 3 Inches of Blood wants nothing to do with them. Eschewing fads and hipster cred in favor of staying true to its message of metal for its own ridiculous, epic sake, 3 Inches of Blood goes straight for the kill. Its weapons of choice are borrowed from the arsenals of such heralded metal warriors as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Manowar. Its sound is the sound of crashing swords and crushing limbs, the pulse and sweep of battle, the eternal struggle against an eternal enemy. As vocalist Jamie Hooper warns on the band's website, "We are forging the steel that we'll use to annihilate the heavy metal posers, and in every town we play, the streets will run red with their blood." The metal gauntlet has been thrown down; who will answer the challenge? Pressing through the tunnel of bodies hewn by their brothers in arms, Detroit heroes the Black Dahlia Murder will then mount the stage, channeling the spirit of the Norse gods in their shredding, snarling assault. Unlike many of their black-metal brethren, however, Black Dahlia maintains some semblance of melody under all that crushing weight, like flowers growing on a corpse. Iron flowers growing on a re-animated corpse that's trying to eat your soul, that is.