The members of the Black Dahlia Murder — producers of blindingly fast metal music and dark lyrics — are nerds at heart, lead vocalist Trevor Strnad said.
“World of Warcraft has kind of taken over a lot of the band lately,” Strnad said. “[Rhythm guitarist] Bryan has never played any role-playing game previous to this, so he’s freaking out. That’s pretty much our nerdy life.”
The Black Dahlia Murder will perform at the Picador, 330 E. Washington St., at 6 p.m. today, along with thrash/death-metal band Skeletonwitch, thrash-revivalists Toxic Holocaust, and hard-core rockers Trap Them. Admission is $13 in advance for the all-ages show.
The band’s music contains loads of brutal blast beats and guitar harmonies. Strnad assaults the listener with a mixture of high-pitched screaming vocals mixed with some lower guttural growls for good measure.
The band’s latest album, Deflorate, reached No. 43 on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release in September. The album contains 10 songs and is only 33 minutes in length — leaving no time for the group to mess around.
“If anything, this record is more extreme than anything we’ve ever attempted,” Strnad said. “It’s just kind of a statement of the times. A lot of young people are getting into metal right now, and metal is kind of a hot thing again. It’s very exciting for us.”
UI philosophy graduate student Ian MacMillan is one of these fans and has seen the band twice in concert in Chicago.
“A lot of death-metal bands sacrifice speed and technicality for catchy riffs,” he said. “But the Black Dahlia Murder plays extremely fast technical music while maintaining a sense of melody.”
Recently, the band released a music video for the track “Necropolis” that takes place inside of a Detroit bowling alley. The song features such lyrics as, “Born of a casket I’m the heir to a corpse / I’ve eyes that see maggots through the thin flesh they bore,” which are almost a comedic contrast to the image of the band in white bowling shirts playing on a stage above the lanes.
“I guess it’s somewhat of a tribute to The Big Lebowski, which we all really like a lot,” Strnad said. “That [bowling alley] is a local place in Detroit that we used to hang out at a lot when we were young. It’s kind of the epicenter of punk rock and metal.”
Despite the dark lyrics on such tracks as “Black Valor,” “Christ Deformed,” and “Death Panorama,” Strnad said there is always a strong positive energy at shows.
“Everybody is there to escape normal life,” he said. “So we try to put on a really energetic show and encourage everybody to sing along, and stage dive, and crowd surf, and go nuts, and just let it all out. And just have a good time. Be young and have fun.”
Tonight will not be the first time the Black Dahlia Murder has invaded Iowa City. The band has played a number of shows at the Picador, which is now a regular stop on the band’s touring circuit.
“We’ve had a lot of good times there,” Strnad said. “Everybody appreciates us coming to town, and I like that kind of environment much better than having a ton of security. When we play the venue, people know it’s going to be a riot. It’s going to be fun, bodies are going to be flying, and you could be one of them.”
