Gazing at the subject line in my e-mail inbox, I thought that heavy metal -- out of the spotlight for so long -- might be raising its purposefully putrid head in order to once again disturb mainstream America.

"3 INCHES OF BLOOD TEAM UP WITH BLOODYDISGUSTING.COM TO DEBUT NEW 'BATTLES AND BROTHERHOOD' VIDEO CLIP."

We in the news biz value a catchy headline, so who wouldn't want to read more when enticed by such a subject line?

Yep, 3 Inches of Blood is a metal band, but (allegedly) not just any run-of-the-mill metal outfit. Their PR trumpets the band as "the biggest defenders of traditional heavy metal."

The band's new video for their song 'Battles and Brotherhood' made its debut on the self-proclaimed '#1 source for all horror, Bloody-disgusting.com.' Checking out the video, we learn that medieval barbarians, while watching bloody to-the-death battle-ax fights between their champions and their unfortunate captives, were quite the babe magnets. Who knew?

But, alas, the ax-slinging barbarians of 'Battles and Brotherhood' look like Vatican choir members compared to the mayhem-loving brutes of the 'Grand Theft Auto' video games or the gun- and knife-happy spies of 'Archer,' that over-the-top FX network animated series.

BTW, don't be frightened by that photo of 3IOB in which one member is wearing a T-shirt with an inverted pentagram -- the sign of the Church of Satan. Anton LaVey, the late founder of the Church of Satan, disdained almost all so-called 'satanic' metal music.Instead LaVey, writing in his essay collection 'The Devil's Notebook,' claimed real satanic music was that which intensified or agitated emotions, rather than blunted or soothed emotions. He cited such classical works as Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Wagner's "Tannhauser," Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Ravel's "Bolero."

Peter Gilmore, the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, agrees with LaVey. In an interview at wikinews.org, Gilmore says: "One conception I want to dispel is the stereotype that satanism is always associated with metal and the cookie monster voice. That's satanism? No."

For Gilmore, an academically trained composer with a degree from New York University, "Satanic music is specific to each person. So to me, satanic music is the symphony, which to me is the highest art form. So Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Shostakovich -- to me that's some of the most satanic music ever written because the architecture is there, the expressivity is there. The reflection on the human condition is all present and it's not idealistic. It's mostly questioning or showing what a human is capable of doing."

BTW No. 2: 3 Inches of Blood have not cracked my top 10 list of most disgusting-disturbing metal band names. The top spot goes to Zyklon-B, a Norwegian black metal band. For those who don't know their history, Zyklon B was a gas used to exterminate Jews in Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust.

Others on that list: the Greek band Rotting Christ, the Nevada band Goatlord (just sounds creepy), the New Orleans band Goatwhore (even more creepy), the Italian band Graveworm and the Finnish band Impaled Nazarene (according to Wikipedia, a band member came up with the name after reading a pamphlet about Christ appearing to be a vampire).

BTW No. 3: Ask Floridians about our state's native music and the default answers will include Daytona's own Allman Brothers, Gainesville's Tom Petty and South Florida's Gloria Estefan and KC and the Sunshine Band.

But metal-heads will smile grimly to themselves and recall how, once upon a time in the 1980s, Florida was the cradle of death metal. The Sunshine State is where the band Death was birthed, as well as Obituary, Morbid Angel and Deicide. Florida became known as the Death Metal Capital of the World before the Scandinavians took over and morphed death metal into the even more extreme, and brutal, black metal (see the shudder-inducing book 'Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground' by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind).

So, what are we to make of a 3 Inches of Blood video that depicts some hairy brutes feasting at some outdoor gathering, groping turkey legs and babes and watching bloody duels to the death? In the universe of heavy metal, that's just another day at the office.

PHOTO CREDIT: Adrenaline PR