A heavy snow is blanketing the Black Dahlia Murder’s home
state of Michigan, but lead vocalist Trevor Strnad is wearing shorts.
Fortunately for him, he’s in Tampa, Florida, where it’s a balmy 78
degrees. “I’m loving it,” he says by cell phone, “because it’s been a
frozen-ass tour so far.”
Still, though—shorts? Not exactly a foreboding image of the
heavyweight who bellows “Suffocate them/Rip them/Rape them/Make them
fucking scream,” over Carcass-influenced tumult on his band’s latest
CD, Nocturnal. The barrel-chested frontman’s wardrobe
exemplifies a shift in heavy-metal thinking. Today’s metalheads are
wiping off corpse paint and shedding their shirts en masse. For Strnad,
showing some skin is part of bonding with the audience, Beth
Ditto-style.
With Nocturnal, the band broods, grunts, and chugs on the
slightly melodic tip of American death metal, dropping guitar solos in
the gaps left by the demise of metalcore, a breakdown-drowned scene
from which the Black Dahlia Murder emerged in 2001. To complement their
refinement, they hired Swedish extreme-metal artist Kristian
Wåhlin to paint a sinister, black-and-blue album cover. “We just
wanted it to scream, ‘Here is death metal,'” the singer explains. While
accurate to Wåhlin’s gargoyle-gothic art from the mid-’90s, the
punishingly blunt undercurrent of Nocturnal doesn’t flow with
Strnad’s easygoing nature.
So instead of attempting “brutality” with superhuman-striving live
sets, the Black Dahlia Murder can be seen on YouTube letting loose with
crowds and chasing their mascot—a man dressed in an ape costume.
During last September’s show in Portland, they held a hot-dog eating
contest to the tune of “I Worship Only What You Bleed.” The winning
contestant had two choices: $75 in merchandise or “the mystery box.”
Strnad says the winner took the credit. Strnad says the box only
contained more hot dogs. “He was a smart man,” the singer chuckles,
sounding a little evil after all.