There is heavy metal and then there is Birmingham steel. England’s most famous foundry town has been an epicenter of extreme music ever since Black Sabbath (arguably) invented heavy metal there in the late 1960s. Birmingham has given us some of metal’s most seminal bands such as Judas Priest and Napalm Death. But perhaps the most extreme and currently influential band to hail from the midlands town is one that not many people outside of the genre of black metal have ever heard of. They are the two man force of nature known as Anaal Nathrakh.

Their name comes from a charm recited by the wizard Merlin in the 1981 film Excalibur and for the last eighteen years they have been casting a spell of their own on extreme metal fans across the globe. Their abrasive elixir consists of black metal with heaping helpings of death metal, grindcore, and industrial music.