Metallica had held the tape traders together until And Justice for All, but after years of filling fanzine pages with his ambitious predictions, Lars "Motorbreath" Ulrich after the Black album fell temporarily silent. With all that his band had achieved, the passionate cause of inspired metal had proven its righteousness. Yet the story was far from over. Throughout the rising and falling fortunes of metal, there remained an active underground, which by 1991 was thriving and impossible to ignore. The changes of the past several years left vacant space in the heavy metal scene that could never be filled by alternative metal synthesizer bands or grunge martyrs.

Rather than simplify its approach to attract new fans in the 1990s, Metallica's familiar nemesis, Slayer, turned away from its increasingly lukewarm peers and concentrated its devastating efforts. Between Thanksgiving 1992 and Easter 1993, the third through fifth Slayer CDs, Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, and Seasons in the Abyss, were all certified gold in the United States. This indicated that at least half a million loyal U.S. fans considered the medium-rare metal of Metallica Black too light a step. For such scourge as Slayerto succeed was a vote of confidence for new extremes.

With widespread awareness of tape trading -- now a part of the Metallica legend -- thousands of new fans continued to stream like rats into the deep cellars of metal. There, in obscurity, legions at the grass roots discovered that during the prior decade, while heavy metal modernized from Judas Priest to Metallica, a strong undercurrent was developing in darkness if not silence. The cult forms of black metal and grindcore had mated to breed an astonishing cast of exotic new idols -- the early 1990s brought their ultimate fruition in the form of death metal...