I have this thing about metal. It was a feeling that went largely unexamined through most of my youth, of course. I was an "indie kid." This kid in my class who huffed paint fumes every day before biology liked metal, and we enjoyed a peaceable state of musical (and inhalant-related) detente.

But, while I was lurching into something like adult life, metal primed itself to fall through the huge stained-glass skylight in the middle of the ceiling of the posh hotel that is my humble little life. Without much warning, collegiate hipsters were suddenly listening to-- and, stranger yet, really enjoying-- metal. And not just funny, ironic "haha" glam metal but obscure, scary, Norweigan-7"-recording, brain-eating metal. In short, though I'd always carefully curried a well-manicured and tasteful musical taste, the index-and-pinky salute was ready to jab itself, Curly-style, into my dismally unprepared eyes.

It's not too hard to see, with hindsight, how metal blossomed into a subcultural juggernaut right under my nose. For one thing, hesher-related product had been so utterly derided for so long in such circles, the first time anyone bothered to listen to it, it would have to be better than they figured. Second, the abrasive musical textures and angstful performance values that accompany metal are hardly out of place in the rock-snob canon. In fact, the only thing that keeps the stuff declasse, really, is the endless cucumber-stuffing machismo and ridiculous goth-viking posturing. It's the only pose-- outside the sniveling-eunuch, hornrim-wearing i-rocker stereotype-- that doesn't adequately reflect the way anybody lives.

If there's anybody laughing up his sleeve right now at my metal mystification, it's Mike Kunka, the mastermind behind Enemymine. Kunka put in loads of years in godheadSilo, a bass-and-drums duo who, though probably too arty to be a metal band, certainly brushed against the thunder of the gods from time to time. What's more, the band apparently tried to woo the Heavy Metal Parking Lot contingent with the use of Gothic lettering and oil paintings of eagles on their album covers and t-shirts.

After the Silo crumbled, Kunka apparently decided the only thing better than a bass and drums making hurtlingly-paced sonic mayhem was two basses and drums doing the same thing. Recruiting Mocket's former drummer and Zak Sally from Low (of all people), the chief Enemy streamlined the godheadSilo sound into a tighter, better oiled and, of course, extremely metalish stew. The resulting self-titled EP was, at its best, a complex interweaving of careful, plodding texture (a la Low) and Kunka's trademark four-string wrath.

Now, in 2000, Enemymine have thundered back onto the horizon with their first long player, if you can call it that. The Ice in Me clocks in at about 30 minutes, but manages to fit 13 songs into the proceedings, which gives you an idea of the economy we're talking about here. Having scared Sally back to the land of Christmas EPs and hushed harmonies, the 'Mine have taken on second bassist Ryan Baldoz, best known for his work in K Records stalwarts Some Velvet Sidewalk.

The change has done the band some good. Though Some Velvet Sidewalk were never what you'd call metal, they weren't afraid of racket from time to time. Moreover, the added benefit of a nationwide tour seems to have tightened the sinews in an already muscular sound. The distorted riff of "Day One," which opens the record, could cut diamonds.

There are curveballs to spare, of course, on Ice. The aptly titled "Passive Equalizer" is the closest thing two amped bassists and an antsy drummer could ever come to a ballad, and the closing "Coccoon" rises and falls with a magisterial, almost Slint-ish riff. But, for the most part, Enemymine trace the ever-thinning line between hardcore and metal. Half tight explosions of noise and half screamed vocals, Enemymine are about the kind of anger normal people like you and I aren't likely to experience.

And that's Enemymine's main problem. Considering the endless textural experiments and frequently languid instrumental approaches nested between Kunka's metal circuses, it's not hard to imagine that the band's just snickering at the music and making fun. But maybe it's just my own innate snobbery that prevents me from imagining that anyone who's heard of Slint would like metal anyway. And admitting that makes me think that maybe I'm over my metal thing, finally prepared to think about music without contemplating its subculture. By which I mean to say, I'm not entirely over my metal thing. But I'm getting there.

-Sam Eccleston