In Extremo launched its attempted American conquest in Pennsauken, New Jersey at the annual March Metal Meltdown. Amid oceans of denim and leather, the band introduced its blend of bagpipes and guitars to the U.S.

It wasn't always big riffs and pyro for the band. As recently as 1997, In Extremo was performing acoustic medieval music.

In Extremo eventally decided to punch up its sound, adding metal trappings like chugging guitars and thundering drums to the mix. The band also lived things up with a live show that featured sword fights, fire breathing, and dancing bagpipers.

This oddball blend of Viking songs, metal riffs, and pyrotechnics earned the band top ten success in Germany, but in New Jersey, In Extremo was another unknown name among the 150 acts on the bill. To complicate matters, fire codes prevented the band from rolling out the flashier elements of its stage show.

Armed only with their instruments, the band set out among the headbangers to win over its first American fans and claimed a small corner of New Jersey in the process.

Fleshgrind is hardly a household name.

Neither is Spite, Vomit Snack, or Bongzilla, but those bands and some 150 others still inspired hundreds of fans to make the pilgrimage to Pennsauken, New Jersey over the weekend for the second annual March Metal Meltdown.

The two-day celebration of all things loud and dark took over the South Jersey Expo Center on Friday and Saturday and served as a reminder that while heavy music may have fallen away from the mainstream (save for acts like Korn and Limp Bizkit), metal has found a comfortable home underground.

"Metal is a community, and it's pretty much an underground community," Meltdown promoter Jack Koshick explained. Inspired by the success of his long-running Milwaukee MetalFest, Koshick brought his metal mayhem to New Jersey in 1999 and is also branching out to Texas and Los Angeles. "[Metal] doesn't really get the mainstream push, the mainstream recognition that it did when [MTV] had 'Headbangers Ball.' It's been kept alive through underground networks of fanzines and metal chat rooms."

Evidence of metal's underground habitat was clearly on display over the weekend, as fanzines, indie labels, and Internet radio sites extolled their virtues to fans. With yards and yards of table space devoted to band merchandise, perhaps the closest thing to a mainstream artist represented on the sale table was Slipknot... and they ain't exactly 'NSYNC.

The underground community that now unites metal's followers has widened to envelop the genre's numerous slight variations on the metal theme. On display were the old school thrash of Testament, the jazz-inspired madness of Dillinger Escape Plan, and even German metal renditions of 13th century Swedish Viking songs courtesy of In Extremo.

"Metal has splintered off into so many different sub-genres that the base has actually broadened, and thus the scene is alive," Koshick said.

Despite their differences in shading, most of the bands hitting one of the Expo Center's four stages shared some common ground. A love of excess decibels, yes, but Koshick noted that the bands share something else.

"Integrity. I think these bands have integrity," Koshick said, adding, "They all have the desire to make it.... These are the bands of the future."

• In Extremo

They're German, they've got swords, and they're headed for the U.S.

• 3/11 - Pennsauken, NJ @ March Metal Meltdown
• 3/15 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Whisky
• 3/18 - Austin, TX @ SXSW (at the Backroom)
• 3/24 - Mexico City, Mexico @ Hard Rock Live
• 3/25 - Guadalajara, Mexico @ Hard Rock Live

• In Extremo