Metal from the Middle East

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Acrassicauda, an Iraqi thrash metal band, just hosted Headbangers Ball to promote Only the Dead See the End of the War, their new EP about wartime in Iraq. Bullied out of Baghdad by bombs to their practice space, death threats for their style of music and being branded as Satan worshipers, the band eventually came to the US as refugees. They say their songs are meant to be apolitical, however with ultra-metal song titles like "Massacre" and "Garden of Stones," this intent may be more ambivalent...