The underground metal scene around the world has many different factions to it. To the accidental listener it may all sound the same, but the differences are important to the fans, and even crucial to, which bands certain people will go see. One of the biggest success stories out of the underground metal scene here in town is Paria, and they do not seem to care about such divisions. That attitude, along with stellar musicianship, have made them the go-to band for all around music lovers looking for their fix of the heavy stuff. Paria will be celebrating the release of their latest disc, “The Barnacle Cordious,” this Friday at the Slowdown with guests School of Arms, Civicminded and Beta Minus. I met with the band this past week to talk about the album and their place in underground metal.

Paria is one of few bands in town with the level of national distribution that they have. The band is signed with Black Market Activities, which uses long time indie distributor and label Metal Blade to get their products out onto the market. Black Market Activities mission statement partially reads, “with the goal of releasing records by bands that are pushing the boundaries of extreme music.” I asked the band how they feel they push those boundaries. Paria’s vocalist and guitarist Brian Craig explained, “It’s pretty typical that bands like us write songs that are 2 minutes long and go for the shock value where it is over before it starts. Most of our songs are over six minutes long, which is longer than most radio songs. I think we write to have more of us standing out individually.”

With eight years under their belts I also asked the band how they felt they have grown from their inception. Guitarist John Klaus stated, “I think we were just trying to be the most brutal and obscurely heavy. Now we are trying to be creative.” Craig added, “Way back then it was verse, chorus, verse.”

“Now there is no structure at all,” Klaus continued, “There still are parts that are catchy, but we are just trying to write good songs.” Bassist Dustin Treinen added, “To me it’s more like writing a story with a beginning and an end rather than just lyrics.”

With the album titled “The Barnacle Cordious” and song titles such as “The Wallabee Dance Machine,” I expected deep answers mired in ancient mythology or stories of killer robots when I asked about these titles. On the album title Klaus answered, “’The Barnacle Cordious’ is a nickname for Corey Barnes (Paria’s drummer).” Treinen continued on about the song titles: “A lot of the songs we named when we didn’t have a vocalist. We were an instrumental band for a while so we just came up with random names for songs. Like ‘Wallabee Dance Machine’ – Corey came up with that in a fast food restaurant on tour. He said their mascot looks like a Wallabee Dance Machine and we were like, ‘what are you talking about?’ Some songs are just named after what we think it sounds like.”

On tour the band say they have a loyal base of fans that are into their style of music. In Omaha, they tend to get a lot of regular music fans and a lot of respect and support from other musicians in town. Considering the band’s extreme metal status I asked where the appeal is to their band versus other bands playing these styles of music in town. “We have songs that are slow and that can appeal to anybody,” said Klaus, “We are just kind of show-offs and showmen. It seems to stand out to people who play music. A lot of the people who tend to like us tend to be musicians.”

Craig added, “A lot of people anticipate people moshing and hard core dancing. People don’t really do that at our shows and I am kind of thankful for that. I think of us as more of a powerful band than a heavy band. We are not writing music to kick each others asses to.”