About an hour north of New Orleans, where the Louisiana bayou seems to run aground at the banks of hell, Phil Anselmo's house rises from the ground like a faithful tribute to everything extreme. From the horror movie posters that adorn his walls, to the array of books, CDs, LPs and cassettes scattered about the house, you know this isn't the house of your average rock star. Instead, it's the house of a rock star obsessed by the art that inspires him. "There's a whole different feeling that's coming from down here, and it's not like the rest of the fucking world," says Anselmo. And he's not kidding.

Only a stone's throw away, in a barn-turned recording studio/rehearsal room, Anselmo, guitarists Jimmy Bower and Kevin Bond, the bassist known as III, and drummer Joe Fazzio have just finished rehearsing. Apart, they are known from their work in more widely known bands like Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, Hank Williams III, Eyehategod and Down. Together, they are known as Superjoint Ritual, and their music is the manifestation of more than a decade of work sure to turn their previous works on end. Extreme is more than a word, it's a commandment, and they live it to the hilt on their debut release Use Once And Destroy.

Influences? Try Black Flag, Righteous Pigs, Celtic Frost and Voivod, to name just a few, and, according to Bower, "getting fucking loaded, and loud, in-your-face, making you want to bang your head constantly kind of music." There's a bit of it all on the 16-track depth charge disguised as their debut, an album aimed at reshaping the way we examine heavy metal. "Superjoint is that band with the perfect 15-year-old mentality of having everything loud, everything on 10, getting loaded, and letting whatever happens, happen," the guitarist continues. "We just go with it and have a good time."

Call it what you will, but the music slams from disgruntled and disturbing, to diabolic and deadly, careening with a force that harnesses the power of punk, the energy of hardcore, and the unstoppable force of heavy metal the way it was meant to be played. "We're a band that needs to happen in today's music