Death Metal MusicMusic and Culture on the Edge

The band Acrassicauda is rockin' in the free world, but how they got here is an immigrant song of a different type. After avoiding Saddam Hussein's secret police, enduring the bombing of their practice space, dodging death threats and navigating sectarian warfare in their native land, four Iraqi musicians who wanted nothing more than to rock 'n' roll all night are living in New Jersey, pursuing ...

Posted by Kate Sands Adams on February 3rd, 2009 Marwan Riyadh, drumer from the Baghdad heavy metal band Acrassicauda, is greeted by two of his bandmates at Newark Liberty International Airport. Photo: Lisa WhitemanIf you watched “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” you know how the band Acrassicauda (”Black Scorpion”) became a target for extremists for daring to play heavy metal rock in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. A story in today’s New York Times describes the hell the band had been through i