Knitting Factory unleashes the metal

With nearly a dozen bands in tow from all over the world, The Summer Slaughter Tour is attempting to live up to its tag line as (insert Satanic voice) “THE MOST EXTREME TOUR OF THE YEAR.”

Most of the bands on the bill coming to The Knitting Factory Concert House on Tuesday occupy their own dark level of amplified hell. From American black metal to European death metal, each variation of speed, intensity, rhythm and melody constitutes a new subgenre of what ultimately boils down to heavy metal.

Here’s a breakdown of the bloodshed from the bands who make up one of the fastest growing metalfests worldwide:

Behemoth: This Polish blackened death metal band from Gdansk played an integral role in that nation’s extreme metal underground. Behemoth used to play traditional black metal that apparently was too lighthearted.

Necrophagist: It may translate in Greek to “eater of dead” but to extreme metal fans this is German for “death metal” – seven-string guitars with 27 frets.

Suffocation: This American band is credited with inventing the subgenre of brutal death metal and the signature technique “the death growl.”

Ensiferum: Hailing from Helsinki, the members of Ensiferum describe themselves as purveyors of “heroic folk metal.” The music blends elements of both folk and metal melodies on guitar and keyboard; the vocals are very metal, but to a “gallop” beat.

Darkest Hour: Here is a band that combines melodic death metal and metalcore, but let’s not labor over the difference between the two. Suffice it to say the vocalist actually sings, and the deathly stench stinks of punk rock.

Winds of Plague: This American deathcore band mixes elements of metal and symphonic metal – which is to say, if you are able to hear past all the distortion and double bass machine gun drumming, you’ll find something akin to a classical symphony (built of flaming skulls with batwings the size of pteranodons).

Dying Fetus: The music is American death metal, but they’re outspoken about their politics, rather than about Satanism or the occult, so they qualify as political death metal.

Born of Osiris: The vocals are melodic enough, but Born of Osiris is often labeled progressive death metalcore because of the technical guitar work and ADD time changes. They have an album that is eight songs, and 22 minutes long.

Origin: With shifting time signatures supporting harsh vocals, and even harsher beats, the music is hard to play and even harder to listen to. That’s the sell.

After The Burial: Progressive death metal, which somehow is different than a technical death metal band.

Blackguard: This respected back metal band breaks the cycle of Satanic imagery by taking its name from a corps of black slave-soldiers who were held captive by the sultan of Morocco in the late 1600s. Clever.

Plushgun

The four-song EP from Plushgun is pushing all of the right buttons.

Yes, a familiar sound, new-school technology, digital polish and indie-grit are employed to create an ironic mix of ’80s-affected post-millennium new-wave dance-pop.

Yes, The Postal Service did it right, though certainly not first, and a legion of emulators and tributaries followed suit.

Plushgun, which heads tonight’s lineup at Art Music and More, is one of those bands that could easily get confused in that wash if they weren’t, like Postal Service before them, doing such a dang good job at pulling off a simple, familiar sound and making it somehow fresh and utterly genuine.

The Brooklyn-based alt-pop trio has been picking up major steam since the release of its self-titled debut EP last summer, landing atop several Top 10 lists last year, making a splash at SXSW and getting signed by Tommy Boy Records.

With the release of “Pins and Panzers” in February, Plushgun has been getting big props from the likes of Rolling Stone and MTV.