`Death metal' comes alive for small but devoted following.

Byline: Sean Piccoli

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Brian Woody was by his own account a kid in a foul mood _ an uprooted child of divorce living with his mother and sharing a bedroom with his brother. One day in those cramped environs he noticed a cassette tape lying on his brother's bed. He put it on, and out roared the loudest, fastest, most unholy and ferocious music Woody had ever heard. He loved it right away.

"Just listening to it made me feel better," said the 27-year-old Cleveland resident. "It made it easier to cope. It gave me a release for all that anger."

That moment of communion with a Los Angeles band called Slayer would be decisive. Today, Woody is a tour manager for bands in the same vein. Two of his road charges, Kreator and Vader, both played the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale on a recent Wednesday night. The other three bands on the bill were Nile, Amon Amarth and Goatwhore.

All five identify with a scene that in broad terms is often labeled "extreme metal," a sound pioneered in the 1980s by the likes of Slayer, Venom, Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica.

But this particular lineup, with its Stygian band names, shuddering rhythms and morbid lyrics, wore the distinctive pall of death _ as in "death metal."

It was, in short, an enjoyable night in hell for a small but invested audience. Fans of death metal and its Satanic cousin, black metal, are few in number compared to, say, the MTV-watching nation that applauds the punky pop of Good Charlotte or the brute funk of so-called "nu-metal" bands such as Korn.