Leather. Fire. Spikes. Bitchin’ solos. That’s what metal’s about.

The genre’s come a long way in its 40-some years, but distill it to its purest form and you’ll find yourself in the early 1980s. Rob Halford was redefining the fashion of the gay leather scene as something hyper-masculine with Judas Priest, and Bruce Dickinson had just replaced the punk-tinged vocals of Paul Di’Anno to bring an operatic flavor to Iron Maiden. And then there was Manowar, the band that took every metal clich? and blended them into a hyper-charged caricature of the genre.

Bands like these served as a major source for Madison’s own Lords of the Trident, a band that has its tongue firmly in its cheek.

“A lot of the initial inspiration for Lords of the Trident came from Manowar,” said Lords of the Trident’s lead vocalist Ty Christian, better known by his stage name Fang VonKillenstein. “The best part about Manowar is nobody can tell if they’re really serious…so a lot of the grandiose and medieval-esque imagery came from [Manowar], and I was like ‘Come on, we gotta one-up that!'”

But that’s not to suggest in the least that the band is riding on a gimmick. As their latest CD, Chains of Fire proves, Lords of the Trident feels equally at home in the modern hard rock scene as they would hanging with the power metal gods of the ’80s.

Of course power metal is nothing without its epic lyrics and lore – something Lords of the Trident has in no short supply. Christian penned the band’s bio, a tale spanning millions of years that visits the far corners of the earth and beyond. The story’s been altered over time to reflect lineup changes, and talks are presently underway to adapt the band’s lore into a comic book.

The band’s true origins, however, lay right here in the dorms of UW-Madison with Christian and guitarists Akira Shimata (Asian Metal) and Brian Cole (Socrates of Shred, who has since left the band). The three started out recording the first 45 seconds of the song that would become “The Virgin Vault” – referring of course to Liz Waters’ former nickname.

It was here that Christian, formerly a singer and guitarist for an alt-rock band, admits he received his proper introduction to metal by roommate Shimata. And it was here that he noted that the genre doesn’t always receive fair representation to wide audiences.

“Saying ‘metal’ is very polarizing. For the average guy, you know, the Joe Frathouse or whatever, you say ‘metal’ and they think guys with beards wearing leather and growling,” Christian said, capping off his sentence with a guttural death growl fry. “One of the things I think we’re most proud of is when we have someone come to one of our shows who was not previously into metal, and they hear the music and they’re like, ‘This is metal?’ and then they start listening to ’80s heavy metal.”

Lords of the Trident has since grown from a dorm room recording project to a full-blown touring stage show. The current lineup is rounded out by Elliot Ignaziak (Killius Maximus, guitar), Corey Larson (Korgoth, drums) and newest member Brent Clark (Pontifex Mortis, bass). The band has become a staple of Ohio’s Warriors of Metal Festival, and their influence has spread to the point that they’ve received album orders from as far as Germany and Japan. This is reflected in Chains of Fire, which broadens the band’s lyrical focus beyond their more Madison-based debut, Death or Sandwich.

“A lot of the songs [on the first album] are allusions to places on campus…’Evil Heights’ is about Eagle Heights, and ‘Rapeshore’ is, well, Lake Shore,” Christian said. “With [Chains of Fire], we really tried to expand out a little bit more in terms of having lyrical content and songs that are both more diverse and at the same time less specific about [Madison] because our fanbase has really grown beyond Madison.”

Some songs don’t necessarily translate as well outside of the campus area, which has lead to some reviews of the first album criticizing the lyrical content of one song in particular.

“We don’t usually play ‘Rapeshore’ [outside of Madison], ’cause when you throw out the ‘rape’ word, it’s like ‘Woah, I was with them til then!’,” Christian said.

Chains of Fire was self-produced but escapes the lo-fi trappings of your average basement-bred album. The production is remarkably crisp for an unsigned band, and despite the over-the-top lyrics Lords is a serious band with some serious chops. VonKillenstein’s vocals soar in a distinctly Bruce Dickenson-esque fashion over the thunderous roll of drums and bass that would similarly feel at home on any Maiden album. The guitars have a more modern and down-tuned timbre than you’d usually hear in an album from the ’80s, but the riffing is definitely straight classic metal. The guitarists similarly solo in a more melodic classical metal style, a welcome change from many contemporary bands’ tendency toward Slayer solo parodies.

Since Chains of Fire was released last January, Lords of the Trident has won the Battle of the Bands at Der Rathskeller, earning them the right to play for the Union South opening on April 15.

“Metal bands don’t win battle of the bands,” Christian said. “[Our plan was that] we were going to rock them so hard that [the judges] wouldn’t vote for us, but they’d wish they had and it’d bug them for at least a week. But then we won!”

Lords of the Trident embrace the insanity of classic metal in a faithful but loving parody of a genre that’s too often taken too seriously. The band is planning on releasing their second DVD soon and will be playing the Crystal Corner Bar on April 2.