For some, the mere notion of Metal Night sells itself. The indiscriminate metalhead enticed solely by the promise of obnoxious volumes doesn't distinguish between Slayer and Slipknot. Nor does the indiscriminate metal-hater. But for those of us silly enough to split hairs and mire ourselves in metal's notoriously splintered set of sub-genres, the subtlest variations can send the biggest ripples. Most listeners probably couldn't care less about the differences between death metal and black metal, let alone the nuances that distinguish blackened death metal, but for an insular community of heavy music enthusiasts, these labels are immediately recognizable.

If all this sounds nerdy, that's because it is. While often dismissed as meat-headed jocks, metal fans over their heads in the trivialities of the style's finer points rarely actually are. Instead we’re comic book dorks and ardent video gamers. (Yes, many of us even grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons; Some still do.) While our mosh-pitting contingent is certainly the most visible, our hermetic Internet-abusers are largely the gatekeepers. Is that really so different from indie rock?

Now that we're better acquainted, let's miss the forest for the trees. A big part of combing through this music is paying attention to the production values. Punk and metal are inextricably linked, and if punk's aesthetic was defined largely by attitude, the same is true for metal. Various production styles portray particular attitudes, and herein we're faced with our first obstacle. Of the three bands originally slated to vie for your attention at Players House of Rock's Metal Night on Saturday—Chased Through the Woods, Bolt Action Beaver (who have since been replaced on the bill by Spitshine) and Necrotic Opus—the recorded material for the first two is relegated primarily to demos, while the third's output exists solely in YouTube form. Our source material is seriously lacking.

But what's more immediately apparent is three terrible band names. That comes with the territory. If you're going to venture this far down the metal rabbit hole, certain clichés must be either ignored or embraced. Band names are often best ignored, but they do offer clues. Names comprised of sentences or sentence fragments usually indicate chugging guitars and growling vocals—maybe a hardcore band. Nonsensical or absurd names almost always belong to grindcore bands. And if your name is Necrotic Opus, you're probably trying really hard to be dark.

Anchorage-based Chased Through the Woods largely falls in line with those guidelines. For our taxonomical purposes, they're death metal, a sub-genre typically characterized by suffocating density or virtuosic dexterity. Chased Through the Woods reaches for the former with measured success. They're at their best when switching gears in and out of overdrive, juxtaposing mid-tempo riffs with high-speed thrashing. And while the melodic lead guitar lines climbing above the fray offer triumphant climaxes, the single chord chugging occasionally grows tedious. Still, the group is worth checking out, from outside the edges of a circle pit.

Fellow Anchorage-ites Bolt Action Beaver would have ably filled the grindcore portion of the evening, but unfortunately had to bow out of the lineup. Filling their shoes will be Spitshine. For a bill originally touted as Metal Night, the punk rockers from Spitshine are a bit of an anomaly in their non-metalness. But punk and metal are brothers with different fathers, so their presence isn't completely out of place. And what their pop-punk lacks in volatility, it makes up for with what are likely to be the only overtly melodic hooks heard all night.

Metal's punk rock lineage is apparent in Wasilla's Necrotic Opus, or at least that's what the low-quality streaming video online has led us to believe. Their short eruptions of thrash are just a short hop, skip and jump away from '80s hardcore punk—think Black Flag or Bad Brains but meaner. Judging by those same videos, the chaos and intensity in those two influences seems pretty well intact, too. And in a genre notoriously dominated by dudes, a female-fronted thrash band from the Valley is bound to garner attention.

For those keeping score, that’s death metal, thrash and punk, all represented in an almost Metal Night.

Metal Night with Chased Through the Woods, Spitshine and Necrotic Opus, Saturday, November 21, Players House of Rock.