PAUL CHAIN (who's actual Italian name is Paolo Catena) was a youth musical prodigy who originally formed a band called DEATH SS (there is NO Nazi connection) with vocalist Steve Sylvester in 1977. They went on to produce a handful of 7" EPs peppered with dark, Sabbath-inflected doom metal and worked up a stage show that would possibly have made luminaries like Alice Cooper take pause. Several years later, CHAIN's spiritual beliefs caused him to leave DEATH SS and with this career move, Paul set the groundwork for a career that has produced not only some of the most dark, emotional metal this scribe has heard but also explorations into genres as seemingly far afield as electronic, doomy drone, psych, etc.
PAUL CHAIN (who's actual Italian name is Paolo Catena) was a youth musical prodigy who originally formed a band called DEATH SS (there is NO Nazi connection) with vocalist Steve Sylvester in 1977. They went on to produce a handful of 7" EPs peppered with dark, Sabbath-inflected doom metal and worked up a stage show that would possibly have made luminaries like Alice Cooper take pause. Several years later, CHAIN's spiritual beliefs caused him to leave DEATH SS and with this career move, Paul set the groundwork for a career that has produced not only some of the most dark, emotional metal this scribe has heard but also explorations into genres as seemingly far afield as electronic, doomy drone, psych, etc.