It’s a good thing metal will always be an affront to the pinkie-extended kind of good taste. It’s a good thing it will strive to be a sonic menace and remain "horrifying, beautiful and desolate," to quote Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo.

Anselmo would have said the same thing about Back By Midnite as Darell grunted in the background in gruff satisfaction.

F$#@&NG HOSTILE

Back By Midnite are the trio of Sujata "Suji" May H. Mansukhani (drums), Gretchen "Dice" D. Bernardino (bass) and Jehan M. Dumagay (guitars and vocals). They play a copiously aggro metal that’s fast and as forceful as a hammer to your head.

Back By Midnite track the same kind of territory that Kelt’s Cross, Tribal Fish, L7 and, perhaps closer, Kittie have traversed and pioneered. The kind of dirty, power-chord-driven music that switches from melody to mayhem, singing to growling, at the drop of a hat.

The fact that they’re all girls and that they hail from Davao may have something to do with the crowd response they get and the deliberately unhurried attack to their sound. We must term them "girls" not because of cutesy pigeonholing but because their average age is 18. Where Manila-based metal acts try to out-match each other with speed, the girls prefer to take their sweet time.

In late 2004, BBM were touring the Metro Manila clubs with or without a fixed schedule. Sometimes just setting up between acts, to zoom through three to seven songs. At each gig, Back By Midnite have been playing with proficiency, heart and aggression a lot of supposedly heavy bands today would give their middle digits for. Maybe it’s their boldness in covering stuff like Nirvana’s "Breed," or System of a Down’s "Toxicity," and "Chopsuey," and pulling it off with a feminine flair.

One November night outside Mayrics, while waiting for another assignment to show up, I heard the opening chords to "Chopsuey," coming through the doors and was delighted that a band finally had the bravado to cover such a complex song. So I walked over to the single window to take a peek at the performers inside.

A knot of people were already congregated there and were whispering something about the band being a bunch of girls. Yeah, right, I remember mumbling. Then I saw them. It begins with a baffled shock (These are girls?). Fortunately this quickly wears off and is quickly replaced by a forthright glee (These are girls!!).

Back By Midnite began in 2002 as pop band Simple Shock. When their manager, Otek Durante, came into the scene, they changed their name after one of the parents quipped "Just get them back by twelve midnight" to Durante’s query of whether he could take the girls out to a local gig.

In January 2003 they won the Mindanao leg of the MTV Mentos Fresh Jams contest and got to play at the finals in Manila, going on to place third. The whole shift from pop to metal was prompted by the departure of their keyboardist in May 2003, who left to focus on her studies. "We had a talent show at school and I danced and Jehan would play the guitars and jam. After this we jammed every Friday as a pop band," explains Mansukhani.

Afterwards, their musical director (also Dumagay’s brother), along with the girls, started composing songs after bagging a local Halloween competition. Since then they’ve opened for a gaggle of big acts like Virus Artists, The Dawn, ChicoSci and Slapshock.

Something notable in Davao is the time span of the gigs for an artist, say, for a certain night or single- billing performance. I found out about this at another Manila gig where the girls had their mothers in tow (enthusiastically clapping along with the hipster crowd). Their set ended and they were trying to catch their breath and wiping the sweat off their brows.

Were they tired after playing eight songs? They shook their heads. Apparently, in Davao, a usual set would run for about two hours with only 10- to 20- minute breaks between each hour. Thus the girls have had to develop the stamina of a bison to last through that kind of playlist.

Off-stage, BBM are as normal as any teen girls: giggling, giddy and thrilled at just being able to play at venues besides their native metro. All of them are currently in college. Mansukhani is finishing Biology at Ateneo de Davao University, Dumagay is in a nursing course in the same university and Bernardino is studying dentistry at the San Pedro College of Davao – to which she heartily interjects "I’ll play heavy metal while I’m pulling people’s teeth!"

"I tell you, when we’re in uniform you’ll never recognize us," adds Dumagay.

SABRA CADABRA

They may not be riot girls off-stage but they certainly evoke an ominous sorcery that blows people away, again and again, at their sets. It’s in Bernardino’s belligerent growl, Mansukhani’s ominous aura as she pounds the skins with her long, wavy hair draped across her face like a black curtain and Dumagay copping James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo and Serj Tankian’s moves with gusto.

On their independent debut, Past Twelve, the girls sound as heavy and ravenous as banshees. Songs like the blues-thrash of "Kaibigan" (Friend) and the metalhead clarion of "I’m Eighteen" (not the Alice Cooper song) are intense enough that you can gloss over the awkward, flawed grammar and spotty mixing.

There is power aplenty on Past Twelve’s balanced by an indelibly female touch. "Not You" is probably as close to a torch song BBM will come, though you won’t hear a Bon Jovi song with minor chords like that. However, some of the songs lack muscle even with all the outré heaviness and, in places, falter all too obviously. Capturing their vibe and vigor live should be a better approach, plus making better original material while they’re at it. Songs as strong as those they cover.

With their tough gig route in both Davao and Manila, it won’t be long until the girls make a name for themselves, despite the rigors of touring. Dumagay was once electrocuted by a live mic and another time her lips bled profusely after colliding with the mic stand.

That, and being an all-girl band in a genre dominated by men. "A lot of guys flash me the middle finger," Mansukhani shakes her head. "It’s okay now, before I used to cry when I got harassed on-stage."

Dumagay shrugs, "I guess it’s expected because we’re all girls. We do take it as a compliment when people say, `Hmm, they’re girls.’ They thought only boys could play this kind of music. So we’re proving them wrong."