A side project for Napalm Death's Shane Embury (bass) and Jesse Pintado (guitar), Lock Up was essentially conceived as a booze-fueled return to the raw brutality of mid-'80s proto-death metal. Named after a death metal drumming technique in which the arms are stiffened to produce lightning-fast blastbeats, Lock Up was initially rounded out by Cradle of Filth drummer Nick Barker (later of Dimmu Borgir) and Hypocrisy vocalist/production mastermind Peter Tägtgren. Defusing possible supergroup-type expectations by emphasizing spontaneity and energy over, say, rehearsal, Lock Up recorded an album, Pleasures Pave Sewers, at Tägtgren's studio and released it in early 1999. On the subsequent tour, Tägtgren's place was taken by At the Gates vocalist Tomas Lindberg, who marked his studio debut with the band, Hate Breeds Suffering, in 2002. The extreme metal star-studded Necropolis Transparent arrived in 2010, followed in 2017 by Demonization, the latter of which saw Kevin Sharp (Brutal Truth, Venomous Concept) handling the vocals. ~ Steve Huey