Iwrestledabearonce now a black metal band?

If recent photos and accompanying press releases's are anything to go by, it appears experimental metallers Iwrestledabearonce have ditched their traditional sound and adopted a black metal styling.

While the band is renowned for their quirky musical humour and mannerisms, the news seems intended to be taken with a grain of salt. However, on face value it looks like the Louisiana based group have tired of their current genre and intend on returning to their "roots".

“We were sick of getting lumped in with ‘scene’ and ‘whatever-core’ bands, so we decided to embrace our roots and just go straight black metal on the new album…I’d say 90% of the new record is straight-up black metal, so we had to change our image to match…Because of course that’s just as important, if not more so, than the music," guitarist Steven Bradley notes in a press release.

Fans will get the first chance to hear new material from the band's forthcoming studio album when the first single is released on MetalSucks.com later in the week.