Two artists, at least, lay claim to the name "A Scanner Darkly." One is an American Gothic band which was signed with a Belgium record company and released an album titled "This Is The Way" in 1988.

More recently--
As a humble tribute to Philip K. Dick (one of the greatest science fiction writers- and one of the best novelists of the 20th century) A Scanner Darkly draws influence from Dick's hallucinogenic alternate-realities and the seemingly incompatible musical worlds of sludge, drone, grindcore and prog-rock to create their own synergetic brand of sci-fi metal that is as intelligent as it is brutal!

In the summer of 2004 Travis (vocals) and Tucker (guitar, programming) started A Scanner Darkly as a drum machine grind act and side project to the now defunct farm-grind band Uncle Bob Drives a Combine. In the fall of that year Will was added playing low-end keyboard and soon after Matt joined replacing the drum machine with real drums. What began as a simple side project has grown in to the crushing experience that A Scanner Darkly is today.

Alternately lightning fast, brutally crushing and whimsically self-referential, ASD's self-titled debut is both a tribute to- and an embodiment of- the paranoid, psychotic world of Philip K. Dick. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.