Black Widows

Distinguished from both an electronic group active in the 2000s and a British satanic psychedelic sect of the 1970s, the Louisville, Kentucky outfit known as Black Widows included frontman Rob Pennington, who had previously played in By the Grace of God, along with guitar player Ryan Patterson, bass player Evan Patterson—who like Ryan had come from National Acrobat—and percussionist Thommy Browne, another veteran of By the Grace of God. After issuing the Stops a Beating Heart E.P. in 2002, the group was compelled to abandon the widely used name and, in the next year, adopted the new identity Black Cross to begin anew.