Origin:	Puerto Rico
Genres:

Puya

One of very few rock/metal bands to originate from Puerto Rico, Puya began life as Whisker Biscuit, under which name they released a demo in 1994. Switching to Puya, they put out a debut album and then moved to Florida, where they attracted the interest of MCA Records. Fundamental, their major-label debut, garnered quite a bit of publicity due to their use of both metal and traditional Latin rhythms in their music. The Puya sound is less a fusion of two styles (i.e. analogous to what Carlos Santana did with rock and latin several years ago) and more a case of one band playing two styles. Some songs are flat-out metal (sounding a bit like Sepultura at times), others are straight traditional latin/salsa songs, and others mix, for example, Spanish/Latin verses with an English/metal chorus. It's an interesting listen, especially if one isn't prepared for a jazz break in the metal of a metal tune. Virtually alone in this field for the time being at least, this band could really become groundbreaking someday.

Following the release of Union in 2001, they were dropped from MCA, and the band have been pursuing other projects and/or playing in other bands (two of which are Ankla and Pinhead). They only occasionally play live in Puerto Rico and insist that they haven't broken up.