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Before lunch began, the women were discussing how hungover they were after a night of revelry at the Grand Havana Room.

"We were in a penthouse where there were panorama windows," said one.

"Cigars and food."

"Cigars and wine."

"Big fat cigars."

"Did you smoke cigars?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Yes, oh yes."

These cigar-smoking Swede's are Drain STH, a Swedish heavy metal band. STH stands for Stockholm, where they live. "Do they smoke cigars in Sweden?" I asked.

"They smoke them everywhere in the world," Martina, last name Axen, said. As I mentioned, she is blond. She also plays the drums. "I smoke cigars because I quit smoking cigarettes," she added.

We were having lunch at the New World Grill, an outdoor cafe in the courtyard of World Wide Plaza Building -- a gorgeous skyscraper made of pink stone in Midtown Manhattan. Drain STH and I seemed to blend in perfectly among the tourists, suits and suitettes. Even Flavia. Two businesswomen chatting at a nearby table sported tattoos as well. Ah, spring. Women -- tattoos and not. The temperature was in the low 80s.

I am a man devoted to the appreciation of women, but not necessarily heavy metal. I dig music. I write about it. To my ears, Drain STH is heavier than heavy rock but more subdued than Japanese noise guitar. Maria sings surprisingly pleasantly for the genre -- no screams or sneers. The beat for most songs is a modest goose-step. They're not bad. So when offered a lunch date with Drain STH, while they were in town promoting what Mercury figures will be their breakthrough album, "Freaks of Nature," I couldn't find any reason to say no.

"Freaks of nature is a perfect description for an all-girl heavy metal band from Sweden," I ventured.

They laughed. They knew I was being ironic. These four women were too poised and intelligent to merely be a Viking version of the Spice Girls. "People seem to think it's unusual," Maria said.

"I don't think we're such freaks," Martina objected. "You know those freak shows in the old days? They'd pack all these weird people -- some had too many legs or no legs at all. And they would move this gang around and people would pay money to see them? That's a freak show!"

"Are Americans more interested that you're women or Swedish?" I inquired.

"Americans don't know what Sweden is -- 'Sweden? Switzerland?'" answered one.

"They think we have polar bears on the streets."

The combination of women and Sweden and heavy metal may seem odd. But it's not. Apparently, death metal is big in Sweden these days. Ozzy Osbourne is a god. Flavia and Martina began jamming in the mid-'80s. Loved their sound. Did a little searching to find two other woman to play with. Audiences took to the resulting group almost immediately. But that's Sweden. Drain STH's debut album in America, "Horror Wrestling" (1997), sold 60,000 units and was deemed the best metal album of 1997 by the Atlantic Monthly, of all places.

"America is very focused on America itself," Maria said. "And Sweden is not. It's focused on the whole world."

I've neglected to mention the group's publicist was also at the table. "Maybe you could talk about the Swedish music scene," she piped up.

"In Sweden we have so many bands," Martina said. "Everyone is in a band. I think most of them are in hard bands. But it's difficult because there is only one label to sign those kind of bands in Sweden."

"There is only one club in Stockholm to play," added Anna.

Our food arrived. The singer had salmon and a Caesar salad. The drummer had gazpacho. The bass player had gazpacho and salad. The guitarist had a Caesar' salad and dumplings.

"I'm a man," I told them, "and I'm having pizza." They had mentioned earlier that Swedish pizza is better than American.

"Is it good?" the drummer asked.

"Probably not as good as the pies in Sweden," I said with a grin.

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