I've gotten quizzical looks from friends when I mentioned how much certain distorted guitar tones and tremolo picking sound very similar to bowed string instruments, particularly the cello.

You can easily imagine someone furiously playing a cello when listening to a lot of death metal, especially Swedish death metal with the classic Boss HM-2 pedal sound.

They didn't really get it, and most of them are pretty big fans of Apocalyptica, who very specifically play heavy metal on cellos. Still, they didn't make the same connection, which made me wonder if my hearing is a bit odd.