America examines its conscience for an explanation of the latest high school bloodbath

Tuesday, we now all know, marked Hitler's birthday. But the day two members of the Trenchcoat Mafia chose to spray their classmates with bullets marked another significant date in the Gothic calendar: the release of Seattle-based KMFDM's new album, Adios.

Contrition does not come easily to a band like KMFDM. This group, which started its life in Germany and is now based in Seattle, drew its initials from the words Kein Mitleid fr die Mehrheit which means No Pity for the Majority. Their previous albums include Angstfest and Nihil. They have toured with a group called Thrill Kill Kult.

But the group which once boasted that it did not care what the rest of the world thought of it is now keen to broadcast its remorse. Once an underground, anti-establishment outfit, KMFDM is today a household name among the middle-aged, middle-class parents in the suburban enclave of Littleton in Denver. Their logo was emblazoned on the baseball cap of one of the killers. Their apocalyptic lyrics were found on his personal Web page. Now their condolences have been posted on their Website.

Bandleader Sascha Konietzko, who once boasted in song "I'm a radical pig - I exploit and abuse", is now offering his "heartfelt sympathy" to all concerned. "From the beginning, our music has been a statement against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others," he said.

For members of a sub-culture that likes to live in the dark and thrive on the macabre there is probably no more uncomfortable place to be than in the spotlight. But as America scours its conscience in search of an explanation for Tuesday's bloodbath it finds itself increasingly drawn to the nihilistic lyrics and funereal fashions of the Goths.

It is not difficult to see why. Goth culture, a cocktail of post-punk and heavy metal with a dash of the occult, was the path of teenage rebellion which Littleton's two young killers most favoured. It is an established enough feature on the youth scene to have made its way into the dictionary. "A style of rock music with an intense or droning blend of guitars, bass and drums, often with apocalyptic or mystical lyrics," says the Oxford English Dictionary.

Its followers might not be able to agree

a definition for themselves. "Ask any Goth and you'll get a different definition. In fact, you'll get just about as many definitions as Goths that you ask," it says on one Gothic Website.

Goth culture owes its name either to Siouxsie Sioux (of the Banshees), who used "Gothic" to describe the new direction for her band, or the former manager of Joy Division, Anthony H. Wilson, who described the band as Gothic compared with the pop mainstream in 1978.

But what started as something to dance to soon became something to wear and then something to think. From music to fashion to a way of life in a few heady years, its followers were a hybrid of Holden Caulfield and any member of the Addams family. As with most youth cultures, individual Goths chose a trend to assert their individuality and found comfort in lots of other adolescents doing the same thing.

By the early 1980s everyone had heard of them. Chief among their modern-day icons is shock-rocker Marilyn Manson: his name is a combination of Marilyn Monroe and killer Charles Manson. Obsessed by themes of suicide and satanism, Manson, a 6ft 6in transvestite, was happy to call himself "the most evil man in America". "America has always glamorised outlaws," he once said. "It's a statement of my culture."

By the 1990s, Gothic sub-culture had a sub-culture of its own. They called it "industrial" and, counting KMFDM among its flock, it is more masculine and more aggressive than regular Gothic music. Its adherents are known as rivetheads and its music owes more to electronics and synthesisers than the more mainstream Gothic style, although the two are often regarded as interchangeable.

Manson has a substantial following in the UK, too. His autobiography, The Long Hard Road out of Hell, a gruesome narrative punctuated by tales of debauched sex, laced with misogyny, was on the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic. His last concert in Britain, in December, was a sell-out.

Among his followers were Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed their schoolmates earlier this week. "They sang Marilyn Manson songs and joked about killing people," said one of their classmates. They also liked KMFDM and another German band called Rammstein, whose songs include Punish Me and You Hate. "We only show violence during our gigs and we make it the subject of our lyrics," says Rammstein's Website. "But we definitely refuse to practise violence or to propagate it in any way."

Some members of the Trenchcoat Mafia clearly did not see the distinction. In honour of their idol they painted their faces white, their nails black and, even in summer, wore their trenchcoats long and black. It was not just the music or the fashion they were into. Harris was a devotee of the computer game Doom, a shoot-until-your-fingers-ache game in which players cause bloody mayhem as they try to rid the planet of mindless demons. The US Marines used Doom II in training.

With their sombre tones and dimly-lit hangouts, the Trenchcoat Mafia prided themselves on being outsiders, an ideal haven for the teenage malcontents. It was from this Gothic world that both Harris and Dylan drew their social inspiration. That world is now desperate to dissociate itself from them.

WHILE THE young murderers may have worn their uniform, Goths insist that their actions had little to do with the Gothic credo. Goths, say aficionados, are indeed obsessed with death but they are drawn to melancholy, not murder.

As is the case in all tragedies of this nature, Goths argue, commentators have found a convenient scapegoat in popular culture, particularly music and films. The film Basketball Diaries, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is the subject of a $130 million lawsuit from families who claim it inspired the shootings in Peducah, Kentucky, last year. Natural Born Killers was blamed for a spate of murders in both France and America; the video Child's Play III was condemned as being partly responsible for the murder of the English toddler Jamie Bulger.

Now Goths say they are being victimised for what took place on Tuesday. The only day of the week when Tom Oberbroekling does not have a police officer on duty at his Denver club is on Goth night. "What does that tell you?" he asked. "Gothic is a sad and tranquil sort of rock that sort of puts you to sleep," says the owner of the Snakepit club.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had adopted the appearance of the Goths, though not their philosophy, such as it is.

Derek Sweet, a University of Denver postgraduate student, who mixed with the city's Goths to study its members, says: "They're not violent, they're not racist, they're not into this whole hate mentality."

Sweet wore dark clothes and spent up to 10 hours a day observing the group at the Rising Phoenix, a bookshop/dance club. "These are not people who are out looking for trouble, they're just looking for a place to hang out and have fun. But now this group is really scared and they are angry that they're being alienated and attacked once again just for being different. What they get from each other is a sense of community."

Bob Alberti, who owns the Rising Phoenix, says: "Just because black clothes were involved in the shootings, it doesn't mean that everybody with black clothing is a white supremacist wacko with a gun. But this is going to give people something to direct their anger at, and that's sad. I have a tremendous concern for these young people; they're all going to be targets of rage. What groups them together are the attitudes of other people. Nobody wants to stop and talk to these kids."

The Goths, he insists, had more interest in clothing than loathing. "We've never had so much as a shoving match. They come in here for the music, to show off their clothes."

But Sgt Cynthia Burgin, a Texas detective who lectures on cults, says publicity surrounding the killings has provided a platform for splinter groups who embrace Goth culture and neo-Nazism. "They are using mystical violence and mystical illusion as a way of intimidating other members in their groups. They're more afraid of things they can't see and can't predict, a way of managing fear."

Yvonne Peterson, a San Antonio nurse who specialises in psychological behaviour and who has studied the Goth movement, believes it could be a home for emotional problems. "I don't think the Gothic movement created the situation at this school but I do think that the Gothic movement can give teachers some tips in the future," she says. "These kids are in trouble. They're looking for attention."

But one of the key differences with this modern teenage rebellion is that it can find solace in cyberspace. No longer must these individuals go home and suffer in their bedrooms on their own. On the Net there is a world of disaffected youngsters just like them waiting to log on.

"The full range of human expression is something you can find on the Internet," says Mike Godwin, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, "and teenage alienation is pretty common." Among the electronic footprints Harris and Klebold left on the Net were drawings of horned beasts and figures brandishing knives. And along with Manson's lyrics, a chilling quote: "I kill who I don't like."