This will probably be buried at the bottom somewhere, but a buddy of mine is close to the guys in the band (Sandman) at the center of this whole thing and for the most part, they're just getting a good laugh out of the publicity it's been generating.

One of the band members even made a statement about it and it seems they fully intend to comply with the request:

I've been reading a few links/comments about this whole "Cease and Desist" topic regarding my band (Sandman), and I want to make it clear that we are not being "sued", but rather politely (from a legal standpoint) asked to "cease" using our current logo as it's too close to Metallica's copyrighted image (and they have several copyrighted i might add). I don't imagine the band has even heard of the issue at this point, and if so, they are probably more focused on recording their latest effort. We never intended to infringe upon anything. We just got a friend to hand paint a backdrop, and decal shop to make my kick head look cool...and away we went so that people in the bars/clubs/venues knew the name of our band, and that they were in for a good night of pounding hard rock music. That pretty well sums it up!.....the added attention has been fun though, and we're even more stoked to deliver the music in coming shows!!

Realistically, the band probably wasn't aware of anything until this whole thing blew up. More likely, a copyright lawyer at the firm they use stumbled across the band and decided to add a few more hours to their client's file. As fun as it may be to shit on Metallica, these guys are just doing their job and pretty much everyone involved seems to recognize that.