After the steady and beautiful progress of Western Civilization reached a certain point in the 20th century, visible cracks began to appear. The arts, which possessed a seeming unbroken lineage from the Classical Greek muses up to the Romantic movement of the 19th century, were in serious decline. From the past filled with majesty there proceeded the supreme ugliness of modernity in visual arts, music, and literature. Consumerism supplanted honor, and emptiness of emotion was to be found in place of once vital and stunning movements.

It is against the backdrop that there grew in the late 20th century entirely new artistic movements, maintaining the genius of the past while at the same time not ignoring the current ugliness. I am speaking of the musical movements of Black Metal and Industrial. As these genres have both swollen to ridiculous proportions, and because this present exposition must necessarily be short, I will pursue my theory by examining two bands, the Black Metal band Darkthrone and the Industrial band Skinny Puppy.

Darkthrone, formed in the late 80s by Norwegian youths, is a supreme example of the Black Metal ideal of authoritarian primitivism. Distinct, of course, from the nonsense of extreme leftist anarchists, in that instead of cowering at the might of structured society, Darkthrone reverses the relationship and forces structured society to tremble in their presence. Listening to the sublime strains of Under a Funeral Moon and Transylvanian Hunger stimulate visions of a cold and furious god sitting at the top of the world, scorning the vulgar variety and diversity of emotional experience of modern life, being content to blight the cycles of change and growth that so many rely on, desiring to cast the world into the depths of eternal winter and doom, from which only the few will arise.

This last image, of some new form of life emerging from destruction can work equally well in describing the overall effect of Skinny Puppy. In their case, instead of retreating to the moonlight woods and northern mountains, they have remained in the heart of industry. For here there also lurks a spirit of past splendor. From the forge of industry Skinny Puppy take up the detritus of production, elements whose original purpose was bland use and efficiency, and force them to be animated with true art. Again the evils of modern society are disarmed, not by being obliterated but by being reshaped, by being forced to submit to the artist’s dream.

I hope that this investigation has been able to help to demonstrate not only how “extreme” music is related to modern society, but also how it offers hope and power in an age of hopelessness and submission. Art, now so often separated from what is “important” and considered a diversion, can again resume its place of importance. Nay, rather it can achieve a level of importance that it never had before.