I have been listening to a lot of metal lately, primarily from three genres. Most of the time it's Thrash - Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Pantera - followed by lots of Death - Napalm Death, Fear Factory, Cannibal Corpse with some Drone and Doom thrown in - Godflesh/Jesu and Isis, primarily. While listening to this, I've also been reading a lot about metal, particularly the genres obsession with death, genocide, satanism, black magic, vivisection, corpses and so forth.

Is there a value to this beyond camp and shock? I was recently reading an article about Black metal pioneers Mayhem (the poster-boys for the "metal is evil" agenda - these guys burned churches, aggressively advocated anarchy, murdered opposing band members (and each other), and perhaps most amusingly if Heavy Metal Legends are to be believed, made jewelry from the fragments of their singer's skull when he committed suicide by putting a shotgun to his own head.)

Anyway, so the founding member of Mayhem was described as being a complete supporter of totalitarianism. And that struck a chord with me.

Heavy Metal and many of its sub-genres are about experiencing totalitarianism. While listening to metal, one is subsumed by it, surrounded by it, led around by it and encouraged in a live environment to aggressively respond to it by thrashing/head banging/moshing/whathaveyou. It is a rally and the band is the leader and the audience is led along by them. The music is so fast and aggressive and loud that it knocks all other thoughts out of your head - it is what it is - and the band pummels the audience until it submits.

And I love it.

I really don't want to type the following dilution, but, for the sake of self preservation... I'm not advocating totalitarianism, but in this context, a sexual analogy is appropriate. The band is a dominant force that pummels and attacks the audience until a state of submission overwhelms the listener and once the audience gives in and follows the lead of the band, a state of consciousness is achieved akin to the endorphin release from a sexual submission.

Even that isn't all the way there. I don't know what I mean but I know what I feel when I listen to metal. And this is what it is.