Our idea is simple: heavy metal is the last true form of mass modernism in popular culture and has been for over half a century: at first by accident but then by design. The Blues may have been born at a crossroads, but its mutant descendant heavy metal was conceived at an intersection; out of an industrial accident in an auto factory in Aston, Birmingham. The founding working class members of Black Sabbath learned to take perspectives shaped by disability, neurodiversity, depression and life after prison, as a way of creating a brand new sound. And, as the same members are now preparing to play their farewell gig just a couple of miles away from where they began at Aston Villa’s football stadium, we look at how, during the intervening 55 years the movement has remained, at heart, revolutionary. We ask how this has been exemplified by the aesthetic heterotopia created by Judas Priest, the unintentional birth of extreme metal caused by Venom’s rush to be the gnarliest band in the UK, the very intentional design to make challenging new music by Norway’s infamous Mayhem, how Napalm Death became iconoclasts of modern anxiety and how Sunn O))) took heavy metal culture out of Kerrang! and Download festival and, to a certain degree, introduced it to Art Forum and the South Bank Centre. 

It asks how ‘You Suffer’, a record-breakingly short song by Napalm Death, only 1.3 seconds long, was inspired by Samuel Beckett but how it also connects to the Houses of Parliament and the Paris riots of 1968. And it also asks how drone metal took the most derided form of 20th century popular music and placed it in art galleries, fashion magazines and underground culture.  

Given the grim backdrop of the rise of populism and the far-right in 2025, the presentation positions itself at the start as explicitly anti-fascist. Both modernism and some forms of extreme metal have been historically blighted by a fascination with totalitarianism. However, now heavy metal has evolved to be seen by many of its practitioners and fans worldwide as a means of resisting totalitarianism - not to mention providing a structure  that allows for the rejection of patriarchal, neoliberal and colonial values.

To draw out the shock of the new created by this story the live visual accompaniment collaged from archive, 8mm and VHS footage forms an enigmatic and haunted visual backdrop speaking to ideas of industrialisation, modern warfare and the velocity of modern life and culture. The soundtrack is a unique live mix of music specially created for the evening by Norwegian art rock group Årabrot, Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor Press & electronic artist Ghost Writer. Everything combines to make a unique live cinema experience.