Upside-down crosses may rule the night at "black metal" clubs, but devotees of the genre are upset that the music is seeing daylight.  There's a fascinating confluence of interest with Christian critics who would condemn the music's popularity because the anti-Christian lyrics and iconography are telltale hallmarks of a satanic cult--black metal's early adopters are upset precisely because they want the movement to remain a private world for initiates:

"It's so strange, to be there in this strip mall; it's surreal," Albert Mudrian, editor of the new extreme metal magazine Decibel, said of Jaxx. "I've seen Napalm Death there twice."

All this isn't entirely great news for Bittinger, who calls music -- mostly extreme metal -- "my life." He listens to dark, ambient music during his entire two-hour commute to and from Alexandria, all through the workday and on weekends at the home he shares with his girlfriend and two cats.

Black metal was meant to be private, he says, for people who get it. Who understand the imagery of knights on the mount, who want to lose themselves in blasting melodies that are the musical equivalent of a scary, gray winter sky. Who know the difference between fantasy and irony.