Swans
Michael Gira's slow-motion apocalypse machine. Filth and Cop in the mid-80s were the loudest, most oppressive records anyone had made up to that point — bass turned up so loud at shows that people physically fled. The band mutated through late-80s gothic epics (Children of God) and 90s chamber-dread masterpieces (White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, Soundtracks for the Blind) before Gira pulled the plug in 1997. Reactivated in 2010 and immediately made The Seer and To Be Kind, two of the best records of the decade. Still going.
People
Swans' dictator-composer. Also runs Young God Records, wrote a book of short stories (The Consumer), and has put out solo work and Angels of Light records between Swans phases. Gira's intensity is legendary, his voice is a cathedral bell, and his capacity to keep reinventing Swans after forty years is the reason every later album somehow lives up to the legacy.