Deep dives into the music world

Hulu's 'Lilith Fair' and 'Into the Void' explore the light and dark in poignant ways.

- ROBERT LLOYD

MERRI CYR ABC News Studios

"LILITH FAIR: Building a Mystery" tells the story of the music festival featuring only women artists.

The music-themed Two documentaries, one (seemingly) all about darkness and the other (actually) all about light, arrive on Hulu nearly together.

"Into the Void: Life, Death and Heavy Metal," premiering Monday, is an eight-part film-really eight films arranged around the title theme. "Lilith Building a Mystery," which premiered Sunday, revisits Sarah McLachlan's late-'90s all-female traveling music festival. From these extremely disparate approaches to subject matter, volume and vocals have been wrought often moving testaments to self-expression, community and finding a voice in a world that might not want you to be heard, or at least to help you do it. You may learn something, or think a little differently about what you thought you knew. Each might inspire a little tear, or a lot of big ones.

"Into the Void" is not a history or a survey but looks at individual cases from across the years and the metal spectrum. Most involve tragic circumstances -early death by accident, suicide or from illness in the most extreme cases though the approach is more sympathetic than sensational; this isn't "Behind the Music" or, for that matter, "Spinal Tap," with its exploding drummers. (All musicians know that everything in that movie - I haven't seen the sequel yet - is true.) Familiarity with or even interest in metal and its subgenres is not a prerequisite; these are human stories, involving enough on their own.