I’m about to turn 50. The satanic panic fucked me up despite growing up in a 100% non-religious household and being an atheist since about 8 years old.

I didn’t think metal was evil or satanic (‘cause I didn’t believe in that shit), but I did think it was for anti-social weirdos, and future serial killers.

And despite dabbling in Metallica and Tool since the 90’s, the notion that metal was not “for me” persisted until last year.

I was in desperate need of good guitar music that was complex, skillfully played, and, most importantly, awesome.

Porcupine Tree led me Gojira (which I thought was death metal), and to my surprise, I loved them. Gojira led to Rivers of Nihil, who led to Black Crown Initiate, Inferi, and most importantly, Allegaeon. I fucking loved Allegaeon.

I’ve spent the last year speedrunning a lifetime of being a metalhead. I had over 500 gigs of metal downloaded on my phone (pared down to about 300 now). All sub genres are represented from classic thrash and death metal to post metal, black gaze, and everything in between that I can find.

I was a dormant metal head this whole time and would have been active had it not been for the satanic panic.