Metal – perhaps more than most genres of music – is often asked to account for its ‘real life’ effects. Metal musicians, metal journalists and, indeed, even metal scholars are regularly called on to explain what metal means in ‘real life’ – in terms of misogyny, racism, or… worse. Lately, worse might mean terrorism, and lethal violence particularly against women. In 2019, coverage of the mass shooting2 perpetrated by Connor Betts in Dayton, Ohio, USA quickly focused on Bett’s role in “a vile heavy metal band”3 called ‘Menstrual Munchies’ as the cause of the deadly attack.4 Betts shot and killed nine people, and injured seventeen others, at a bar in Dayton in August 2019.