Although I left the goal of a musical career behind long ago, music has always played a strong role in my professional life (whether playing trumpet on jazz and classical albums back in the 2000s, my 7-string Schechter Hellraiser in metal and grindcore bands around the same time, or, more recently, teaching university modules on classical music and appearing on radio to talk about contemporary classical and metal scenes). While travelling for my most recent book project, I met a surprising number of metal musicians in regions from Sápmi and Faroe to Greenland and Newfoundland, all putting their music to significant social purposes. This has led me to dig out my old battle jacket, return to some musical roots, and begin projects on the significance of metal to some big themes in modern life - from environmentalism and indigenous activism, to the nature of memory, and the ways our societies confront the idea of death. Below, you’ll find a few tastes of the metal writing and photography to come.