Metal is one of those musical styles I liked in the past, kind of gave up on for over a decade and have only recently tried to reexamine. Growing up in the 80s in Texas, glam metal was my only exposure to metal until friends in middle school. It was through them that I discovered the joys of Thrash through bands like Anthrax, DRI, Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies. Bands that we never heard on the radio, only through duped and distributed tapes. We’d have to scour things like Thrasher Magazine and VHS team tapes for music. This eventually led to me discovering Punk and then Hardcore while moving away from Metal.

As I got older, songs about blood and death and Satan and darkness held less appeal to me. I can’t say why. It’s not like I was a happy child. It was probably the political aspects of Punk / Hardcore appealed to me, along with the can-do DIY attitude, where as Metal seemed more for mopers; focusing on despair and violence and anger without release or a target whereas punk had a million targets and could also hold more than one emotion in its three chord heart at a time.

Recently though, largely to meeting Ivan Khilko of Immanent Voiceless, I’ve had a bit of a rekindled interest as he says “oh man, you have GOT to check this out.” And while sometimes it may not be my thing, his Wikipedia-like knowledge and musical background have exposed me to a great deal of Metal I wouldn’t have even known existed.

One of those bands is Brooklyn’s own Bloody Panda, a doom metal outfit who recently finished a tour with a coming home show Friday night at Union Pool.