This chapter focuses on heavy metal music and culture in the Middle East. It provides a summary of previous research on metal in the region and touches upon common clichés of metal as a source of counterculture, revolution and change. It then addresses the complicated relationship between metal studies and Orientalism. It is the author’s contention that research on metal in the Middle East has been directly influenced by Orientalist discourse. The author further argues that the impact of this discourse has led to the politicisation and exoticisation of a particular figure – the ‘Muslim metalhead’. This chapter seeks to contribute to the current discussion on ‘Oriental metal’ as an attempt to exotify the very existence (and art) of metalheads from a region that has been geopolitically framed as the ‘Middle East’.