I think you are totally on point. Mid-life? Uhhh a little late for that hrhrhr. Sorry had to get a bit black there
.
I am fairly surprised at the lack of BM fans here. I myself am not the biggest fan, however after getting a couple of my good friends into more dissonant music, they had found themselves pretty well obsessed with it and went about buying a good swath of all the better stuff on vinyl. My buddy even looking into running an online record shop for it. It's not my favorite of the boundary pushing/noise/dissonant/whatever genres, however..
I do totally dig some black metal... when done right. My personal tastes are more on the modern side like WITTR, Krallice and a few of the classics (Burzum, et al.). I cannot stand ANY regular metal, hair metal, or Metallica BS. Black fucking Metal or STFU. It just has the aesthetics noise rock fans love... for me anyway.