Hell Bent for Metal this week takes a look at the classic "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse" from The Black Dahlia Murder's seminal 2007 album Nocturnal, and the hosts examine how it spoke to their queer side's in the Camp Classic. There's a brief chat (with added tangents, naturally) on how Lucifer can sometimes be seen as the benevolent bringer of light as opposed to the Bible's teachings of Jesus, and how that can sometimes help queer folk feel more accepted.
The crux of the conversation though, is on how the hosts feel the song perfectly reflects an aspect of queer life that is not often talked about in the usually-more-gloomy metal Camp Classics, in the joyful side of being out and proud and embracing your true self as an LGBTQ+ person. There's chat on how learning to love yourself can be a brilliant method of fighting back against homophobes, and also on how you can be best prepared when you go into a situation that could be hostile, whilst also mentioning how often, more damage is felt when you hear homophobic remarks from out of the blue, or people you would expect better from.
Naturally, there's also tribute to the dearly-missed Trevor Strnad. Tom and Matt both detail how much The Black Dahlia Murder meant to them as a whole with being a bridging band, and how much Trevor was so key to injecting that love and joy into his vocals and live performances, and how much that has meant to so many people. The hosts discuss how well-loved Trevor was from within the scene and far beyond, and how much worse the world is without him in it. We miss you.
In an attempt to cheer things up, there's a long, hard look at Swedish power-metallers Falconer's song 'Thrust the Dagger Deep' from their final album From a Dying Ember, released in 2020, in a Like the Oar Strikes the Water feature. Whilst starting by mentioning the surface level phallic euphemisms in the song's title and chorus, and noting how they could be interpreted in a very different way than intended, there's also the inevitable digressions into other matters.
Tom and Matt get into how LGBTQ+ folk are so strongly associated with musical theatre (and how that fits with Falconer frontman Mathias Blad), and how the songs lyrics could fit to a very intense scene in a play, in many different contexts. This finishes up with Matt vowing to write a whole musical around the queer interpretation of the song, and how he plans to get Falconer to reunite to perform it.
This week's trip to HCGBS sees the 8th album from Austrian symphonic power metal troupe Visions of Atlantis, Pirates, be entered, along with the debut solo album from Insomnium and ex-Sonata Arctica guitarist Jani Liimatainen, My Father's Son. But who's picked what this week?
