The LGBT+ heavy metal podcast fondly recall Mastodon's "Bedazzled Fingernails", the track from their 2011 album The Hunter, and why it spoke to their queer side in a brilliant way – even if it recalled some less happy things for one of our hosts.
The album itself gets some discussion, as well as a now-immortalised gig at Brixton Academy in London, Tom was lucky enough to attend, and that still holds a particular fondness. There's some noticeable disagreement on exactly which bits of the rest of the band's career the hosts like, however.
After the reasons for the track speaking to their queer side are revealed, this leads to a discussion of how gender expression can be an issue for some areas of the LGBT+ community that you don't automatically realise it's relevant to. The hosts confide how societal pressures affected some of their choices and how that may have changed if they grew up at a different time.
This then leads way off piste (standard) into discussions of Placebo, David Bowie, and why anyone cares if you look androgynous or not.
With former members seemingly about to go stratospheric in Spiritbox, defunct mathcore project Iwrestledabearonce are hauled out of metal's scrapyard, expressly for the purpose of explaining why their name becomes rather suggestive when viewed through the prism of gay slang.
Naturally, this means the band themselves need to be recalled, and to explain exactly which bit of their name causes the confusion/amusement – and which one of the hosts has possibly thought way, way too much about this. Safe to say that if you make it to the end of the show without saying, "oh Matron", the only explanation is that you've never seen a 'Carry On!' film.
On a (slightly, and only briefly) more serious notes, there are also discussions about the confusing world of gay slang and how even queer people who've been out for years still find things they didn't know. They also cover how much easier it is to find out what those terms mean now than it used to be, and how not all gays are the stereotypical "type".
Who knew the name of a split-up metal band could spark such meaningful chat? Apart from people who've listened to the show before, anyway…
This first of this week's entries for the Hate Crew Gaybar jukebox is 'Primordial Arcana', the woodsy, earthy new album from atmospheric black metal masters Wolves In the Throne Room. The second is 'Colors II', the prog metal odyssey from the rarely predictable, hardly ever boring, and never knowingly understated Between The Buried And Me. But exactly who has picked what this week is a little complicated – and is a first for the podcast.
So in summary, as well as chatting about IWABO, HBFM visit HCGBs with WITTR and BTBAM. Clear as glittery soup. (And yes, the glittery soup thing is explained in the show.)
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