The funny side of "Snakes For The Divine", and danceable death metal, on Hell Bent for Metal

The funny side of "Snakes For The Divine", and danceable death metal, on Hell Bent for Metal

- By Tom Dare

The LGBT+ heavy metal podcast explores the euphemistic joy of "Snakes For The Divine" by High On Fire, and rocks its body right to the death metal of "The Promethean" by Dyscarnate, which is this week's Camp Classic.

Hell Bent For Metal once more seeks out heavy metal's finest phallic euphemisms, this time setting their sights on the riff-tastic brilliance of "Snakes For The Divine", the title track of the 2010 album from stoner/sludge greats High On Fire.

You may be thinking, "what could possibly be making the hosts giggle about a song with a title like that?" To which the answer, apparently, is "literally everything". As once more, Tom's gaybrain sees straight past the metaphor and the references to mythology, and goes straight for the double entendre.

There is also plenty of chat about why High On Fire rule, and how much of an impact this particular song made, as well as some random titbits of knowledge about ancient history… mostly involving male nudity, obviously.

This week's Camp Classic is a long look at the danceable death metal of British death metallers Dyscarnate's song "The Promethean", taken from their 2012 album 'And So It Came To Pass'. Before they get into the reasons it speaks to their queer side, the hosts explain why Dyscarnate are (in the opinion of one of the hosts) "the most underrated death metal band in the world", and also detail the strange dichotomy between their hard-as-nails, muscular stage persona, and the absolute charming and polite off-stage personalities of the band.

After that, there's a detailed explanation of why this song makes the hosts believe when you say you want it that way, and why and how it makes them feel like dancing like it's 1998. This leads onto many and varied tangents, such as the discussion about how you need to be extremely skilled musicians to make people want to dance to death metal, and also the chat about why there's such a strong link between pop music and gay men.

Not done with the topic, they then deviate into a discussion about the link between one of Dyscarnate's biggest influence (Dying Fetus) and deathcore, before veering off once again to discuss 1990s commercial pop acts such as 9-1-1, Steps, and obviously Boyzone, with the disastrous first TV appearance of the latter strongly referenced.

Unfortunately though, the Hate Crew Gaybar is closed this week, partially due to a lack of suitable candidates for the jukebox, but mostly due to industrial action following an incident of piracy – and not the copyright-violation type of piracy. There's a full explanation in the show.

Listen to Hell Bent For Metal on Spotify here, listen on iTunes here, or choose one of the other ways to listen here.

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