Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
The song “…is about a hell that is even more vile and terrifying than Dante’s version,” says Loudwire’s Katy Irizary.
The lyrics directly reference Dante, “All damned in this Inferno / Where even Virgil averts his eyes.”
Read the full Loudwire article here.
The lyrics “I went into the demon’s gate / Across the Styx among the mists of Hades / A gate of stone marks the path / To soul’s damnation and hell’s wrath” are “a nice homage to Dante’s epic writing style,” according to Loudwire’s Katy Irizary.
Read the full Loudwire article here.
In 2017, Toronto artist Nurgul Jones released the blackgaze album Upper and Lower Hell어퍼와 로어 지옥. Through soft, atmospheric industrial sounds, each track creates a dreamscape that might send the listener on a journey from “Circle 1: Limbo아지태” all the way to”Circle 9: The Traitorous배 교자.” A circle of Dante’s Inferno takes a titular spotlight on each one of the nine tracks.
Listen to and download the album on bandcamp here.
Italian musicians Claver Gold and Murubutu released their collaborative album Infernum (stylized Infernvm) on March 31, 2020. The hip-hop/rap album features songs that make reference to characters and features of Dante’s Inferno including “Paolo e Francesca”, “Antinferno”, “Ulisse”, and “Selva Oscura”. This album will be discussed by scholar Francesco Ciabattoni in his contribution to the forthcoming volume Dante Alive.
For more information about the album, view its Discogs entry here.
The complete album can also be found on a playlist here.
Italian death metal band Kyterion released their album titled Inferno I on July 22, 2016. The track titles and songs make frequent reference to the text of the Divine Comedy including “La selva de’ suicidi”, “Limbo”, and “L’etterno dolore”. This album will be discussed by scholar Francesco Ciabattoni in his contribution to the forthcoming volume Dante Alive.
The Metal Archives User “Samtropy” has this to say about the album:
“This is the first of trilogy Black/Death metal interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy by a band of anonymous Italians.
“As a concept, it’s pretty interesting: turning Dante’s words (in their original Florentine vernacular) into relentless song-sized chunks furious blackened death metal. If you’re short on time, the takeaway is: listen to this if that idea sounds good to you. Don’t if it doesn’t.” [. . .] –User “Samtropy”, The Metal Archives, June 8th, 2020 (retrieved November 29, 2021)
The full text of this archival review is available here.
A music video for one of the songs (“Gerione”), as well as other videos from the band, can be found here.
See our post about another metal adaptation of the Inferno here.
