“Austrian gothic metal band Dreams of Sanity’s album Komödia is partially based on The Divine Comedy.” —Wikipedia
Symphony X, Underworld (2015)
“American progressive metal band Symphony X’s 2015 album Underworld is based on the Inferno.” —Wikipedia
“Howling Furies” – Anthrax
“Howling Furies” from Anthrax’s 1984 album Fistful of Metal, which has the opening lines of “Abandon all hope for those who enter.”
Australian Metal Band, Abandon All Hope
Abandon All Hope is a metal band out of Adelaide, Australia that was formed in 2005. The band had 5 members – Micah Leinonen as vocals, Jarrod Kennett on bass guitar, Chris Whitbread on drums, and Jake Battista and Shaan Kelly on guitars. The Metal Archives list the band’s lyrical themes as “Hate, Anger, Life, [and] Relationships.” The band split up in 2013.
Their discography consisted of 3 albums – Where Life and Death Meet (2007), A Havoc Command (2010), and Prowler (2011).
Septicflesh, “Dante’s Inferno” (2017)
In June 2017, Septicflesh released a video for the opening track of their new orchestral death metal album Codex Omega (Prosthetic Records, Sept. 2017): “Dante’s Inferno.” Of the song, Guitarist Sotiris V. says, “We are proud to present the first track from the upcoming album, Codex Omega. The song is appropriately entitled ‘Dante’s Inferno,’ acting as a gateway to hell… as it was inscribed on the top of the Hellgate in the famous poem by Dante Alighieri, ‘Through me you pass into the city of woe; Through me you pass into eternal pain; Through me among the people lost for aye.’ This is just the first glimpse – the entrance to our new album. Stay tuned as more will gradually be revealed with the release date of our new album getting closer…” (cited on metalunderground.com).
The track was one of the “Picks of the Week” on the blog Metal Sucks. Guest blogger Garren L. has this to say: “Septicflesh have once again demonstrated why they are the masters of symphonic death metal. I might go as far as to make the audacious claim that their new track ‘Dante’s Inferno’ has given Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy an extra layer of sinisterness. By mixing the brutality of death metal with the orchestral elements normally found as part of a film score, Septicflesh are able to portray the horrific, evil, and grotesque nature of what Dante described in his work.” — metalsucks.net
The video is available here.
Cited in Loudwire’s “11 Metal Songs Inspired by Dante’s Inferno” by Katie Irizarry (August 15, 2018).
Contributed by Paul Ickert (George Mason University ’19)
