Track 3 of Rhapsody & Luca Turilli’s Ascending to Infinity is titled “Dante’s Inferno”. —Luca Turilli, “Dante’s Inferno,” Wikipedia, June 22, 2012 (retrieved January 25, 2024).
“Northlane reveal new single, ‘Dante’, along with music video”
“Northlane have unveiled their latest single, ‘Dante.’ The track serves as their first new release following their album, Obsidian (2022), marking the beginning of a new chapter for the band.
‘Initially conceived as a dance track by guitarist and songwriter Jon Deiley, ‘Dante’ underwent a year-long transformation to embody the band’s sound. The song’s lyrics, delivered by frontman Marcus Bridge, center around the theme of loss and the process of grappling with grief.
“‘Dante’ was produced by Will Putney, with whom the band had not collaborated since their previous efforts on Singularity (2013) and Node (2015). The music video was directed by Ed Reiss.
‘The band is set to premiere ‘Dante’ live during their upcoming 2024 headline tour in Australia, accompanied by a lineup of special guests including Erra, Landmvrks, and Banks Arcade.” —Kane Hibberd, “Northlane reveal new single, ‘Dante’, along with music video,” Lamgoat, November 20, 2023 (retrieved December 28, 2023)
Inferno I Album, Kyterion (2016)
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.
The Sowers of Discord EP, Above/Below (2017)
Australian metal band Above/Below released an EP titled The Sowers of Discord on January 12, 2017. The album features track titles that reference various parts of the Divine Comedy, including “I.I Purgatory”, “I.II Inferno”, and “I.III Paradise”.
For more information about the album, see its entry on Bandcamp here.
The full EP can be streamed on YouTube here.
Nirvana Sued For Use of “Upper Hell” Map
“Move over smiley face. Welcome to the Seventh Circle of Hell.
“Nineties grunge-rock band Nirvana, already embroiled in a long-running legal battle against fashion company Marc Jacobs over its ‘happy face’ t-shirt designs, now finds itself on the less happy end of a new copyright infringement lawsuit worthy of Dante’s trip through the underworld.
“The complaint, filed in federal court in Los Angeles [in April 2021], claims that Nirvana infringed an illustration first published in a 1949 English language translation of Dante’s Inferno. The drawing depicts Dante’s circles of Upper Hell and, like Nirvana’s smiley face logo, has been featured on the band’s merchandise for decades. [. . .]” –Aaron Moss, “Foreign Works, US Rights: The 7th Circle of Copyright Hell?” on Copyright Lately (April 30, 2021)
The disputed image was featured on the B-side of Nirvana’s debut album Bleach (Sub Pop Records, 1989).
Contributed by Jared Brust (Florida State University ’21)
