History Main / HorribleHistoryMetal

* Sea chanty band ''Music/TheLongestJohns'' has "[[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T_5PHU7vQu4 Fire and Flame,]]" about the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion Halifax Explosion]], an industrial accident that levelled a city when two ammunition haulers collided.

* The Monolith Deathcult are a band that does this almost exclusively, with a particular focus on wars and genocides. Examples include "Drugs, Thugs, and Machetes", about the Rwandan genocide, "Kindertodeslied", about the Hitler Youth, and "Master of the Bryansk Forests", about a particularly brutal battalion of Nazi Einsatsgruppen during World War II.

* French Black Metal band Peste Noire has "Des Médecins Malades Et Des Saints Séquestrés" (literally "About Sick Physicians and Sequestered Saints") about the Holocaust. The name of the band itself evokes the trope (it literally means "black plague", and is the French name of TheBlackDeath).
* Many songs by Primordial are concerned with Irish history and myth. One of their most well-known songs, "The Coffin Ships", takes its name from the ships that carried Irish emigrants to Canada and America during the Famine (so called because so many of the passengers died during the journey).

* Music/NamowarOfSteel parodied this with "Pasadena 1994", a song in the style of Sabaton, below (and including Sabaton's Joakim Broden as guest vocalist) that portrayed the 1994 [[UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup FIFA World Cup final]] between Italy and Brazil as a bloody battle.

Note that to fit this trope, the lyrics have to be about a specific historical event. Metal that just evokes the imagery of a more loosely defined historical setting (e.g. [[Music/AmonAmarth Viking]] [[Music/{{Ensiferum}} Metal]] or [[Music/RunningWild Pirate]] [[Music/{{Alestorm}} Metal]]) is not this trope -- that's more of a PeriodPiece. Also note that if the historical events in question were current ''when the song was written'', then that's RippedFromTheHeadlines instead; for example, the Music/DeadKennedys' "HolidayInCambodia" wouldn't be Horrible History PunkRock. Many Horrible History Metal songs are [[Historical Biography Song]]s.

Note that to fit this trope, the lyrics have to be about a specific historical event. Metal that just evokes the imagery of a more loosely defined historical setting (e.g. [[Music/AmonAmarth Viking]] [[Music/{{Ensiferum}} Metal]] or [[Music/RunningWild Pirate]] [[Music/{{Alestorm}} Metal]]) is not this trope -- that's more of a PeriodPiece. Also note that if the historical events in question were current ''when the song was written'', then that's RippedFromTheHeadlines instead; for example, the Music/DeadKennedys' "HolidayInCambodia" wouldn't be Horrible History PunkRock.

** Their 2022 album ''The War to End All Wars'' is another World War One concept album covering, among other topics, German stormtroopers, the Battle of Doiram, and the Anglo-German naval race. It was followed up later in the year by ''Father'', a standalone single about Fritz Haben’s work to develop chemical weapons during the war.

* {{Music/Rush}} has "Bastille Day", about the storming of the Bastille that began the French Revolution, and "Manhattan Project", about the creation of the first atomic bomb.

* Music/{{Sabaton}} ''is'' this trope. Nearly every song of theirs is about military history, to the point the band has fully embraced it as their theme (the only exceptions being their occasional HeavyMeta anthems and one song about the Nazgûl from ''[[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings]]''). Their name comes from a type of medieval leg armor, the band frequently wears camouflage onstage, and their drummer plays on ''a freaking tank.'' They also have [[WebVideo/SabatonHistory a weekly Youtube series devoted to the history behind their songs.]]

* Music/{{Sabaton}} ''is'' this trope. Nearly every song of theirs is about military history, to the point the band has fully embraced it as their theme (the only exceptions being their occasional HeavyMeta anthems). Their name comes from a type of medieval leg armor, the band frequently wears camouflage onstage, and their drummer plays on ''a freaking tank.'' They also have [[WebVideo/SabatonHistory a weekly Youtube series devoted to the history behind their songs.]]

Horrible History Metal usually averts MadLibMetalLyrics; it is, after all, hard to write meaningless rambling and still maintain it's "about history"... although some bands certainly try their best.

Has nothing to do with Literature/HorribleHistories (although the live-action TV show did once feature a Heavy Metal pastiche song about William Wallace, so perhaps not quite nothing...).

* Music/{{ACDC}} have done a song about the Original Night of the long knives from Arthurian legends, appropriately entitled "Night Of The Long Knives".

* ''Music/{{Swans}}'': "Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'ouverture" is a really bizarre example. It's named after the man responsible for the [[UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} Haitian Revolution]], and the lyrics consist entirely of Michael Gira screaming revolutionary slogans in French, accompanied by various sound effects like panicked horses galloping.

* '''The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing''' (whose very name is a reference to the UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper killings), love this trope. ''[[https://youtu.be/21QqXumEWFU Brunel]]'', a highlights reel of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's career, is a great example.

* ''Huns and Dr. Beeker'' has "Ghost Town," about UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}}.

* Music/ExodusBand have done a few, including "Last Act of Defiance" which is about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_State_Penitentiary_riot the 1980 New Mexico prison riot]], "Nanking" which about [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Nanjing Massacre]] and "Ballad of Leonard and Charles" which is about the infamous Bay Area serial killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng.

* "Brown Sugar" by Music/TheRollingStones is about the rape of enslaved women in the antebellum DeepSouth.

* Holy Martyr focus a lot on this trope (albiet in an often heroic way), with their historical subjects ranging from Spartans, to Romans, to even feudal Japan.

* Music/TheDecemberists' songs are mostly fiction, but sometimes they'll sing about the French Conquest of Algeria ("The Legionnaire's Lament"), World War I ("The Soldiering Life"), the American Civil War ("Yankee Bayonet"), botanists protecting grain during the Seige of Leningrad ("When the War Came"), boogeymen of the Troubles ("Shankill Butchers"), the Speculator Mine disaster ("Rox in the Box") and the Charge of the Light Brigade ("Cavalry Captain").