In addition to its array of basics, graphic tees, and polos, H&M sells quite a few rock and metal band T-shirts.
Often for less than what the bands are charging on their own merch sites.
But did you know they also sell band tees of bands that, well, ~don't exist~?
Mortus = NOT A REAL BAND. The One Only = NOT A REAL BAND.
In fact, this bomber jacket — sold by H&M in Sweden — is covered in imaginary band patches.
There's patches that have the names YVAEH, LANY, Crepuscular, Motmros, Blast, and Grey — along with a patch that just says METAL, because of course.
But the bands might not be so fake after all.
This week, a YouTube video featuring tracks of many of the bands adorned on H&M's clothing popped up.
View this video on YouTube
The video includes short bursts of music from each band, album art, and even photos of band members.
A label called Strong Scene Productions claimed that they were simply releasing music from "long forgotten bands." The bands all happened to have the same names as the fake ones on H&M's clothing.
"As illustrated by the bomber jacket and t-shirts worn by the models of H & M," they wrote on their Facebook page, "the new items feature logos from long-forgotten underground goth and thrash acts such as the French LANY, Mexican MORTUS, American 'cosmic hippie metal'-gurus MYSTIC TRIANGLE and GREY from Germany – the originator of the whole symphonic female metal-genre."
The bands had song titles like “Sign of the Antichrist,” “Hellish Massacre,” “Holocaust Tomb,” and, best of all, “Vaginal’s Juice Dripping Into Cadaverous.”
Mmmkay.
There was also a vast catalog of CDs, cassettes, photos, and show fliers from their respective histories.
And here's the craziest part: A couple of the bands seemed to have had ties to the NSBM community (that's National Socalist Black Metal scene, meaning they are racists and/or neo-Nazis).
Metal websites like Metal Sucks and Metal Injection assumed that H&M was somehow behind Strong Scene Productions and looking to lend credibility to the metal bands it was promoting on its clothing.
Both sites accused H&M of hiring a marketing firm to fake the bands' credentials.
But AS IT TURNS OUT, H&M had nothing to do with it. The fake band tapes are the work of an arts collective in Sweden.
According to its leader, Henri Sorvali, who poses under the name Ville Huopakangas, all of the music and artwork — in fact Strong Scene Productions itself — was created recently, in response to H&M's fake metal bands.
Sorvali also happens to be the guitarist and keyboardist for the band Moonsorrow.
Strong Scene Productions, Sorvali told BuzzFeed Life, created an elaborate hoax aimed at poking fun at H&M's claims at music legitimacy.
Sorvali also told Noisey he wanted "to point out the fact that you cannot commercialize a subculture without actually knowing all the different aspects of it."
Confused yet?
