The Simpsons apologise to Judas Priest for calling them 'death metal'

After the show referred to the heavy metal band as 'death metal', Bart Simpson has apologised via the medium of his classroom blackboard

As anyone who has been on the end of a righteous screed at at Black Country record fair will tell you, woe betide the layman who wrongly refers to a metal sub-genre – and the latest to find out the hard way are the writers of The Simpsons.

After calling the heavy metal band Judas Priest 'death metal' on a recent episode, they unleashed a Lethe-heated wave of anger from the genre's fans. "I don't care if you want to have fun at metal's expense," said Stereogum's Michael Nelson, "but if you brazenly mix up black metal and death metal – and the essence of the joke hinges on getting that reference right – well, that's just lazy writing and it deserves to be called out and mocked relentlessly. But that's totally pardonable compared to calling Judas Priest a death metal band."

Metal Insider opined: "While it'd be ridiculous to suggest that Opeth, Amon Amarth or Entombed would be on the show in place of Priest, it might have been a good idea to not call a 43 year old song that gets played on classic rock 'death metal.'"

So the show's writers took heed of their grievances, and made a very meta apology – in the next episode, Bart Simpson wrote: "Judas Priest is not 'death metal'" on the blackboard that begins every show.

The original slur came in a storyline where Homer starts illegally downloading music, leading to an anti-piracy investigation from the FBI and an escape to immunity in a Swedish consulate. The FBI counter by hiring the "death metal" Judas Priest to blast a piracy-themed rework of their track Breaking the Law, with the words changed to "Respecting the law: copyright law!"

Judas Priest recently announced their 14th studio album, writing on their official website: "We wish all of our fans a great Christmas and a very metal New Year! We will be releasing a new album sometime in 2014 so stay tuned……!!" In 2010, lead singer Rob Halford said their Epitaph world tour, which ran through 2011 and 2012, would be their last – but later reversed the decision.