On 'Hideous Bastard,' Oliver Sim mines horror tropes to embrace queer identity

Ugly, beaten down and bloody; hidden and lonely; sick and perverse, all around at his worst: This is where we find Oliver Sim as he opens Hideous Bastard. Over a serpentine bassline and big, weepy violins, Sim lances the infected wound of his self-esteem, asking over and over, "Am I hideous?" He doesn't get an answer, but he does come to a realization: "Radical honesty might set me free if it makes me hideous." Herein lies the central conceit of his debut solo album, that we may reclaim power for ourselves by embracing what makes us monstrous.

Sim is far from the first artist to turn to horror imagery to reckon with queerness; populated with and villainous boundary transgressors, horror has always contained an allegory for the queer experience. From the in , one of the earliest works of fiction about vampires, to the denial and disbelief or the gender dysphoria of serial killer Buffalo Bill in , queer horror fans have long seen themselves in parts of these stories.