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Halloween Recommendations II: Music Edition
Since my last list was such a hit, it’s only right it get a sequel. This time we’ll focus on those auditory oddities to darken your day, those musical maladies to frighten your friends (or should we say fiends?). Listen up, we’ve got a slew of tunes that will make you the death of the party.
Corb Lund – “Dig Gravedigger Dig”
Give it up to a Canadian to sound more country than the douches of the country top 40. Since he doesn’t restrict himself to the same three or four subjects, Lund can make a song about the honest work of digging graves and its paranormal hazards. That’s not his only seasonally appropriate song. The title “Gothest Girl I Can” speaks for itself.
Lindi Ortega – “Murder of Crows”
Another Canuck outdoing American country artists. Though her music is usually appended with the “alt” tag, Ortega doesn’t really make spooky music. She does like to wear black veils like Lydia Deetz, though, and this particular song has “murder” and “crows” in the title, and she has skull makeup on in the video. It counts. There’s also a “witchy version” of her song, “On My Way to Hell”.
Siouxsie and the Banshees – “Halloween”
It might seem like cheating to choose one of the founding bands of goth rock until you realize their music may be moody and ethereal, but it isn’t the dark, vampire-obsessed stuff the genre is associated with nowadays. But c’mon, this one has Halloween in the title. Since this is a full-service post, here are a few more recs. “Israel” is their best song. “Desert Kisses” from their Kaleidoscope LP is a choice deep cut. Kiss in the Dreamhouse with its Klimt-inspired cover is a great album, as is Tinderbox.
AFI – “Totalimmortal”
AFI are shoo-ins. Singer Davey Havok had a tattoo sleeve of The Nightmare Before Christmas and used to sport “devil locks” like the Misfits whose “Halloween” they covered on their All Hallow’s EP from which this cut also derives. The EP also includes “The Boy Who Destroyed the World” which was on the soundtrack of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3.
Mercyful Fate – “At the Sound of the Demon Bell”
What genre is more Halloween than heavy metal? You could choose any track from Denmark’s Mercyful Fate. With King Diamond’s falsettos and the incomparable duo of guitarists Hank Shermann and Michael Denner, MF made metal darker than the heavier and more extreme bands that followed in their steps. The first two LPs are mandatory, as is Abigail from Diamond’s solo project.
Deceased – “A Visit from Dread”
Moving to another metal King, we have King Fowley who has been in many bands, all of which could be featured on this list (one is even named October 31), but we have to go with his most famous, Deceased for whom he’s been a singer and a drummer since the 80s. Between Fowley’s near clean vocals and the band’s melodicism, Deceased stood out among their death metal peers including the Scandinavians touted for their melody. Their horror movie lyrics were never as hokey as those of the roster of Razorback Records or as overbearing as Mortician’s, and they took from a wide range of films, from Burnt Offerings (“Mrs. Allardyce”) to The Blair Witch Project (“Elly’s Dementia”) to the Zuni doll segment from Trilogy of Terror (“The Doll with the Hideous Spirit”) to a concept album inspired by George Romero’s Dead Trilogy (Fearless Undead Machines).
The Freeze – “Now Serving”
Though they were most famous for not being from LA, The Freeze deserve greater recognition for sticking it out far longer than their peers in the Boston hardcore scene. In 1999, they released One False Move with cover art by the most Halloween of artists, Edward Gorey. Most songs are about angst of one sort or another, but “Now Serving” is about cannibalism, even including (what I’m pretty sure is) testimony from the Jeffrey Dahmer trial. In ’83 they released “Halloween Night” on their Guilty Face EP.
Acid Witch – “5508 Martin St”
No one embraces the true spirit of the holiday more than this psychedelic death/doom band from Detroit. Vocalist Shagrat has a perfect witch’s cackle (and he paints the covers of their and other bands’ albums) and Slasher Dave’s keyboards bring a touch of John Carpenter. “Mr. Beistle” is a tribute to The Beistle Company Halloween decoration manufacturer, “Trick or Treat” continues our trend of on-the-nose titles, but I decided to feature a cut from their newest album, Rot Among Us, released this month. It includes either a clip of the Crypt Keeper or someone who can does a bang-on impression. It also taught me the word deliquesce.
Sonic Youth – “Death Valley ‘69 (w/Lydia Lunch)”
If anyone asks why you’re playing noise rock at your costume party, just show them the cover of Bad Moon Rising. Later reissues of the album included their single “Halloween” as a bonus track.
There you are, enough blood-soaked bangers to make a mix-tape that will bring down the house (the house of Usher, that is). What tunes tingle your spine? What ditties disgust and delight you in equal measure? Tell us below and may all your monster mashes be graveyard smashes.
Boo!
In 2012 I was the music director for Art Amiss, an Arkansas arts non-profit organization, and co-produced a vinyl Arkansas metal compilation called “The Hills Have Amps“*, a follow-up to the Arkansas Punk! compilation CD I produced in 2010. Vore is probably the best known band on the metal compilation.
* I can’t take credit for the title, but I love the reference and how the Cthulhu-esque cover artwork by Preston Graves turned out:
The first season is another recommendation I’d make for a Halloween watch list. It’s more thriller than horror, but there are some hints of supernatural horror just bubbling below the surface throughout the entire story.
I’d heard the name, but never put a face to it before. Now I know!
What is more Halloween than cats?
The Killing Moon is such a stellar song.
Do songs about spontaneous human combustion count?
I see that Neal Diamond has, up till now, been overlooked in this thread.
This B52s song fits here I think:
Well, you’ve all clearly established you know what you’re talking about…
Scariest house on the block will projecting Biden’s Philly speech on the side of the house while Mercyful Fate’s “Black Funeral” and Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss” loop all night long…
wont be my house, though…
From their “Ghost Stories” album:
I confess, I’ve not heard of any of those bands (though H.P. Hovercraft is a great name). Cool artwork.
As far as Cthulu mythos inspired cover, it’s hard to top Michael Whelan’s art for Sepultura’s Arise:
They do. I would have thought I had at least one song on the subject, but nope. I’ve got premature burials, disembowelment, and suffocation, but no spontaneous human combustion.
Murray from Guadalcanal Diary said “Fire From Heaven” was about spontaneous human combustion, but I never quite got that in thirty years of diggin’ it.
What better way to send off the night?
I think this is a problem. This collection of metal and punk should not really be on Ricochet. See, just knowing about, let alone liking/listening to “oldies bands” like Sepultura, King Diamond, et al disqualifies us from ever being a grown up. In other venues, I’d wear that as a badge of honor, and I’d attract attention, and get dismissed by the snobs. but here, man, I feel like a square… I mean, too many of these bands I saw live, too many I’ve met, and too many CDs, and even records did I have.
and all the time my peers were bleeding-heart liberal pukes, shunning me for my politics… but accepting me for my musical taste.
I think I am going to cry.
There’s no crying in metal.
🥲well, as Prong says, I Beg to Differ, and so does Anthrax: https://youtu.be/CEuHfNFX5SU
Ha, I’ve never heard that song.
I’m more of an Overkill fan myself.
Probably my first time actually hearing a full song by them. I like the VH1 Classic thing in the corner, as if they were playing that in 1991. MTV didn’t either.