IN FLAMES and NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS are happy to announce exclusive anniversary vinyl re-issues of the band’s …
Halloween. An American “holiday” whose corporate origins and callous confections are slowly creeping taking over consumers the world over. This is Australia, we don’t need Halloween, not for the same reasons as the Yanks anyway.
MORE: #REALTALK: A Delonge Shot – We Want To Believe.
We do however, need and love good hard rock and heavy metal, and there’s certainly a fair amount of offerings in the metal nether verse centred around the ghoulish and the gory. So if you really must throw a party and dress up for reasons you’re not entirely sure why, here’s a few songs for you to shimmy and shake to. It would be all too easy to list classic standards like Michael Jackson’s Thriller or Marilyn Manson’s gnarly rendition of This Is Halloween, and where’s the fun in that? So instead, here lies ten songs of the darker variety, whose names we utter unto the darkest depths of the night.
Halloween and rock ‘n’ roll go hand in hand, complementing metal heads and hard rockers beautifully because, let’s face it, we’re a weird bunch aren’t we?
1. David Bowie – Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
From the 1980 album of the same name, the late great David Bowie spins a tale of love under the guise of gore and with the help of his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust.
2. Rob Zombie – Living Dead Girl
“Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?” Why it’s Rob Zombie, of course! It’s in the song, it’s the name, it’s in the band, and it’s in the man! All things horrorful are oozing from the ghastly guy himself, along with subtle nods to classic horror films, utterances by a sexy female voice and the mellow almost spoken words of Zombie, Living Dead Girl can make for an oddly sexy scary song.
3. The Horrors – Jack The Ripper
Punk never was quite as pestilent as The Horrors’ very graphic 2006 cover of the 1961 classic. Involving the murder of the narrators own mother by the unknown assailant, Jack The Ripper (And now my mother’s dead and buried/All we found her bones everywhere), The Horrors manage to intertwine that classic 1960’s surfer rock with a cloak of modern murk and mood—the eerie electric organ featured may have something to do with that.
4. Five Finger Death Punch – Jekyll And Hyde
Once you get over the monotony of Five Finger Death Punch sitting around discussing how they’ll shoot this video, Jekyll And Hyde is manic, meaty and metal. The song portrays a deranged fictional schizophrenic man who can’t escape his anger issues. It’s a bit more on the gnarly side of Halloween tracks and has more of a shock factor than most of this list and a good thing too—it was getting a little too whimsical there for a minute.
5. Skillet – Monster
This one just goes to show that even a Christian rock band can harbour a dark side! There’s some pretty conflicted lyrics here and Skillet could have afforded to go heavier, but perhaps they felt that if they gave in too much to the darkness, there’d be no crawling back to the light.
6. Arctic Monkeys – Pretty Visitors
From the band’s psychedelic third album Humbug, Arctic Monkeys are the unexpected inclusion in a list of bands who’ve contributed songs to the season. Pretty Visitors has lead singer Alex Turner doing some kind of rap over the band’s classic indie rhythms, about visitors from beyond. Quite where that beyond is exactly, we’ll leave down to your imaginations… or your nightmares.
7. Ministry – Every Day Is Halloween
Still burning about the cancelled Aussie tour, but Ministry are one of the most respected and well, industrious industrial acts ever to grace music, and with the band getting in touch with their inner Jack Skellington with a projection of a world of ghouls and ghosts and filled with Dangerfield approved nonsense, this track is worthy of a listen.
8. The One Hundred – Monster
Indescribable British band The One Hundred are pretty fresh on the scene but boy, do they know what they’re about. Rap, rock, nu-metal and a haunting choral effect, in the darkest depths of an English castle, a young girl goes a-hunting, attacking demonic beings, life-sized dummies and all manner of creepy characters with a Ghostbusters-esque strobe gun. It’s a very creative video and a very rockin’ song, good all year round – a must watch.
9. Alice Cooper – Ghouls Gone Wild
The original godfather of goth, the man, the legend, Alice Cooper has never failed to incorporate the haunted and hellish into his repertoire. It would be so easy to stick his classic song in this list (you know the one) but even as recently as 2011’s album Welcome 2 My Nightmare, Cooper has been throwing out nasty narratives like Ghouls Gone Wild, and to epic effect. Not bad for a guy who prefers turtle necks and golf in his spare time.
10. Tim Curry as Frank ‘n’ Furter – Sweet Transvestite
Okay, okay, maybe just one classic. It’s here because it’s just fun and awesome and leaves you with some questionable thoughts. You know you love it. Happy bopping!
