Today is Halloween, and there’s no better way to celebrate than with some top-notch music, so here are my top five albums for All Hallow’s Eve.
5: “Under a Funeral Moon” – Darkthrone
Darkthrone’s “Under a Funeral Moon” was a particularly special album that expertly captured the raw, monochromatic aesthetic of Norwegian black metal in the early 1990’s. The harsh sound showcased by the band on this album as well as its predecessor, “A Blaze in the Northern Sky” was a stark contrast from the band’s debut death metal album, “Soulside Journey” in terms of production and songwriting; it would be imitated the world over (and still is, in many cases) and would help cement Darkthrone as innovators of the burgeoning second-wave of black metal.
The rugged, grating sound of the album manifests an atmosphere of dark ceremonies in snowy woods after dusk, far in the north, of hordes of demonic warriors readying themselves for battle. Blasphemy, darkness, and demoniacal wailing abound, and while all of these facets of “Under a Funeral Moon” have become tired tropes in most modern black metal, it’s important not to forget their origins. Darkthrone made black metal their way: fierce, and without compromise. To date, Under a Funeral Moon’s legacy gleams throughout the annals of black metal history, and it try though many have, it’s place and importance remain inimitable.
There’s no better time for traipsing about the woods drunk wearing corpse paint than Halloween, and one simply cannot do so without paying homage to Darkthrone.
4: “Cruelty and the Beast” – Cradle of Filth
Thought I was going to say Midian again, didn’t you? Not this time. Cruelty was a dynamo of an album conceptually based around Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who drank and bathed in the blood of young maidens and was sentenced to death by immurement in the early 1600’s. Dark, brutally twisted black metal with a shimmering Gothic edge. Always a favorite of the season and in general.
3: “Too Dark Park” – Skinny Puppy
If you’ve grown weary of medieval sorcery, castles, and ancient battles in music and prefer to look at the horrors of the modern era, like sprawling dystopic mega cities, human rights violations, atrocities of war and the state, or immoral medical testing, then look no further. “Too Dark Park” is a rotten, rabid look at the misery of our world and the evil that humanity can do, all seen “from a dog’s eye view”. Dreary cityscapes seethe with drugged-out psychos and polluted back alleys rife with disease and poverty. A classic in the industrial scene, “Too Dark Park” more than lives up to it’s name.
2: “We Live” – Electric Wizard
We’re slowing back down now with this one. “We Live” is one of the most massive doom albums around. A lumbering giant basking in primordial darkness and witchery, B-movie sleaze, and soul-crushing, lung-collapsing atmosphere, whether this album is a good trip or a very bad one is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
1: “Eschatological Scatology” – Gnaw Their Tongues
This mortifying album is the epitome of auditory horror. Transfixing and abominable like a nightmare come to life and reeking of coprophilia and other heinous debauchery, Eschatological Scatology is the end-times in sonic form. The hushed machine voice of the narrator in “The Atrocious Angel of Scatology” sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.
“Covered with feces, she plunged down from the black void…”
Towers of Rust 