It’s that time of the year again! We sat down and prepared a Halloween special for you again, including a brand new Spotify playlist with some of the best tracks tailored for the night when the line between the living and the dead vanishes.
Did you know there are some bands whose music is essentially based in horror movies and Halloween? These bands are terrifying with their music and looks during the whole year, whether is Halloween or not. For example, the French band Ghouls Stone Valley with Kommandant K at vocals and Fanny Themlin at drums, get inspiration for their music from horrors and bands like Rob Zombie or Marylin Manson. The band also played at a special Halloween concert, Halloween Soirée, in 2016, and their songs and videos will make you see them in your nightmares. Swedish vicious queen Scarlet and her band are another act in metal scene that has a powerful image with their skull make-up, bloody red paint on lips and the mix of white-ghost and black-dark clothes. Based in Los Angeles, we have Raven Black. They’re not only a music band with gothic influences. Their concerts are literally a theatrical dark carnival act where each band member represents a role in the story: Raven, Muppet, the “Doctor” and Stiches.
There are even entire festivals and evenings dedicated to Halloween. In Spain, there is a Halloween Metal Fest celebrated annually in October-November in the north of Spain. During the years, the festival has counted on bands such as Diabulus in musica, [In Mute] or the now dissolved band Dawn of the Maya. As many other events, this year the festival has been cancelled.
With their blackecked symphonic/gothic metal, Blackthorn have plenty of songs to make you feel afraid, tension or anger, and create a perfect atmosphere for a Halloween night. We cannot forget death metallers Venom Prison with their fast drums, heavy guitars and the die-hard vocals of Larissa Stupar. It seems their music comes directly from the underground, created by evil creatures. The cinematic symphonic metal albums of Dark Sarah provide us a story about the dark side of the character Sarah in a world full of creatures and magical characters. You should especially pay attention to their latest album “Grim”, which opens the gates of the new fantasy horror world. Check out their short “Grim Halloween special” below.
There are also some interesting music videos with scary concepts or creepy and dark visuals. The Americans Spiritbox show two characters represented by vocalist Courtney LaPlante in their Midsommar-styled video clip for “Holly Roller”. One looks all innocent and sweet, with a white dress and lovely flowers, dancing slowly, in contrast with the other wearing black and terrifying make-up with white eyes and aggressive screaming. And that’s just the beginning. You may find horror-esque and creepy moments in most of their music videos. Moving on, Malta’s extreme metal artist Mikaela took inspiration from familiar horror scenes for a music video for “Chaotic Mind” and even visited an actual morgue for the shooting of “Bring Me Blood”. Gruesome music videos go hand in hand with black metal, so it’s not a surprise that Myrkur’s “Ulvinde” and “Juniper” are on a different level of terrifying with all their death references. Telling their own horror story full of bloody images are Huntress with their visualisation for “Sorrow”. The most chilling video of 2020 is definitely from the hands of Raven Black; the brutal imagery from “Hear Me Cry” will haunt you for days. The list goes on and on. You can watch “They’re Coming To Take Me Away” or “Monsters Ball” from Butcher Babies, Vintersea’s “The Holy Procession”, Jinjer’s witchy “Judgement (& Punishment)”, “Burning Insight” from Frantic Amber, “Hass” from Null Positiv and much more.
To show their love for All Hallows’ Eve, some bands and artist have been publishing Halloween-related music and videos. Singer Vicky Psarakis (The Agonist) has been celebrating 2020 Halloween by dropping new covers on Friday’s throughout this October. The first one was “Vampira” from Devin Townsend and the second one was an a capella version of “Sally’s Song” from the famous “The Nightmare Before Christmas” movie. This Friday, she presented a metal version of the Ghostbusters theme song. Speaking of “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “Sally’s Song” was also sung by Amy Lee in 2008 and performed by Epica on the 31th October in 2012. Another cover taken from the same film is the one from Melissa Bonny’s band Ad Infinitum. They made a creepier version of “This is Halloween”, the theme song of Danny Elfman’s iconic movie.
Last year, the Italians Lacuna Coil released a brand-new song about the magical and dark night of Halloween called “Bad Things”. The song is dedicated to the last day of October when the boundaries between life and death become blurred, as they said. The song was an Amazon Originals only available at Amazon Music platform. At present, the band members wear black and white make-up on their faces during their concerts, too. Also, the band recorded a DVD of their special concert in London in 2018 titled “Lacuna Coil: The 119 show – Live in London”. With dancers, fire acts, eerie stage designs, several dress changes and scary make-ups, the show is a perfect choice for Halloween.
Simone Simons did something different and two years ago, she created a Halloween inspired make-up look. She even wrote down the used products on her Beauty and Lifestyle Blog “Smoonstyle” in case you want (and you are allowed) to celebrate Halloween this year. And if you like carving Halloween pumpkins, you can take inspiration from Infected Rain’s frontlady Lena Scissorhands.
Finally, we have to mention the film “Imaginaerum by Nightwish”, which story was written by Stobe Harju and Nightwish keyboardist and mastermind Tuomas Holopainen. The movie tells the story of an old composer remembering all his life in his deathbed. Together with a great music album with Annete Olzon on vocals, it is a good option to spend the night among dreams, memories, fantasy, intrigue, and scary characters and melodies. You can also hit the play button on our new Halloween-themed Spotify playlist, featuring some of the spookiest and most magical tracks from women in metal below (or click here for our first Halloween special).
Written by Beatriz Gamarra
Metal Goddesses 