As October draws to a close, one of the most anticipated holidays on the calendar looms large in our minds. Halloween is a time to celebrate all things unfamiliar and embrace the most iconic fears of our imagination. With that comes the perfect opportunity to test out some new music. This list compiles six albums that seem to have come to visit us from other worlds, infusing this year’s Halloween with that much more spectacle.
1. The Horror and the Wild by The Amazing Devil
“You were raised by wolves and voices / Every night I hear them howling.” So begins the title track of The Horror and the Wild, a veritable masterpiece by London-based folk rock duo The Amazing Devil. While rich in bold declarations and epic chorus lines, The Horror and the Wild manages to express the full spectrum of human emotion in forty-six minutes of pure intrigue. A child calls out to an absent parent; two survivors command us to witness as they remake themselves; a couple is haunted by violence both inside and outside the home. These tales share a supernatural undertone that lends a timeless air to the album’s lyrics, which also include references to the routine intimacy of daily life, balancing the line between “chilling” and “comforting.” The album mixes myth and mundanity until they become indistinguishable, and our own lives seem to have been elevated by its storytelling.
2. Dance Fever by Florence + the Machine
Inspired by horror movies and choreomania, or the medieval “dancing plague” (x), Florence + the Machine’s latest album is an unflinching depiction of terror, irrationality, and self-sabotage. Its often fast tempo and rhythm-heavy instrumentals convey a breathless anxiety, while the lyrics execute dizzying heel turns between the deeply personal, as in ‘Back In Town’ and ‘My Love’, and the remote and intimidating, as in tracks like ‘Dream Girl Evil’ and ‘Heaven Is Here’. The first song and title track ‘King’ also explores creative anxiety and the pains of performance: “How much is art really worth? / The very thing you’re best at / Is the thing that hurts the most.” Ending with the cathartic finale ‘Morning Elvis’, Dance Fever is a searing portrait of a world and mental state that are constantly, frighteningly in flux.
3. The Gods We Can Touch by Aurora
Singer-songwriter Aurora described her latest studio album as a series of questions on “everything that made us the way we are now” (x). This intimidating topic is approached by a bold combination of electro-pop tunes and lyrics abounding with mythological allusion in The Gods We Can Touch, best known for its title track ‘Cure For Me’. The catchy, self-confident beats of the album are balanced out by darker and more somber tracks including ‘You Keep Me Crawling’, an exploration of the pain of “worship,” and ‘Artemis’, an eerie ode to the strange ways of the titular goddess. The carefully assembled references to various Greek deities support the album’s celebration of passion, love, and sensuality. As its creator states in ‘Blood in the Wine’: “Life gave us a sweeter taste.” The Gods We Can Touch is certainly a sweet experience, but also carries a touch of a centuries-old wildness.
4. Aégis by Theatre of Tragedy
Speaking of old stories, this compelling album from the earlier discography of Norwegian gothic metal band Theatre of Tragedy makes beautiful use of inspiration from European folklore and mythology. Although the lyrics are in Early Modern English and Latin, you don’t need to understand every word to be moved by Aégis’ strange and surreal atmosphere. Each song overflows with dark romanticism and slow-paced passion; the backing guitar chords in songs like ‘Angélique’ are almost reminiscent of a harp, and the haunting dual vocals invoke visions of ghosts singing in a Gothic novel. If you’ve ever been interested in old, melancholy literature, now would be a good time to look into this collection of uncanny fables.
5. The Bifrost Incident by The Mechanisms
Fans of cosmic horror and murder mysteries will love The Bifrost Incident, the final myth-inspired entry on this list. This prog rock concept album takes figures from Norse mythology, places them on a severely creepy train in space, and tells their story through the framing device of a police investigation into their mysterious disappearance. Somewhat infuriatingly, it works. Listeners are introduced to captivating versions of Odin, Loki, Thor, and Sigyn, and hear their adventures and agonies as narrated by a jaded inspector who becomes obsessed with figuring out who could have destroyed the train. By the time we realise that a larger and far more sinister force stands behind the case, we’ve come to care about our heroes—ingeniously voiced by members of the band, who also have fascinating lore on their own stage personas—to the point that it hurts when it becomes clear that they have a slim chance of surviving a confrontation with this unknown power.
6. Foxlore by The Crane Wives
More down-to-earth in tone than the elevated storytelling of the other albums, Foxlore still shines as an earnest, intense snapshot of the human condition. This fourth album by American indie-folk band The Crane Wives features oddly comforting guitar lines ad infinitum, an abundance of emotional vocalisations, and simple, bold lyrical gems like “Little girl, don’t let them sell you any armour / All your ribs are still your own” or “See what a life you lead: / You’re an anchor for all the heaviest / Regrets inside of you.” The songs explore a plethora of topics from girlhood to betrayal to feeling fundamentally cursed, culminating in ‘The Garden’, a cryptic and haunting finale best experienced lying on your bed in candlelight.
Image courtesy of Kenny Eliason via Unsplash. Image licence can be found here.
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