Metal Musicians Reveal Their Choices for the Scariest Songs Created
In a fascinating exploration into spine-chilling audio, various well-known rock and heavy performers talk about the compositions that send shivers down their spines.
An Experimental Artist
Bernard Herrmann – The Murder (1960)
While frightening music often excites me, the piece that really induces chills is the shower scene music from the legendary director's iconic film The Thriller. Even after numerous watchings, the slashing blade synched with the composer's music always induces fear.
In recent times, the artist went through a phase of watching Japanese and Korean horror films. Unfortunately, I had to stop watching them due to health concerns, yet none affected me like the Hitchcock sequence. Audio paired with images heightens the experience, holding you in a condition of elevated anticipation for the unexpected.
Stephen O’Malley
Abruptum – A Sinister Track (The Nineties)
This infamous vinyl record was acquired from a acquaintance in 1992. The listeners didn't know what this was or which speed to listen, slow or fast. It's really disturbing, demented, spontaneous heavy music filled with pain and torture.
Rumors circulated about the late frontman Tony Särkkä, referred to as IT, with some claims subsequently validated. At that time, it was said the audio captured someone named IT being tortured and shocked during vocal sessions.
Negative comments frequently arise when black metal is exposed to the wider world, but in my view darkness is infinitely more profound in the light, and the popular culture is much more messed up today than that hidden dungeon community was in the early 90s.
Amy Walpole
An Experimental Act – A Haunting Song (2021)
The artist felt attracted to this band's album Madison because it was made in a cave. This track is open to interpretation, but I think it's a piece about isolation and desiring to be remembered after you die. Some words describe dying in grotesque ways, while others include ordinary imagery like a toy figure.
Having been brought up in a charismatic Christian church – essentially a sect – until I was 16, I can relate to the spiritual themes. The song feels cathartic. It's a ballad, fundamentally, but dark, gothic and sad, and the artist adores the strange, alternative atmosphere.
Stephen Mallinder
Henry Blair – Sparky’s Magic Piano (The Forties)
It formed part of a collection of short audio dramas starring a little boy, Sparky, who was trying to master the piano. The experience occurred when I was about five, more than a decade after its release. A radio station broadcast a kids' program on weekend airwaves, playing songs that adults thought kids would like, frequently mid-century quirky tracks, which I found very unsettling.
The recording intrigued and terrified the listener. When Sparky’s mother was out of the room, the piano would start talking to him in a tone produced by a Sonovox, a primitive vocoder. I think that was the catalyst for an ongoing preoccupation with manipulating voices, but as a five-year-old, I was convinced it was a youngster imprisoned inside a piano for eternity.
TheOGM
Herbie Hancock – Paint Her Mouth, from the Death Wish score (1974)
The artist's father was a big fan of action films, so the viewing of Death Wish occurred in childhood. Residence in an city setting that was similar to the metropolis depicted in the film, with groups, muggings and break-ins, so I could relate. Personally, that was much scarier than slasher films or Nightmare on Elm Street.
As an adult, I stumbled across the music occurred, and if you hear it in isolation, it's truly chilling. The musician's a master but the impressive aspect is he achieves a lot out of so little – like a little snare drum sound or minimalist synthesiser, an echo or some strings. It just seems like darkness, or like someone’s following you, so you feel compelled to hold your bag or have your key ready when you get to your door.
Tatiana Shmayluk
Agatha Christie – Opium for No One (The Nineties)
When I was young, scary cartoons or films failed to frighten me much. Then, after a sibling exposed me to the genre, the hearing took place one afternoon in cold weather when my parents had gone to work and truly felt scared. It's a gothic style. The title translates as A Lonely Drug. It's more dark and sad than horrifying, but the lyrics are really dark. “I paint my lips black with shoe polish … the celestial bodies glisten at me and the underworld looks attractive.” Then: “Kill me, kill yourself, you won’t change anything.”
At nine years old, I didn't know the meaning, and painted pictures in the mind. I was born in Russia but grew up in a neighboring nation, and in those countries in the 90s the music got quite depressing. Currently, residence in California. All my friends have departed the country, and when contacting family, sometimes I hear bombing.
Taylor Momsen
John Williams – Opening Theme, Theme From Jaws (The Seventies)
I was 10 or 11 when I first saw The Film and the movie would not be what it is without John Williams's theme. For me, it's the king of scary music because of its minimalism. With just a simple motif and changing the intensity, it creates immense anxiety. You feel that a threat approaches, and the motif mirror the primal nature of the predator's instinct.
The difference between the shark film and supernatural movies is that the threat – a shark attack – is actual. The artist enjoys to swim. For a period, I had a house in Maine and would swim in the sea for extended periods. Heaven forbid, if that theme's in your mind and a contact occurs, you start to freak out. You can't help thinking: “Predator!”
William Von Ghould
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – A Dark Ballad (1996)
I remember acquiring the The Album album home in young adulthood and a friend asking me to stop the song because it was frightening him. The song is sort of an reinterpretation on an traditional tune, but it's nothing like the original. It's extremely graphic, but the frightening thing is that the antagonist is a person. Cave is portraying a violent character, but is very convincing.
Includes that crazy, violent line: “I’ll crawl over many individuals just to get a specific target” – it's probably more shocking now than it was originally. Similar to scary movies, the song takes your breath away. We play with a lot of gothic, Halloween-type bands but nothing’s as convincingly frightening as the song.
Cassyette Artist
Ethel Cain – {Perverts
