You Really Think This World Is Yours?
Grave, Groovy and Goofy Albums for Halloween
Greetings again to all y’all out in Internetland! For my second Verbler post, I decided to dig into my favorite sounds of Halloween. This includes music that’s willing to journey out into the foreboding and unknown, or just things with a fall feel that are fun to dance to. While there’s plenty of creepy music on this list, I thought it would be prudent to keep the vibes high and shine the spotlight on albums that won’t give you a nervous breakdown as well.
Ghost Tropic
Songs: Ohia
Kicking things off here with this gorgeous, moody 2000 record from Jason Molina’s venerable indie folk project Songs: Ohia. While some of his other albums under this name focus more on the rock-forward sounds of slowcore or alt-country, Ghost Tropic has a very stripped-down sound, awash in bassy, detuned electric guitars, exotic-sounding percussion and spooky field recordings. Lyrically, this album is also one of Molina’s darkest, touching on themes of depression and isolation in impactful ways. While
Spiderland
Slint
Louisville post-hardcore legends Slint also have a definite vibe on their incredible 1991 LP, and that vibe is: making you want to crawl into a hole. While there are plenty of noisy, somewhat metal-adjacent freakouts that one would expect from an album with this description, Spiderland succeeds at creating a soundscape that perfectly illustrates musically the concept of horror: tense, muted guitars aided by Brian McMahan’s deadpan, whispery delivery on all but one track. While the musical style of the album is frequently compared to post-rock,
math rock and midwest emo, it is truly none of these, managing to create something wholly new from varying influences. This is also evident in the songwriting, which manages to transcend the uneasy scenes described through McMahan’s lyrics: tales of adolescent loneliness and isolation are illustrated through creepy amusement parks, unsettling parties, hungry vampires and captains lost at sea. Certainly the scariest entry on this list, and worth checking out for anyone who’s in for a fright.
Atomic Bomb
William Onyeabor
While few of Afro-funk pioneer William Onyeabor’s albums are widely known, his 1978 classic is definitely worth a listen. His music is perfect for a Halloween party: it’s groovy, chill and endlessly danceable. While certainly not nearly as creepy as most of the other albums on this list, there are a few cuts that are certainly spine-tingling; notably, “Better Change Your Mind,” in which Onyeabor sings about the inferiority of world powers to the divine over eerie keyboards and guitars. While the long track lengths require a good
deal of perseverance, Onyeabor’s music is an experience that will impact you in positive ways.
The B52’s
The B52’s
Fulfilling my obligation for at least one self-titled record per post here with the legendary new wave band’s 1979 debut. Drawing significant inspiration from sci-fi and surf rock of the late 50s and early 60s, the record incorporates past and current influences in a way that defies description, other than really cool. Vocalist Fred Schneider’s off-kilter, shouted deliveries pair perfectly with the performances of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, especially on tracks like “Rock Lobster” and “Dance This Mess Around.” The album’s
trademark guitar sound and sci-fi atmosphere contribute to an overall perfectly suspenseful ambience, making this another ideal record for a Halloween party.
Sad But Happy
Promiseland
While William Onyeabor or the B-52’s are good music for a Halloween party, this album is probably better for the afterparty: most of the guests have left, but this is where the dancing really starts. The 2023 debut of New York techno-punk Johann Rashid aka Promiseland brings the heat over just over 30 minutes of driving, industrial-inflected dance tunes. Despite his singular talent for aggressive performance, he is able to fit a surprising amount of variety within such a short runtime. Tracks like “Take Down the House” and
“Personal Reflektor” sound like something high schoolers would mosh to in an evil alternate universe, whereas “Liquid Language” uses smooth synths to create a more laid-back sense of nocturnal beauty. Rashid’s shouted delivery and somewhat blunt lyrics make this a difficult listen, but his music’s unique vision and irresistible sense of anarchy will grasp you after a few listens.
Car Radio Jerome
Fred Lane And His Hittite Hot Shots
This delightfully insane outsider jazz classic is probably one of the most out of place albums of the 80s, or of all time really. Across 9 tracks, Lane and his band deliver their characteristically unhinged takes on big band swing, rockabilly, Westerns, soulful ballads and just about everything in between. Lane’s vocal performance is highly erratic, lending his Sinatra-esque croon to
songs about heartbreak as well as getting pissed on by dogs and moldy French toast. While comparisons are most frequently made between this record and absurdist, avant-garde jazz and rock from the 70’s, it’s interesting to note that Lane’s music was effectively the South’s answer to New York’s nihilistic no wave scene in the early 80’s, creating an album that borrows just as much from Mars and the Contortions as from Captain Beefheart and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
The Natural Bridge
Silver Jews
While this album doesn’t seem like a conventional Halloween pick, I would argue that it’s a surprisingly fitting conclusion to this list. The incredible second album of memorable 90s alt-country band Silver Jews has some of the strongest, most melancholy songwriting I’ve ever heard. David Berman deadpans about loneliness, heartbreak and Satanic cities with a surprising sense of humor: “What if life is just some
hard equation / On a chalkboard in a science class for ghosts?” While the Halloween connection is certainly less obvious than most of the other music on this list, The Natural Bridge channels a really strong sense of nostalgic fall Americana that tends to bring me back to half-forgotten memories of my early childhood in Illinois. Not necessarily an album that grabs you on the first listen, but one that will come to sit in your mind, leaving you searching for buried relics of a simpler time.