Songs We Love That Also Give Us The Creeps
By ACRN Staff
Pharmakon - “Bestial Burden”
There’s no song that quite captures the spooky essence of Halloween quite like “Bestial Burden” by Pharmakon. The first time I listened to it I was nestled in bed on a dark, rainy afternoon with my lights off. As the song progressed and the vocals got more and more abrasive, I sunk deeper and deeper into my blankets, sweating nervously, just waiting for some dark entity to slip around the corner and drag me into oblivion.
There’s suspense, chaos, manic laughter and a sense of isolation that pervades every molecule of your body when you listen to it. And when the seven minutes of eerie assault end, the feeling of deep divide between your mind and physical body is a heavy burden that stays with you for a few hours, stalking you silently and reminding you that your life is finite and death will come for you.
-Megan Fair, General Manager
oOoOO - “Mumbai”
I'm almost positive that this song was produced in a special corner of Hell, or at least I like to think so. oOoOO has captured the dingiest bits of my soul with his abysmally hypnotic sound. The deep hums, alluring tones and soul-altering bass lured me in the moment I heard his music. oOoOO has proved himself to be one of the top witch house musicians (did I mention that I'm a huge witch house fan?) with his dark and dirty beats.
Now that I've introduced the artist a bit, it's time that I explain why this song in particular is 3spoopy5me. During a choir trip to Florida in my senior year of high school, we visited Cocoa Beach. On the bus ride from the beach back to Orlando, we drove into some seriously ominous storm clouds. I was listening to Mumbai from my iTunes as we drove into the storm. The wind and the rain violently crashed against the bus, making it difficult for the driver to see. We had to pull over, not only because of the driver's inability to see the road, but also because a tornado was quite literally heading right for us. We had to crouch down underneath the seats of the bus as it was our only source of protection.
This was an extremely traumatizing experience for me because A.) the song was super creepy, and B.) I'm terrified of tornadoes. Needless to say I was sobbing uncontrollably while my friend consoled me under the seat. Thankfully the tornado decided to pass right by our bus rather than through it, but the experience left me with a permanent mental scar. To this day, it's hard for me to even listen to this song.
-Sammi Nelson, Blogs Editor
The Cure - “Lullaby”
The chilling darkness veils the lurking Spiderman on his hunt. He feeds on the fearful. Prowls on the defenseless, shivering in their beds. Spiderman is always hungry.
For those of you who don’t dig The Cure, frick ya. They get it.
I first stumbled across the airy whispers and serenading violins of “Lullaby” one study hall my freshman year of high school. I remember the enchantment of the Spiderman himself, the gentle caress of Robert Smith’s voice. I was absolutely captivated that it landed amongst the lucky few songs that get the pleasure of being put on repeat for days on end. I was so moved by it all that I looked around me to see if anyone else in the auditorium felt it too, they didn’t…I had my earphones in. What a shame.
At first listen, I was entranced by the steady rhythm and devilishly innocent guitar that seemed to move like a winter wind. I always found the music to be far more sensual than what the startling lyrics provoke, that I almost wished I was the Spiderman’s next victim. I still do.
“It’s much too late to get away or turn on the light / the Spiderman is having you for dinner tonight.”
-Alexa Smith, News Editor
Gravediggaz- "Diary of a Madman"
The environment this song creates is instantly unsettling. It starts with oppressive bass rumbling and a wailing singer imitating a tormented spirit. Each member of the Gravediggaz crew represents a man slowly going insane.
First, the man is angry as he describes the ways he tortures his victims. Then he becomes unhinged, desperately gasping and screaming as he recalls the nightmares in his tormented mind. He finally is resigned to his fate of life in prison, describing his crimes to a judge in a heartless monotone.
Through the entire song, the man's inner voices are represented to the listener as barely audible whispers, floating the right speaker to the left.
RZA's verse is most frightening, as he frantically yells and spits out lyrics about his torture as if he's currently reliving it. The interludes between each verse shows the audience in the court is disgusted and frightened by the confessions, and the performances are surprisingly well acted for a skit on an album. Gravediggaz rarely delved into horror this deeply, but with "Diary of a Madman" they created one of the most disturbing songs that you'll ever nod your head to.
-Travis Boswell, Staff Writer
Defeater - “White Oak Doors”
This is the climax to Defeater’s sophomore LP, Empty Days, Sleepless Nights. The song kicks off with shimmering guitar feedback that sounds like wind on a chilly, drab northeastern dusk.
The first song tells the story of the album’s protagonist as he comes face-to-face with his “coward” brother, the brother he blames for his mother succumbing to heroin addiction after his father is killed. The song builds as it progresses, with a repetitious basic bass and simple guitar lead with a unison snare-kick on the drum. Derek Archambault builds the narrative to its end as the protagonist takes his brother, gun in hand, to the train tracks, where a train is quickly approaching. The brother pulls him down to the tracks and takes the gun, pushing it through the protagonist’s cheek.
The song abruptly ends as the protagonist speaks to his brother, “You took him / If this is how it’s going to be / I’d rather die / At the hands / Of my own / Fami—.” Abruptly, the song ends, leaving the listener to assume both were hit by the train.
-Christopher Reinbold, Contributor
Chief Keef - “I Don’t Like”
Have you ever been to the South Side of Chicago? It's a pretty scary place, perfect for a Halloween slasher movie, where killers roam the streets freely and no one gives a damn. Chief Keef knows this, and his hit single “I Don't Like” perfectly captures the belligerent spirit of Halloween.
He and his crew are about doing the most downright dastardly shit you can imagine, from stealing your girl, to shooting up his enemies, GBE would earn the approval of the most notable Halloween villains. While Keef doesn't exactly conjure up images of vampires and zombies haunting your nightmares, he's the perfect soundtrack for the more violent parts of the holiday endorsed in recent times.
As well as being one pro-violence dude, “Don't Like” has a scary campfire story vibe that makes you scared to go out at night. You wouldn't want Chief Keef at your door at 3 a.m.
-Eli Schoop, Contributor
Charles Manson - “Look At Your Game, Girl”
Surely, the Manson murders clutched America partly because of the irony: one egomaniac hippie ends Peace and Love Decade in bloodbath. When I heard 1967’s “Look at Your Game, Girl,” I couldn’t accept its existence. It sounds so serene. How can a man that vile sing something this beautiful as a montage of his Family’s killing spree plays over in my head? It’s like A Clockwork Orange.
In two minutes, ten years plays out. Vinyl popping like the campfire at Spahn Ranch gives way to a starting chord of sweet innocence, as the 50s did to the beginning of the 60s. The philosophical serenade ages through the latter decades’ landmark emotions, then fades away in a morose sigh of “sad game, mad game.” Eerily, the song is lovely as it is oracular, mirroring in its nature the irony of the murders themselves, and predicting in its dying lines the American public’s reaction to the end of 1969.
-Marc Blanc, Contributor
Timber Timbre – Hot Dreams
Timber Timbre is a pretty creepy band. They released a record called Creep On Creepin’ On for God’s sake. Now, “Hot Dreams” isn’t their creepiest song instrumentally but lyrically… that’s a different story. The song is basically about thinking about what a relationship with a certain woman would be like. Now Timber Timbre has some sentiment here, vocalist Taylor Kirk mentions being a “champion in your eyes,” but he also mentions waking from ‘hot dreams’ about ten times. If you don’t know what hot dreams are, well, they are sex dreams. Now that may not be a bad thing but the vocals and instrumentation on this track is so foreboding and almost threatening.
Funny enough, Kirk mentions “following through on threats,” so that’s a bit weird. He also mentions his and his lady friend’s ‘hot streams’. I’m not so sure what those are but I’m not exactly keen on finding out.
-Tony Cardwell, Contributor
Giles Corey - “Empty Churches”
“The voices of unknown origin appearing on radio frequencies were first noticed in Scandinavia by the military in the ‘30s,” drones paranormal researcher Raymond Cass in the eerie sample that opens this spooky staple. This dissertation continues for another two minutes solid, with little to no background music, little to no Giles Corey, save for haunting organs and ghostly chorals that start off almost silently. This background ambiance slowly grows in weight (Get it? More weight?) until Cass finishes and ethereal drum and guitar, as well as more organ, come in, steadily breathing more and more life into this corpse of a track.
For any artist other than the otherworldly, demoniacal Giles Corey, this would seem to be a strangely-composed piece. On Giles Corey’s self-titled LP—an album centered around the impending suicide of the artist and his ruminations on the world of spirits—though, this quiet look at “voices of unknown origin,” feels right at home and particularly haunting (GET IT?).
There is no spookier track, artist, or album for Halloween, because there is nothing spookier than the imagination. Giles Corey lays down a transparent framework for a non-song and your imagination runs rampant in the sections he refuses to fill. Quiet, dreamy songs are the only songs that can truly scare you. And songs with spooky organs and scary samples. Those too.
-Jordan Matthias, Contributor
The Black Dahlia Murder – “Funeral Thirst”
This isn’t the spookiest or grimmest song I could think of, but over the years, this has become a go-to Halloween jam for me. I could have written this about a majority of The Black Dahlia Murder’s catalog, but this song gets the nod because of its raw intensity, and for the fact that this song kick-started my love for this band. The lyrics, which essentially tell the story of a dead man coming back to life to get revenge, are worded in the wonderfully poetic style that The Black Dahlia Murder is known for.
The voice samplings in the intro to this song are quite eerie, and the breakdown/riff that it transitions into is absurdly heavy. As a whole, the track is just a great Halloween song, and it always seems to create a mood of wanting to mischievously loiter and play death metal in a graveyard with some friends.
-Eric Perzanowski, Contributor
Electric Wizard - "Mind Transferral"
“The clues are there. The Satanic symbols, 666. If you see that written on your child’s
notebook, if they’re into heavy metal music, if they’re associating with strange characters, or
drifting off to ceremonies and not explaining where they’re at; it’s well worth it for parents to
look deeper and ask, ‘What exactly are you up to?’ ...Because this is serious.” This sample from
20/20 about Satanism and the lingering deep feedback starting at 13:58 are what makes this
song the spookiest for the season.
Electric Wizard songs typically remind me of Fall and all the feels of the season, but “Mind Transferral,” and the album it is on, the reissue of Dopethrone, evoke feelings of nostalgia in me. It is easy to get lost in the almost fifteen minutes of swirling, fuzzy guitar and heavy bass in this song that ends in a devilish laugh and allow your head to go someplace darker than you intended.
-Jess Conroy, Contributor
