Halloween, Hallowe’en, Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve…
6 min read
HALLOWEEN, deeply rooted in pagan traditions, is nowadays celebrated throughout the world in various forms. On October 31st, people gather to remember the dead (Día de los Muertos, in Mexico), saints (All Saints’ Eve), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. What started as religious rituals has evolved thru ages into a more commercial and secular celebration. Whether you’ll be trick-or-treating, attending a Halloween costume party, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, or watching your fave horror films, please don’t hesitate to check out our musical contributions to the celebration. Not for the faint of heart … it is HALLOWEEN after all … Mwahahaha …
Emil/UHF Halloween playlist
Costumes optional trick-or-treaters, this Halloween I am offering you three music videos, perhaps not incredibly scary or gory, but nevertheless thought provoking. read more Essentially slasher is the video to the title track of KREATOR’s 1986 sophomore effort, “Pleasure to Kill’. An album highly regarded in the underground metal community as an extreme metal subgenres development cornerstone. Delving into occult and exorcism, the superb track “Land of Tears” is lifted from PESTILENCE’s technical/progressive death metal masterpiece, “Testimony of the Ancients”. Released in 1991, this concept album, together with Death’s “Human” and Atheist’s “Unquestionable Presence”, pushed the boundaries of death metal into the stratosphere. Keeping with the occult and supernatural mythology is TRIBULATION’s first track on their early 2018 release, “Down Below”. Beautifully dark, “The Lament” makes also my nomination for metal song of the year. Be sure to check under your bed, tonight … Emil/UHF Tom Halloween playlist Halloween, a time for women to dress like prostitutes without fear of censor and sales in corpse paint to see their biggest spike since the last time Dimmu Borgir toured. And what better band to unite the themes of sex and death, while simultaneously drawing from tradition and keeping everything tongue in cheek to piss off the purists than Type O Negative? Every day is Halloween. read more Tom Mö Halloween playlist When the autumn leaves begin to change and the cool breeze tingles your spine, you know its time for Halloween! But it is this time of year where watching some of my all-time favorite horror films gets me in the mood for something creepy. It also brings me back to when I was younger and how I got started into my love of all things horror and metal. Because they kind of go hand in hand really; and at a very young age, I was introduced to both by family members. read more My affinity of Universal Monster Movies and music soared with the introduction of Black Sabbath. A chance meeting from my aunt that started with the sound of distant thunder as rain began to fall. Was the storm getting closer? You could hear a bell toll in the distance, and you knew at that very moment that something so menacing and sinister was about to happen. I was introduced to pure evil and ecstasy in that very moment and it has been with me for nearly 44 years. “Even a man who is pure in heart So here is a little playlist for you to get in the mood on this Halloween 2018. I could have chosen some of the obvious, or even where it all started for me? But decided to share five tracks that upon my very first listen to them had me returning to the place where it all started; hair-raising, bloodcurdling and simply horrifying! The thought of being ‘Buried Alive’ and how Venom delivers this incredible track that started as an infatuation, and has become more of an obsession since 1982…Let me out of here! Mercyful Fate was plenty evil right from the start, but ‘The Oath’ with its eerie beginnings, builds to the ultimate allegiance to Satan! Zombies may be all the rage today, but in 1986 both ‘Day of the Dead’ & ‘The Return of the Living Dead” were clearly on my mind when first hearing Dark Angel’s ‘Hunger of the Undead’. Was it a form of purgatory or an ode to the undead? Either way, it’s a killer track! Have a Safe and Happy Halloween and hope you enjoy! Mö The Key Keeper Halloween playlist When I was a little boy I remember to hear about Celtic festivities in the area where I live but I never saw them. That time I didn’t understand what that meant. People still say that in the past The Elders explained to all what it was, how to do the things, what was necessary, the real meaning of the festivities and that we should keep our roots and traditions. Sadly those Elders are gone and with them the tradition. read more So for me, this time of the year, it’s time for dried fruits such as chestnut, hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds etc … The time of the year when the cold gets stronger. The time of the year that the blood starts to feel the need to run faster to keep me warm. The time of the deads. The time that days are smaller and the moon spends more time exposed. And because of blood, the deads and the moon… I chose the following songs… The Key Keeper Count Vlad Halloween Playlist Living in an orthodox country, the holiday has never been in focus, but mostly for fun after the years the iron curtain fell. It continues to be so now – just to have a celebration and fun. Still though our beloved music is abundant of horror, gore, blood, zombies, dead. I was very much hesitant what to put here, having in mind all the blood spilling from the more brutal genres. I even thought about some tunes in praise of my lonely castle and the vampires…read more Then I decided to go like this: one track for the Halloween itself with Misfits (well not King Diamond). Second track because of my love from the childhood to the horror stories and Stephen King. Pet Sematary is among the very finest novels of the master of the horror, as well a great scary movie. The Ramones have always been a part of King’s art, so here we go. Third one – yeah it had to be some gore definitely, so why don’t we go with Pungent Stench. I have always loved their music, artworks and that smile, that funny side of all gore. Enjoy the celebrations! Count Vlad D00mfr0g Halloween playlist Hellwell – “It’s Alive” Mercyful Fate – “Melissa” Black Priest of Satan – “We, As Shadows Of Satan” D00mfr0g
You know the story, boy meets girl, girl smokes a clove cigarette and looks moody, girl dies, boy performs a pagan ritual to summon girl back from the dead, boy sacrifices soul for the whole of eternity. History just keeps on repeating. But will she trick or treat? I bet she will…
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.”
~ Curt Siodmak
The late Mark Shelton’s side project, focusing more on horror and doom than the epic traditional metal of Manilla Road. The pipe organs makes for an extra spooky time, and Shelton’s eerie vocals sound like that of Dr. Frankenstein, dancing along the cusp of madness and power as he brings his creation to life. read more
Everything you could want out of Mercyful Fate, and the classic King Diamond storytelling makes for a superb Halloween tune. The closing whisper of “I think Melissa’s still with us, gives me chills to this day.
One of the many projects of Daniel “Avenger” Cichos, Black Priest Of Satan is black/doom in purest sense of the term. Slow and raw, foreboding and filthy – all coupled with the moaning and wailing vocals that make the perfect soundtrack for lurking around in cemeteries in Halloween night.
