In Honor of Halloween: Metal Horror Music Videos

Here are some fun music videos to watch in honor of Halloween tomorrow.

KREATOR: ENEMY OF GOD

CRADLE OF FILTH: SCORCHED EARTH EROTICA

MORBID ANGEL: GOD OF EMPTINESS

WHITE ZOMBIE: BLUR THE TECHNICOLOR

CANNIBAL CORPSE: MAKE THEM SUFFER

BLEEDING THROUGH: LOVE IN SLOW MOTION

In Honor of Halloween: Live Bands

Today, I am looking at groups with horror-themed live performances. They may either utilize props or costumes. These videos pretty much speak for themselves, so I will save commentary this time out.

WHITE ZOMBIE


GWAR


GORGOROTH


GHOUL


MAYHEM


IRON MAIDEN

In Honor of Halloween: Songs About Monsters

Today, we have a list of songs about monsters. Good monsters, bad monsters, monsters, monsters, monsters. I decided not to list songs from albums that I have recently discussed, which is why there are no songs by Iced Earth, Denial Fiend, and Force of Evil here. The monsters are either movie monsters, or monsters from literature, or even completely made up.

Metallica: The Thing That Should Not Be: This song is influenced by the H.P. Lovecraft story The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
Fearless Wretch
Insanity
He watches
Lurking beneath the sea
Great Old One
Forbidden site
He searches
Hunter of the Shadows is rising
Immortal
In madness You dwell

Pro-Pain: Rawhead: Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex
Beyond the realms of death
Lies beneath the earth a beast
And all is well
As he rots in hell
But he's soon to be released
In myth made by man
He's dismissed but not deceased
And to the church he came
He saw, he maimed
And pissed upon the priest

Slaughter: The Dark: Alien movies, I think. There are no lyrics available as this song was previously unreleased but the lyrics pretty clearly deal with the Alien.

Lich King: Predator: Self-explanatory, again there are no lyrics available, but it's pretty obvious this is referring to the Predator movies.

Arch Enemy: I am Legend/Out for Blood: Vampires/zombies, or something. It may be a reference to the story/movie, but the lyrics aren't clear.
I will get to you
And take you down
Tear your insides out
Crush your soul

I am out for blood
Out for your blood

Black Sabbath: Iron Man: A man transformed into a monster while trying to save mankind. This has been adapted to the Iron Man comic/movie, but it really is not related.
He was turned to steel
in the great magnetic field
When he travelled time
for the future of mankind

Nobody wants him
He just stares at the world
Planning his vengeance
that he will soon unfurl

Now the time is here
for Iron Man to spread fear
Vengeance from the grave
Kills the people he once saved

Dark Angel: Hunger of the Undead: Zombies
Eternally black
In limbo I'm trapped
In silence I sound a plea
Light is no more
I feel not a thing
Undead, I need to break free
Listen
The silence deafens all the unheard screams
The darkness rips away all the unseen dreams
Numbness shrouds my soul I'm left to roam
Paralysis now my only home
Spiritual planes do not exist
Life in this realm I will resist
And break these bonds - These chains that lock my soul
Watch my growing fire burst through the wall
I need to grasp the earthen world again
Onto the realm of humans I'll ascend

Dark Fortress: Cohorror: This one is pretty original. Seems to be some sort of parasite.
Even in this gruesome revelation
The bottom drops from abyssal unreallity

Wrenching revulsion
Cracks my skull, kills me again
I know this epiphany
Wearing my own face
Who are you

Cohorror has laid its eggs in me
Parasitic larvae from beyond existence
Raven the remnants of my decaying humanity

Death Breath: Flabby Little Things From Beyond: Lovecraftian monsters from potentially any story.
Vile beyond conception
Floating in the air
Made visible by science
They're around you everywhere

In loathsome profusion
Archaic and arcane
These jellyish monstrosities
Are fucking with your brain

Cathedral: Hopkins (The Witchfinder General): Based on a Vincent Price movie wherein the title character hunts witches.
She rides to the sabbath
Veiled under silver light
To make love to the devil
Necromancer of nyte
Within the mystic forest
She sets your world alight
Her coven conjure the demons
Herald the sacrifice yeah

Lucifera Vampirella
She bares the mark of the devil

Devourment: Unleash the Carnivores: No idea.
Rising, from the depths of filth
the worms will grub this fucking world
Scavenging for flesh
Filthy
rotten
Creatures stalk consume the dead
Rabid beasts will tear the skin of
all the scumbags that dwell among us
Spewing spit from savage jaws that tear
the limbs from tortured bodies
Screaming masses destined to be strewn among
splattered seas of entrails
Feasting are these ruthless beasts that crawled
from the darkest pits of hell

Helloween: Reptile: Possibly some reference to 1970's horror movies about gators in the sewers.
Coming from the sewerage creepin' thru the pipes
Born from modern chemistry a thing that is alive
Growing in this rotten crap at places no one wipes
Eating rats and stinking shit and all it needs to thrive

High on Fire: Cyclopian Scape: Again, no idea.
Reptile race crossbred down through the golden age, human haze
Lemurian throne taken and usurped by the alien drones, controlled and honed
Atlantian keys sunken and destroyed by catastrophe, left wandering
Bloodline kings slither down through society's reptoid dreams
Cataclysm to the elder tribes
Anunnaki have survived
Continents underwater shrine
Ocean vaults holding time
Say ye grace unto the serpent line
Unveil curse and their lies
Contemplate the lengths they'll go to rule
As their fangs dig into you

Impetigo: Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue: About a man becoming a zombie.
The bleak sun rises through the smog stained clouds
The day begins in a very somber way
The stench of the dead in the Manchester morgue
The stench of sterilized deacay...
The hideous signal...
I open my eyes, livid with sweat
Obnoxious film... but where have I been?
Strapped to the table, burning fluids course within my veins
Mortific eyes cannot dissuide that I see...
My plight is realized, I am dead but I see...
I feel the pain of the rush of formaldehype,
The brittleness of my bones
And they said I would never live again

Iron Maiden: Fear of the Dark: Just a general story about fear of the dark.
Have you run your fingers down the wall
And have you felt your neck skin crawl
When you’re searching for the light?
Sometimes when you’re scared to take a look
At the corner of the room
You’ve sensed that something’s watching you.

Fear of the dark ,Fear of the dark
I have constant fear that something’s always near
Fear of the dark, Fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone’s always there
Iron Maiden: The Wicker Man

Kreator: Storm of the Beast: Not real specific.
Down darkness all around
The beast is leaving its bloody home
The smell of death is in the air
People die if he wants the throne

And they fall down, down down to their knees
Mercy is a word he doesn't know

Krisiun: Minotaur: The Greek beast and inhabitant of the Labyrinth
Howls of a demon queen, seduced to an enslaving desire
Inhuman passion to an animal lust, bathed on sperm, scorpions and snakes

The offspring of an aberration was cast, to unify god and man
Mighty child, half man, half beast, shall be thrown into the twisting maze

Lair of the Minotaur: The Hydra Coils Upon this Wicked Mountain: Another Greek monster.
Nine giant, monstrous snake heads
One of them, immortal
In a cave, beneath a dead tree
Lie mass graves, as far as you can see

Lord Belial: Succubi Infernal: Demons that have sex with men.
Obsessing succubi silently walks through the dark
Allure them holy men into depravity and lust
Stare into the haze- behold the creature of the night
Beware of her eyes which swallow your sight
Grotesque yet beautiful visions glorified by creature of the night
Succumb for the fatal beauty of the temptress of darkness

Megadeth: Hangar 18: Alien Roswell Conspiracy
Foreign life forms inventory
Suspended state of cryogenics
Selective amnesia's the story
Believed foretold but who'd suspect
The military intelligence
Two words combined that can't make sense

Moonspell: Wolfshade: Werewolves
You nightly birth. A requiem God can't forget.
For your life is just a celebration of his death
Without his thorns in her heart. She wears a shadow as face.
A werewolf masquerade. In her eyes the wolfshade.

Morbid Angel: Chapel of Ghouls: Ghouls attacking a church.
Ghouls attack the church
Crush the holy priest
Turning the cross towards hell
Writhe in [sings "with"] satan's flames

Crush the priest
The feeble church

Dead - your god is dead
Fools - your god is dead
Useless prayers of lies
Behold satan's rise

Naglfar: Feeding Moloch: Demon
Moloch, oh Moloch I call upon thee
I bring you gifts of atrocities
The sound of breaking bones
And the grinding of teeth
Moloch has awoken to feed
Devourer of infants come forth and bless me
With this killing spree I aim to please
Your spiritual essence now embodied in me
The blood of babies smeared on my cheeks

Necrodeath: At the Mountains of Madness: Another Lovecraftian creature, taken from the story of the same name.
The Creature appears from darkness
Breaking the ancient gates
Their minds are twisted with fear

Comes? Death?
They will die!

Ozzy Osbourne: Bark at the Moon: Werewolf
THEY CURSED AND BURIED HIM
ALONG WITH SHAME
AND THOUGHT IS TIMELESS SOUL HAD GONE
IN EMPTY BURNING HELL - UNHOLY ONE
BUT NOW HE'S RETURNED TO PROVE THEM WRONG (OH NO)
HOWLING IN SHADOWS
LIVING IN A LUNAR SPELL
HE FINDS HIS HEAVEN
SPEWING FROM THE MOUTH OF HELL

AND WHEN HE FINDS WHO HE'S LOOKING FOR
LISTEN IN AWE AND YOU'LL HEAR HIM
BARK AT THE MOON.

The Black Dahlia Murder: What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse: Reference to Castlevania video game about zombies and vampires, and other baddies.
Into the tower never go the horrors multiply
Gears can mince the strongest
Ones leaving heroes paralyzed
The rivers flow with poison
The sands swallow you whole
The ghouls that roam this darkened wood
Are thirsting for your throat

Unholy inversion of hope twisting the faith of the meek into hate
Driven insane by the dark one to bring forth the foul biddings he speaks
The undead are among us at dawn they shrink back to their silken beds
They dance by night and drink the blood of a child's broken neck

The Gates of Slumber: Ice Worm: Not sure if this is an actual reference or not.
Ancient terror, of the snows.
Wyrm of ice, where the north wind blows.
Hollow song, and alien form.
Frozen death, its primeval storm.

Not Sure How I Forgot This

TRIBULATION: THE HORROR

I somehow missed this cover last week. Tribulation is a Swedish death metal band similar to the early 1990's bands such as Entombed, Grave, and Dismember. This cover is horrifying.

In Honor of Halloween: Mercyful Fate and King Diamond

King Diamond, a.k.a. Kim Bendix Petersen, of Copenhagen, Denmark is one of the most interesting vocalists in metal. King has been the vocalist for both Mercyful Fate and his self-named band, oftentimes simultaneously. King's vocals are very distinctive as King frequently sings in the falsetto range, occasionally coming back down to emphasize different voices, as the song requires.

Both bands have been cited for being a major influence on the development of thrash, death, black, and gothic metal. The two bands, though similar musically, are nonetheless a little different as far as creativity involved in the songs. For the most part, Mercyful Fate is more of a song band, allowing King and company to focus more on the songwriting aspect of music. King Diamond on the other hand, is more involved in the storytelling side of things. In addition, lyrically, Mercyful Fate deals with occult themes whereas King Diamond tells horror stories. Currently, King Diamond is still active while Mercyful Fate remains on hiatus.

From a visual standpoint, King is very memorable. He was among the first in metal to don makeup, a look which eventually lead black metal bands to apply "corpse paint". King also typically dressed like a heavy metal Dracula, wearing a black and red cape with his hair black and slicked back, although this look occasionally switched to a black trench coat and a top hat or bowler. King's microphone onstage was a cross made of bones hanging from the back of the microphone. He also once had a skull that he sang to, named Melissa after one of Mercyful Fate's early albums/songs.

The important thing for this Halloween-related blog today is that the songs by both bands were often spooky. King also has a gift for concept albums. I will cover each of the albums I own by both bands and discuss the concept or lyrical themes. If the album is not a concept album, I will look at some of the individual songs.

MERCYFUL FATE: MELISSA
Mercyful Fate's debut album was a large success and still is the most well-known album from the two bands. It featured songs about a witch who was murdered ("Melissa"), witchcraft ("Into the Coven"), and in general songs about Satanism and evil ("Evil", "Curse of the Pharaohs", "Satan's Fall").

MERCYFUL FATE: DON'T BREAK THE OATH
This album found the band settling on a style strongly influenced by Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, but dealign again heavily with the occult. Notable spooky songs include "Desecration of Souls", "Night of the Unborn", "Welcome Princes of Hell", and "Come to the Sabbath".

KING DIAMOND: ABIGAIL
Abigail is to King Diamond as Melissa is to Mercyful Fate, the most well-known album in the band's very strong catalog. The story to this album is about a young couple who moves into a mansion that the husband inherited, but are warned by seven horsemen to avoid the place. The husband is visited in his sleep by his ancestor who shows him a casket with an stillborn child inside and tells him that his wife is now carrying the spirit of the unborn child and must be killed to avoid the child becoming reborn. The wife is clearly pregnant the next day and progressing rapidly, but before he can do anything about it, she throws him down the stairs and Abigail is born, although the wife does not survive childbirth. Abigail is alone as the seven horsemen return to the mansion to kill her.

KING DIAMOND: "THEM"
King is the main protagonist in this story as he deals with his mentally ill grandmother who has recently returned from an asylum. King sees her having a tea party alone after investigating due to hearing strange voices and sees teacups and kettles floating in the air. Grandma later wakes him and tells him that she will tell him about Amon, her house, and takes him into his mother's room where Grandma cuts King's sleeping mother's hand and pours her blood into the teapot. King becomes catatonic as does his mother. His sister Missy tries to wake him to try to help their mother. King refuses to help and cuts the phone line. Missy breaks the teapot out of anger, but the ghosts in the house become enraged and chop Missy up with an axe and throw the pieces into the fireplace. King snaps out of it and leaves the house where he is able to understand the prior events. He lures his grandmother out of the house and kills her. He is convicted of the crime and sent to an asylum, but upon returning home finds that the voices and Grandma are still present.

KING DIAMOND: THE SPIDER'S LULLABY
This album is not a full concept album, although the second half of the songs do tell a story. The first half contains songs about ghosts ("The Poltergeist"), serial killers ("Killer"), and cursed children ("Moonlight"), among other things. The second half tells the story of a man afraid of spiders. The man finds a psychiatrist who claims to specialize in curing phobias. The man is placed into a room with a wolf spider. He complains of bites and pain but the doctor does not help him. Later, he is found dead in his room and cocooned in a spider web. After his death, spiders began using his empty eye sockets as nests.

KING DIAMOND: GIVE ME YOUR SOUL...PLEASE
A brother and sister are waiting for judgment in the afterlife. The brother is sent to Hell as a mistake has lead the Thirteen Judges to the wrongful belief that he had committed suicide, when in fact, both children were killed by their father before he committed suicide. The girl decides to find a new soul for her brother so that he can come to Heaven with her. She haunts King, the protagonist of this story as well. King contacts her via black magic and she tells her story, but she finds him too full of sin and he pleads with her to leave the house and find another soul before sunrise. She leaves King and comes to "THIS HOUSE", implying that she is coming to the home of the listener.

In Honor of Halloween: Horror Concept Albums

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have never been able to fully explain why, perhaps it is my fascination with things that are dark and disturbing (witness: my love of heavy metal and horror movies). Indeed, I believe it started with my fascination with horror movies as a kid. Of course, around Halloween, horror movies are shown all the time. I spent most of the weekend flipping channels between SyFy (Flu Bird Horror, Splinter, Snakehead Terror (which my fiancee lovingly recorded for me, thanks baby) and other atrocious films) and AMC's Fearfest (Return of the Living Dead, Alien movies, Dracula, etc.). I will probably watch over a dozen horror movies over the course of the week leading up to Halloween. Not all of them will be good, in fact the majority will not. Bad horror movies are almost as much fun as good horror movies I have found.

Where does that leave us here? Well, heavy metal has often found a way to deal with horror in its lyrical themes. Death metal is sometimes about slashers or zombies or some other such thing, black metal deals with the occult, even groups like Metallica and Iron Maiden have fashioned songs about horror subject matter. Sometimes, bands will choose to record entire albums devoted to horror. As seen yesterday, this may take the form of a tribute album to horror movie monsters. Other times, in a far more creative way, bands will formulate their album ideas around one central theme and essentially write their own horror story in the form of an album.

These concept albums are the topic of discussion here. I'm going to look at several such albums and explain what the storyline is. I will not look at the master of concept horror albums, King Diamond, choosing instead to devote an entire post to him alone.

CRADLE OF FILTH: DUSK...AND HER EMBRACE

Cradle of Filth probably deserve their own post as well, but I decided to not drag this out too much. The topic of discussion this time around is vampires, although they are often not mentioned by name. Most of the references are heavily inspired by gothic literature, a staple in Cradle of Filth's lyrics.

CRADLE OF FILTH: CRUELTY AND THE BEAST

The band's sound is a little closer to gothic metal than the black metal that was heavily present on their previous works. This album deals mostly with the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, even featuring guest narration by Ingrid Pitt who portrayed the Countess in an old horror movie by Hammer films about her. Bathory, it is said, bathed in the blood of young virgin girls to remain youthful and was convicted for the murder of 80 people, with some estimates closer to 600. She is one of the inspirations for Dracula.

CRADLE OF FILTH: MIDIAN

See what I mean? I am not even discussing a couple of the concept albums by this band. Midian is inspired by Clive Barker's novella Cabal, in which a man seeks answers to why he is drawn to a mythical city beneath a cemetary and the dark creatures that inhabit it. It's complicated, but it's typical for Barker stories.

IRON MAIDEN: SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON

Not a concept album per se, but all of the songs revolve around the theme of being able to see into the future and other psychic abilities.

MACABRE: DAHMER

This should be self-explanatory. Macabre, an early death metal/goregrind band, created this album based entirely around the life of Jeffrey Dahmer, noted serial murderer. It begins when Dahmer is a young man and extends to the controversy about what to do with the deceased Dahmer's brain. It's strange, unnerving, occasionally humorous, and utterly in bad taste. It's perfect for Macabre.

NEVERMORE: DREAMING NEON BLACK

This album by progressive power/thrash metal band Nevermore is supposedly based on Warrel Dane's own experiences. Supposedly, Dane had a girlfriend who left to join a religious cult, who he never heard from again. However, Dane had dreams of her reaching out and screaming for help from him as she drowned. The album takes this backdrop and features a man descending into insanity after his girlfriend dies.

OPETH: MY ARMS, YOUR HEARSE

Opeth is another band that has made a career out of doing elaborate concept albums. The storyline of this album revolves around a man who has died and become a ghost. The ghost becomes agitated when he starts to believe that his girlfriend did not genuinely grieve when he died. The girlfriend feels his presence and refuses to accept that he actually has passed.

OPETH: GHOST REVERIES

This is a rather simple concept album. Opeth depicts a man in constant turmoil after he killed his own mother.

YYRKOON: OCCULT MEDICINE

This album is based on the movie Re-Animator starring the immortal Jeffrey Combs, in which a young doctor has discovered how to raise the dead. The movie is loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story along the same storyline. The album sticks closer to the cheesy movie, although it is significantly more serious.

Three Fun Halloween Albums

Once again, in honor of Halloween coming up (I'm probably going to run out of ideas before I get there), I wanted to look at three albums that are especially fun to listen to this time of year. These albums are not scary at all musically (two are from power metal bands, the other a light-hearted death metal band). Instead the lyrical themes are old school horror movie monsters. That's what makes them a lot of fun. I love horror movies almost as much as I love metal, so albums that combine the two are great in my book.

DENIAL FIEND: THEY RISE

Denial Fiend is a band formed by Kam Lee, the original singer for Death (well they were actually known as Mantas at that time) and also formerly of Massacre. Denial Fiend is a death metal band but the band strives for more of a fun sound influenced equally by horrorpunk groups like The Misfits as they are by death metal. This album mostly deals with zombies, but also tackles The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Frankenstein as well.

FORCE OF EVIL: BLACK EMPIRE

The musicians from Mercyful Fate had to do something while King Diamond was busy with his self-named band, so they formed Force of Evil with a new singer. This band is more of a traditional metal band with some occasional power metal leanings but it is driven by the masterful guitar work of Hank Shermann and Michael Denner. The horror movie monster references are more recent than the Golden Age of Horror icons that Denial Fiend and Iced Earth touch on and include: Candyman ("Cabrini Green"), The Omen ("Days of Damien"), Friday the 13th ("Voorhees Revenge"), Texas Chainsaw Massacre ("Dead in Texas"), and In the Mouth of Madness ("Hobbs End"). It also features a song referencing many of Stephen King's works ("Disciples of the King").

ICED EARTH: HORROR SHOW

Iced Earth is a well-known American power/thrash metal band that is strongly influenced by groups like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. The band has been going strong for over 20 years at this point and sound as if they could continue for another ten years. This album, as mentioned above, deals more with Golden Age horror icons, with a couple of newer ones thrown in for good measure. Monsters with their own song include Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Wolfman, the Mummy, Jekyll and Hyde, and the Phantom of the Opera. Jack the Ripper and Damien from The Omen also have songs.

Strange Album Covers: Pt. 4 Horror Continued

Here we are with yet another entry in this series. I have to head back to my hometown for the weekend for our engagement party so I wanted to do something really quick.

LUNA AD NOCTUM: DIMNESS' PROFOUND

Luna Ad Noctum is a little-known symphonic black metal band with a gift for creepy album covers. This is the best one featuring a woman handing her child to a very large ghostly apparition. The music is basically Dimmu Borgir with a little bit of death metal flavoring. Not bad, just not overly memorable. The album art is amazing though.

ASPHYX: LAST ONE ON EARTH

Amazing art from an amazing band. I think we have a zombie priest here, but I am not totally sure. The art is extremely creepy though. Asphyx is a band from Holland and features one of my favorite vocalists, Martin Van Drunen, just after leaving Pestilence. The music is dirgy death/doom, one of the early examples of the genre.

LORD BELIAL: ENTER THE MOONLIGHT GATE

Lord Belial is another band well-known for their creepy covers. This one is a little more atmospheric than some of their others, but eerie nonetheless in the feeling of oncoming danger. Lord Belial is a blackened death metal band, for the most part. This particular album is closer to black metal, but they would add more and more death metal influences over time.

ANGELCORPSE: THE INEXORABLE

I can't quite tell what's going on here, but we have several swirling demons, or just one with many heads. The title of the album is in reference to demons that cannot be exorcised, so that's the idea I guess. Angelcorpse is a blackened death metal band from Kansas. Lots of evil from Kansas you know, Angelcorpse, Fred Phelps, etc. The music is most similar to groups like Dawn of Azazel and the Australian war metal scene.

DARK FUNERAL: THE SECRETS OF THE BLACK ARTS

Another atmospheric horror cover of several wraiths pushing and pulling a wagon with something godless inside. I used to see this album all the time at Best Buy but for some reason never picked it up. Dark Funeral is a good example of the Swedish black metal scene, a scene derogatively referred to as Norsecore for its constant blast beats and emphasis on speed and thundering riffs rather than atmosphere. A similar band is Marduk.

Strange Album Covers Pt. 4: Horror Continued

Here's a continuation to the post from yesterday. I will try not to do all of these one after the other, I'll try to get some other random posts in there as well. But here we go:

DANZIG III: HOW THE GODS KILL

I love H.R. Giger's artwork, particularly because he designed the Alien, my all time favorite movie monster. I can't even describe what we have here, all I know is that it is pretty freaky. Danzig is something of a gothic doom metal band with several other genres mixed in as well. Danzig started his career as the singer for The Misfits and was also with Samhain prior to starting his own band. This is my favorite album from the band as it is the most metal.

CANNIBAL CORPSE: EATEN BACK TO LIFE

This is the debut album from Cannibal Corpse and it almost made it into the gory album covers post. It's yet another zombie album cover. Cannibal Corpse is one of the more infamous death metal bands and many of their albums have been banned in other countries (Germany for one) based on their bloody album covers. This one was no exception.

DISSECTION: THE SOMBERLAIN

I don't know what it is that makes this so freaky. There's just something unsettling and disturbing about seeing this dark stagecoach with black horses and a maniacal driver pushing this through the cemetery. This is Dissection's first full length album and is more primal and raw than their masterpiece Storm of the Light's Bane. I love listening to the drumming on the album.

MERCYFUL FATE: DON'T BREAK THE OATH

The great Mercyful Fate made their career in crafting eerie music. This is the band's debut album and the cover is one of the more imposing album covers in metal history. An amazing piece of art. The music itself is the band's greatest effort. It's not a concept album like a lot of the Mercyful Fate/King Diamond but it is nevertheless an amazing piece of music.

OBITUARY: CAUSE OF DEATH

Obituary is another of the earlier death metal bands. They've always had a bit more groove and southern metal style to their brand of death and this is no exception. The Tardy brothers write some amazingly catchy songs and this album featured such great tracks as "Chopped in Half" and "Infected". The art is surreal. That's really the only way to put it. It is also the same art as is on the cover of one of my H.P. Lovecraft books.

Nightmare on Elm Street Remake

Apparently A Nightmare on Elm Street is being remade. I oftentimes hate remakes and I don't think that this will be any exception. The major issue of course is that Robert Englund will NOT be reprising his role as Freddy Krueger. According to imdb, Robert Knepper will play him. There is another rumor floating around that Jackie Earle Haley will play the iconic villain. Haley did a fine job as Rorschach in The Watchmen so he might be a decent choice. However, it is difficult to envision anyone else as Krueger. But thanks to the Friday the 13th and Halloween remakes, it was only a matter of time. Aren't there any original movies left?