Halloween is almost upon us, and what better way to celebrate the creepiest holiday than with some music that fits the bill? I’ve gathered 10 albums that are sinister, scary, and downright disturbing if you want to face your fears this All Hallow’s Eve. BE WARNED! These albums are not for the faint of heart. I placed them in order from not-so-scary to demonstrably devilish. I also included an “essential track” if you just want to try a taste before diving into the full album. Enjoy! And Happy Halloween.
10. The Cranberries – “Everyone Else is doing it, so why can’t we?”
This album isn’t really spooky or eerie at all, but to start off the list I thought I’d choose an album that is pretty accessible and embodies the more beautiful side of autumn. “Everybody Else” is dreamy and cozy. It makes me think of sipping a warm drink on my front porch in a sweater, watching the crisp leaves blow by in a chilly breeze, and feeling good about life. You’ve likely heard “Dreams” or “Linger” at the very least, given the popularity of those tracks, but the rest of the album is great too. Just a warm, enveloping rock album with some fantastic vocal performances.
Essential Track: Dreams
9. Ghost – “Meliora”
Alright, let’s start getting spooky. Ghost is creepy in the way the movie “Hocus Pocus” is creepy — it’s really campy and not taking itself too seriously, although the band does play the sort of “evil Christianity” thing pretty straight. Aesthetics aside (because they really LOOK like a Halloween band), this is just a super well-produced, old-school sort of rock/heavy metal album with really memorable choruses. The band has the perfect amount of silliness with genuinely great songwriting and performances that make the music go beyond being a schtick. Lots of church-style choral vocals, straightforward but great guitars, and extra elements like synths and tolling bells when the drama needs upping. Essentially, it fits the season, but it’s easy to enjoy if you aren’t into darker music.
Essential Track: Spirit
8. Type O Negative – “October Rust”
Thematically appropriate title aside, “October Rust” is a dreamy, gothic metal experience with dazzling layers of guitar, keyboard, and the deep, brooding vocals of Peter Steele. It feels like it’s very much locked into an ethereal, haunted past where ghosts can melt through the walls and watch you as you drift off to sleep. The mix of sinister and sensual that this record offers is unique, and it’s sonically perfect for a Halloween night.
Essential Track: Love You to Death
7. Gravediggaz – “6 Feet Deep”
An essential in the horrorcore (rap with lyrics centered around violence and horror in general) genre of hip-hop, Gravediggaz combines production from RZA of The Wu-Tang Clan with an eclectic mix of emcees, delivering dark songs filled with murderous punchlines. It feels like a group of horror movie villains rapping over sinister and obscure production, with some excellent storytelling, especially “Diary of a Madman.” Pretty essential for rap fans who want to gear up for the holiday.
Essential Track: Diary of a Madman
6. Three-6 Mafia – “Mystic Stylez”
Another great horrorcore rap album, “Mystic Stylez” is a classic Memphis Rap album where every beat feels like an eerie proto-trap lurking beneath the cold-blooded flows of the Three-6 Mafia members. Where Gravediggaz feels like they’re trying their best to make as horrifying a rap album as possible, there’s something sinister about how casual this album feels in contrast. There’s a certain low-effort feeling — not at all saying the album is lazy, but it just feels like Three-6 Mafia doesn’t even need to try to make such a wicked album. It feels like it’s dark and eerie by nature — every beat is a murky, sinister haunted house, and the lackadaisical grim flows drip over the top of it.
Essential Track: Break da Law “95”
5. Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter – “SAVED!”
This is where the albums start to become truly unsettling. Cowards turn back here. Formerly known as Lingua Ignota, Miss Hayter provides a haunted collection of hymns — covering old Christian songs with her powerful voice. The tracks distort and warp like they’re played from a burnt vinyl, and at certain points, the songs dissolve into horrifying glossolalia; it sounds like a spirit has possessed Hayer and is causing her to speak in tongues. It’s often repetitive and monotonous, but in doing this it creates a suffocating atmosphere that needs to be heard to be understood.
Essential Track: I WILL BE WITH YOU ALWAYS
4. Clipping. – “Visions of Bodies Being Burned”
The industrial hip-hop legends essentially create a horror movie soundtrack that also doubles as a noisy, forward-thinking rap record. Whereas the earlier rap albums on this list have horror aesthetics and lyrics, Clipping. goes the extra mile to incorporate terrifying sound effects and modern atmospheric touches to make for an album that feels just as slick as it does sinister. The beats range from industrial grime to noisy chaos to incredibly creative foley — such as a creaking gate providing percussion, or the flick of a switchblade on alternating beats. Rapper Daveed Diggs spits lightning-fast flows, telling tales of murder, monsters, and mayhem. One of my personal favorite rap albums, this is a must-hear for the season.
Essential Track: Say The Name
3. Nine Inch Nails – “The Downward Spiral”
Despite how big Nine Inch Nails was as a band, it’s always been remarkable that this album, and specifically the most famous track, “Closer” got as big as they did. Yes, that track has a sleazy club groove, but both it and the album delve so deep into depravity. This album is somewhat of a staple when it comes to “disturbing album recommendations” but it really does feel like an up-close-and-personal descent into self-loathing and nihilism. Industrial rock and metal collide with sharp songwriting and forward-thinking production to create a classic album that’s hardly aged at all.
Essential Track: Closer
2. Danny Brown – “Atrocity Exhibition”
One more rap album, but this one forgoes merely dark production and sinister bars for a genuinely unhinged descent into madness. “Atrocity Exhibition” is more comparable to “The Downward Spiral” than any of the rap albums here — in fact, the first track on the record is literally called “The Downward Spiral” — because it’s a chaotic and unnerving look into the mind of a drug addict who’s losing touch with reality and finding it hard to come back. From the dreadful calamity of horns on “Ain’t It Funny” to the no-holds-barred posse cut “Really Doe” (notable features include Kendrick Lamar and Earl Sweatshirt), this album is a masterclass in storytelling and rapping as you hear Danny Brown scrambling to hold on throughout its runtime.
Essential Track: Ain’t It Funny
1. Darkthrone – “A Blaze in the Northern Sky”
We end the list with a black metal classic. Even as a longtime metal fan, it took me a very long time to appreciate black metal, even the most mainstream in the bunch. The raw production, the knife-sharp screams, the dreadful atmosphere; this forgoes the breakdowns of metalcore or the pummeling nature of death metal, to focus on capturing a truly ghoulish sound. Black metal at its finest, and while it’s probably the hardest on the list to listen to, it’s worth it.
Essential Track: In the Shadow of the Horns
