HALLOWEEN

HALLOWEEN

 

Sometimes when listening to a song or watching a film something jumps out at us and causes us to go WOW!!! I did not think of that before. So it is when listening to the latest album offering from Alkaline Trio ‘Is This Thing Cursed’ and the single ‘Blackbird’ that the lyric “She sees music in the terror she brings” forced a complete revision of the power of music.

 

The song is wonderfully typical of Alkaline Trio, mixing their leitmotif’s of pain, tortuous love and regret to name but a few with their edgy relentless power sound. You’re never quite sure what hits you hardest the lyric or the sound but by the end of anything the band does you know you’ve felt emotion you possibly could.

 

 

There is no doubt that music can bring ‘terror’, a good horror story relies heavily on the use of music to set mood and pace. Equally no one can forget the Darth Vader theme tune. Instantly recognisable and timelessly linked to anything foreboding but the original lyric that started this thought process is the idea that a person can bring terror through music. Take by way of illustration Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’. It may not have been the intention of the artist to cause fear but it has become synonymous with horror to such an extent that the music brings ‘terror’ or certainly some shivers when it is played.

 

 

This begs the question is there an inherent undertone to any music that we subconsciously link to our own fears and or emotions aside from the superficial feelings that the actual music and lyrics give us. An interesting example of this type is ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray. At the time it was released the single was in fact banned on some United States radio stations as it may have referred to or encouraged street fighting. With the video below its not hard to see why.

 

 

It may well be in the current times the song is tame and a little on the harmless side but nothing can deny the underlying sense of ‘rumble’ and menace that the distorted guitar and slow persistent steadiness of the chord gives. It evokes the sense of walking into an unwelcome place and meaning business.

 

Perhaps that is the essence of ‘music with terror’ it’s not so much the fact that it might be scary it is more the case that it suggests something scary or terrifying might happen. Something which Ennio Morricone does time and time again with any soundtrack he becomes involved in. This classic example of ‘The Good The Bad and The Ugly’ is Ennio Morriconne at his best. The steady pace of the gallop, the haunting choral backdrop the strange sounds evoking dark nights under the wild west sky waiting for an ambush or waiting to be betrayed by someone.

 

 

Any suggestions for ‘scary music’ please do drop a message.