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Xenozoïc metal and Cadillac drivers ÜLTRA RAPTÖR was formed in Québec City, Canada in late 2015. It all started when Criss Raptör, Steve Force, and Rick Wild, talked about jamming some German Speed/USPM together, while having a theme based around over the top fantasy/sci-fi and old-school American comic books. During one of many beer-soaked nights, […]

DRANIX, a metalcore band of Belarusian roots from Warsaw, released the single iNTEGRAL on 25 September 2026. The song is groove-driven modern metal about a future where people forgot they built AI and now worship it as a god. The band’s stance in the track is “Shut it down“. The verses are in English, and […]

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A Sunday night, a lovely well-decorated crowd of people queuing up, and three bands on the bill at SWG3. What a nice way to round off the weekend. Prior to the doors opening, a popup had taken place in the bar area, but on the two times Axelle stuck her head in, it wasn’t too … Continue reading Gig Review: Creeper / Calva Louise / Starbenders – SWG3, Glasgow (11th October 2026)

Yngwie .

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Divine Martyr announces the independent release of Fidem, a symphonic/power metal album arriving October 1, 2026. Fidem simultaneously marks the band’s first full-length release as well as its first with vocalist Kassandra Chandler. Musically, the approach with this album was to write from a place of cinematic soundscapes, while lyrically conveying the faith arcs found […]

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Bay Area thrash veterans Heathen will release their new album, Lifetime In Hell, on February 19, 2027 through Napalm Records. The first single, “Escapegoat,” arrives with an official video.

The track kicks off with a shouted “Let’s go!” before charging into two-step thrash and landing on a big chorus. Its roots sit in 1980s thrash, with enough modern polish to keep it current. The riffs are built for horns in the air and a sore neck the next morning.

Vocalist David White said, “‘Escapegoat’ is a song that has been a long time in the making. It takes you on a journey through intense riffing and heart-pounding drum rhythms and is the first piece of the puzzle we wanted you to experience as a glimpse into the intensity and bigger picture that we feel this album will bring.

“Our goal was to make the greatest Heathen album to date, and we can’t wait to hear your response!

“As we embark on our final tour of 2026 with Forbidden and Void, we’ll be taking this new music on the road in the USA. Then, in the new year, we’ll begin a European tour as part of a triple revolving headlining tour with Exhorder and Belgium’s own Evil Invaders.”

Guitarist Kragen Lum explained the video’s concept, saying: “We live in an increasingly superficial and plastic world, surrounded by artificial images, endless distractions, and expectations that can sometimes become too much to handle. We look for every opportunity to escape — to disappear into doom scrolling, binge watching, gaming, drugs, alcohol, and anything else that gives us a momentary release from the weight of reality.

“We build walls around ourselves. We bury ourselves in distractions. We convince ourselves that we can always escape the consequences. Until we can’t. Just one more distraction. Just one more escape. Just one last mistake. We are the ‘Escapegoat.’”

White also spoke about the album as a whole, saying, “After touring extensively around the world in support of Empire Of The Blind, we’ve spent the last year or so recording whenever we could make it happen, and we’re finally finished with this new album! We’re very proud to announce Lifetime In Hell.

“We want to thank Napalm Records for believing in us, Zeuss for producing the album, Jason Bittner for laying down the crushing drum tracks, and our families for their patience and support throughout this process. Most of all, we want to thank all of our fans for your enthusiasm and support over the years. We hope you wear this record out!”

Heathen formed in 1984 and was one of the first bands to carry the Bay Area thrash banner. Breaking The Silence (1987) and Victims Of Deception (1991) are still West Coast metal staples. The band took a break, returned in 2001 and has put out albums sparingly since, each one hitting hard. Lifetime In Hell is its first full-length since 2020’s Empire Of The Blind, pairing tight precision with serious speed.

Chris “Zeuss” Harris produced the record at Planet Z. His résumé includes work with 3 Inches Of Blood, Municipal Waste, Hatebreed and Shadows Fall, among others.

Beyond the lead single, “Glass House” brings in Jeff Loomis for guest guitar and plenty of solos. The title track pounces with a groove that grabs you by the throat and keeps squeezing, making hell feel like a place you’d happily rent long term. “Goddess Of The Light” is built for hair-whipping and a follow-up chiropractor visit, while “The Bitter End” opens ominously before growing into an anthem designed to start circle pits. “Sanity Charade” hits hard enough to make you doubt your own judgment.

Break out the patch-covered denim vest, the beer-stained leather jacket and the white high-tops. Heathen is here to prove thrash is not going anywhere.

The post HEATHEN Unleashes “Escapegoat” & Promises A “Lifetime In Hell” Of Bay Area Thrash appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

The best Halloween metal albums aren’t the ones with the scariest covers. They’re the ones that were built to be played with the lights off: concept records about haunted houses and cursed children, records that turned horror films into songs, and the handful of albums that invented the darkness everybody else borrowed from. Thirteen of them, counted down from 13 to 1, with a video for each. Number one is the album that started heavy metal, released on a Friday the 13th, and we’d argue it’s still the most frightening record on the list.

Some ground rules. These are metal and hard rock albums, not horror soundtracks, and they’re ranked on how completely they belong to the night: atmosphere first, concept second, riffs third, because you can get riffs anywhere. Punk’s horror lineage, from the Misfits down, is a different list. And one album here was released on October 30, which is either a coincidence or the best marketing decision of 1983.

13. Ice Nine Kills, The Silver Scream (2018)

The newest record on the list, and the only one where every single song is a horror film.

Ice Nine Kills had been a metalcore band with a literature habit until Spencer Charnas committed fully: The Silver Scream, released in October 2018, gives one track to one movie, start to finish. ‘The American Nightmare’ is A Nightmare On Elm Street, ‘Thank God It’s Friday’ is Friday The 13th, ‘Stabbing In The Dark’ is Halloween, ‘A Grave Mistake’ is The Crow, ‘Enjoy Your Slay’ is The Shining. The hooks are enormous, the breakdowns land, and the whole thing is built for a costume party rather than a séance.

That’s why it’s thirteenth and not higher: it’s a tribute to horror rather than a piece of it. But it’s the album that brought a whole generation to this list, the sequel took the idea further, and the band’s Christmas-horror follow-ups prove it wasn’t a gimmick. If you want a Halloween record you can play at a party without clearing the room, start here and work backwards.

12. Hellbilly Deluxe – Rob Zombie (1998)

The easiest entry point on the list: a horror-movie fan’s record made by a man who went on to direct horror movies.

Hellbilly Deluxe, August 1998, was Rob Zombie’s first solo album after White Zombie, and it’s where the carnival-barker persona got its own ride. Scott Humphrey’s production stacks industrial loops under riffs that stomp rather than sprint, and the samples come from drive-in trailers and late-night TV. ‘Dragula’, named after Grandpa Munster’s drag racer, is the one everybody knows; ‘Living Dead Girl’ and ‘Superbeast’ are the two that keep the dance floor moving.

It isn’t frightening and doesn’t try to be. It’s the sound of a man who loves monster movies more than anyone you’ve met, and on October 31 that’s the right energy for most rooms. Where it sits in his catalogue is a separate argument; where it sits at a Halloween party is first in the queue. Zombie’s film career started two years later, and you can hear every frame of it here.

11. Death, Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

The first death metal album, and a record that reads like the horror section of a 1986 video store.

Chuck Schuldiner was nineteen when Scream Bloody Gore came out in May 1987, and he’d already decided what his band was for: ‘Zombie Ritual’, ‘Evil Dead’, ‘Regurgitated Guts’, ‘Mutilation’, ‘Baptized In Blood’. The titles are splatter-movie tributes, the riffs are thrash pushed past the point where thrash stops, and the vocals are the growl that a thousand bands would copy. Chris Reifert, later of Autopsy, plays drums; the two of them recorded it essentially as a duo.

It’s eleventh because it’s the most purely physical album here; the horror is in the gore, not the atmosphere. But Halloween has always had two moods, the candlelit one and the chainsaw one, and this is the chainsaw. Schuldiner went on to make far more sophisticated records before he died in 2001, and never again made one that smelled this much like a VHS rental.

10. Danzig, Danzig II: Lucifuge (1990)

Glenn Danzig’s blues-metal peak, and the record that sounds most like a crossroads at midnight.

Lucifuge, June 1990, is the second Danzig album and the one where the Misfits’ horror-punk founder finally got the Elvis-sings-Sabbath sound he’d been chasing. Rick Rubin produced it dry and close, John Christ’s guitar is all slide and sustain, and Danzig’s baritone does the rest. ‘Her Black Wings’ and ‘Snakes Of Christ’ are the heavy ones; ‘Killer Wolf’ and ‘I’m The One’ are swamp blues with the devil in them; ‘Long Way Back From Hell’ is the single.

It’s here rather than higher because it’s seductive rather than scary, which is its own kind of Halloween. Danzig’s whole career is an argument that horror and sex are the same genre, and this is the album where he wins it. It’s also the only record on the list that works just as well in a bar at two in the morning as it does in a graveyard at midnight.

9. Cradle Of Filth, Cruelty And The Beast (1998)

A concept album about Elizabeth Bathory, narrated by the actress who played her, is about as Halloween as metal gets.

Cradle Of Filth’s third album, May 1998, tells the story of the Hungarian countess who allegedly bathed in the blood of murdered girls, and the band hired Ingrid Pitt, who played Bathory in Hammer’s Countess Dracula, to narrate it. ‘Bathory Aria’ runs eleven minutes; ‘Her Ghost In The Fog’ isn’t on it, that’s the next record, but ‘Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids’ and ‘Beneath The Howling Stars’ are the band at their most gothic and most operatic. Dani Filth shrieks like a man being exorcised.

The original mix was thin and drum-heavy, which is why the band re-mixed the whole thing in 2019 as Cruelty And The Beast: Re-Mistressed; that’s the version to play. It’s ninth because it’s an acquired taste even inside the goth metal canon, but nothing else on this list commits to the theatre so completely. Candles, cloaks, the lot.

8. The Number of the Beast – Iron Maiden (1982)

The album whose cover got burned by American preachers, built on a nightmare the bassist had after a horror film.

Steve Harris wrote the title track after watching Damien: Omen II and waking up from a nightmare, and Derek Riggs painted Eddie as a puppet-master working Satan’s strings. In America that was enough to get the record burned on church lawns, which, as the band pointed out, meant somebody had to buy it first. Released in March 1982, it’s Bruce Dickinson’s first album with the band and the one that made them the biggest metal act on earth.

It’s eighth because it’s an adventure record with a scary cover rather than a horror record, and on a Halloween list that distinction matters. But ‘Children Of The Damned’, ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’ and the title track’s spoken intro, taken from the Book of Revelation and read by actor Barry Clayton, are permanent fixtures of the night. Nobody has ever been scared by Iron Maiden. Plenty of parents were.

7. Ghost, Opus Eponymous (2010)

A Satanic pop band’s debut, a Halloween record disguised as a Blue Öyster Cult album.

Before the arenas, before the Grammy, Ghost were an anonymous Swedish band on Rise Above Records with a singing skeleton pope and nine songs that sounded like Mercyful Fate had hired the Beach Boys. Opus Eponymous, October 2010, opens with a church organ, moves through ‘Con Clavi Con Dio’ and ‘Ritual’, and closes on ‘Genesis’ as if the whole thing were a Hammer film score. ‘Elizabeth’ is about Bathory, which puts it in conversation with the Cradle Of Filth entry two spots down.

The lyrics are devotional Satanism played completely straight, the melodies are sweeter than anything else on this list, and that contrast is why it works. Ghost’s catalogue got bigger and brighter from here, but this is the one that still sounds like it was recorded in a crypt by candlelight. Tobias Forge has since said the band was built as a Halloween costume that got out of hand, and this is the costume.

6. Type O Negative, Bloody Kisses (1993)

The goth-metal album, from the band that owned October.

Bloody Kisses, August 1993, was Roadrunner Records’ first gold album and the record that turned Type O Negative from a Brooklyn hardcore joke into the most important goth band of the decade. ‘Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)’ is eleven minutes of organ, Peter Steele’s basso and a chorus about a girl who dyes her hair for the season; ‘Christian Woman’ is the other half of the sermon; the title track is the slowest, saddest thing on the list.

Steele’s humour is the thing people miss: the whole album is a joke about goths, made by a man who was one, and it’s still the only Halloween record that laughs at the costume while wearing it. Three years later October Rust took the same mood somewhere greener and more romantic, and it turns thirty this year, so play both. Where Bloody Kisses lands in the Type O catalogue is a weekly argument; where it lands on October 31 isn’t.

5. Reign in Blood – Slayer (1986)

The chainsaw record: twenty-nine minutes that end with a rainstorm of blood.

Reign In Blood doesn’t have ghosts or haunted houses, and the people who object to it on a Halloween list have a point they’re about to lose. The album opens with ‘Angel Of Death’, a song about Josef Mengele that got the record dropped by its distributor, and closes with ‘Raining Blood’, the riff that founded death metal, fading into a thunderstorm that loops straight back to the start. In between: ‘Postmortem’, ‘Criminally Insane’, ‘Jesus Saves’. Rick Rubin made it dry and clear and Dave Lombardo made it fast.

It’s fifth because Halloween is partly about release, and no album ever recorded releases like this one. The greatest thrash album ever made is forty this year, the band is playing it in full at the Kia Forum on November 13, and the right way to end a Halloween night is still ‘Raining Blood’ at a volume the neighbours will remember. The gore here isn’t theatre. That’s the point.

4. Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare (1975)

The record that invented the horror concept album, with Vincent Price as the tour guide.

Everything theatrical on this list traces back here. Welcome To My Nightmare, March 1975, was Alice Cooper’s first solo album after the original band split, produced by Bob Ezrin, and it follows a boy named Steven through a night of bad dreams: spiders, dead lovers, a ‘Cold Ethyl’ kept in the fridge. Vincent Price narrates ‘The Black Widow’, seven years before he did it for Michael Jackson, and the album came with a TV special and a stage show full of guillotines and giant spiders.

It’s fourth, above Slayer, because it’s the blueprint. King Diamond’s concept records, Rob Zombie’s carnival, Ghost’s theatre, Ice Nine Kills’ whole career: all of it is Alice Cooper’s idea with heavier guitars. ‘Only Women Bleed’ gave it a hit, ‘Steven’ gave it a nightmare, and the title track gave Halloween its opening line for the next fifty years. He still plays it with a guillotine. He’s seventy-eight.

3. Mercyful Fate, Melissa (1983)

Released on October 30, 1983, which tells you everything about who it was for.

Mercyful Fate’s debut is the album where King Diamond’s falsetto, Hank Shermann and Michael Denner’s twin guitars and an entirely sincere Satanic worldview met for the first time, and it came out the night before Halloween. ‘Evil’ opens it, ‘Curse Of The Pharaohs’ and ‘Into The Coven’ follow, ‘Satan’s Fall’ runs eleven minutes through six riffs, and the title track closes it: a slow lament for a witch burned at the stake, named after the skull King carried on stage.

It’s third because it’s the bridge between Sabbath’s dread and everything Scandinavian that came after; Metallica covered it, every black metal band stole from it, and King Diamond’s own solo records, including the one two places up from here, grew out of it. Melissa is darker than Abigail and less of a story, which is why it sits just below. On the right night, with the lights off, it’s the scariest record King ever sang on.

2. Abigail – King Diamond (1987)

A horror film in nine songs: a haunted mansion, a family curse and a stillborn child who won’t stay dead.

Abigail, July 1987, is the album that made King Diamond a solo artist and made concept records a horror genre. The story is set in 1845: Miriam Natias and Jonathan LaFey inherit a mansion, seven horsemen warn them off, the ghost of the Count tells Jonathan the house’s history, and the spirit of Abigail, stillborn and buried in the crypt, works its way into Miriam. ‘Arrival’, ‘A Mansion In Darkness’, ‘The Family Ghost’, ‘Black Horsemen’: the songs are chapters, and King plays every character in a different voice.

Andy LaRocque’s guitars give it the melody that makes the horror land, and the whole thing runs like a film with the picture turned off. It’s second because it’s the single most Halloween record ever made by a metal band, a haunted-house album you can play front to back on the night and follow like a story. The only thing above it is the record that made the night metal in the first place. Thirteen things about the man in the paint are here if you want the context.

1. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)

Released on Friday the 13th, February 1970, and still the most frightening forty minutes in heavy metal.

The album opens with rain, a church bell and the tritone, the ‘devil’s interval’ medieval composers were told to avoid, and Ozzy Osbourne asking what the figure in black at the foot of his bed is. The song was Geezer Butler’s: he’d been reading about the occult, woke to see a dark shape standing over him, and told the others. Tony Iommi turned it into the slowest, heaviest riff anyone had recorded. The cover, a woman in black outside Mapledurham Watermill, has frightened children for fifty-six years.

‘The Wizard’, ‘N.I.B.’ with Geezer’s bass intro and Lucifer as the narrator, ‘Behind The Wall Of Sleep’ from the Lovecraft story, and a side two that’s basically a blues band discovering doom in real time. It’s first because everything else on this list, from Mercyful Fate to Ghost, is a response to it. Sabbath made heavier records and better ones, and they wrote their own haunted-castle album three years later, but they never made a scarier one. Nobody has. Put it on at midnight with the lights off and see how long you last.

How To Use This List On The Night

Thirteen albums is about nine hours of music, so here’s the running order for a Halloween that starts at dusk and ends badly.

Early evening, people arriving: Hellbilly Deluxe and The Silver Scream, loud, fun, nobody scared yet. Costumes judged, drinks poured: Bloody Kisses, Opus Eponymous and Lucifuge, the seduction hour. Lights down: Welcome To My Nightmare, then Melissa, then Abigail front to back with the room quiet, which is the centrepiece. Then whatever’s left of the night gets Scream Bloody Gore, Cruelty And The Beast and Reign In Blood, in that order, until the neighbours complain. The Number Of The Beast is for the drive home.

And the debut Sabbath album is for after everyone’s gone. One person, one room, no lights, side one. If you want the film-nerd companion piece, Wednesday 13 picked his three Halloween horror movies for us, and they pair with this list better than anything on a streaming service.

The Full Ranking

13. Ice Nine Kills, The Silver Scream (2018)
12. Rob Zombie, Hellbilly Deluxe (1998)
11. Death, Scream Bloody Gore (1987)
10. Danzig, Danzig II: Lucifuge (1990)
9. Cradle Of Filth, Cruelty And The Beast (1998)
8. Iron Maiden, The Number Of The Beast (1982)
7. Ghost, Opus Eponymous (2010)
6. Type O Negative, Bloody Kisses (1993)
5. Slayer, Reign In Blood (1986)
4. Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare (1975)
3. Mercyful Fate, Melissa (1983)
2. King Diamond, Abigail (1987)
1. Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970)

TL;DR

• Thirteen Halloween metal albums ranked 13 to 1 on atmosphere, concept and riffs, each with a video; the night starts with Ice Nine Kills and Rob Zombie and ends with Black Sabbath’s debut alone in the dark.
• King Diamond owns the middle of the list twice: Abigail at number two, the most complete horror concept album in metal, and Mercyful Fate’s Melissa at three, released on October 30, 1983.
• Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare, with Vincent Price narrating, is the blueprint every theatrical entry here follows.
• Reign In Blood is the release valve at five; Bloody Kisses, Opus Eponymous and Lucifuge are the seduction hour; Scream Bloody Gore and Cruelty And The Beast are for after midnight.
• Number one was released on Friday the 13th, 1970, and is still the scariest record heavy metal has produced.

FAQ

Which album did we miss? Tell us in the comments, then follow Loaded Radio for the Halloween week of Metal Breakdown Daily and the songs list to go with this one.

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