“Horror Music” is a broad term. The realm of Horror not only includes the norms; rock, punk, and metal; nearly every genre of music has a dark, ambient, brutal, or otherwise horror influenced niche. Psychobilly punk is the most common horror music you’re most likely to find, characterized by the science fiction, violence, and taboo influenced lyrics and idolization of the B-movie subculture. Horrorcore is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, but you’ll see it a lot when it comes to “Horror Music” in general. Hip-hop influenced by horror, Horrorcore has made a pseudo-cult in the industry. Fans of groups like Insane Clown Posse have created a subculture of their own, using their independent record label Psychopathic Records to deliver music, video, and merchandise to “Juggalos” who are “Family” dedicated, almost religiously. While ICP’s lyrics were horror related and violent, they apparently have only been pretending. Their true mission was to spread the message of the Christian God to misguided teenagers, something more sadistic and brutal than anything they’ve ever wrote.
While a majority of Metal is horror influenced, there is a fine line between Death Metal and Horror Metal, or even bands that do nothing but praise Satan, or denounce him. Even in the mainstream, many bands are called Death Metal, even though they have no references to murder and violence, what death metal stemmed from. It seems as if having a theme for a metal band gains them more popularity and sells more albums, like The Faceless, whose lyrics are primarily influenced by ancient aliens as divine creators. Michigan based band The Black Dahlia Murder are heavily influenced by horror, using a wide spectrum of storytelling in their songs. The song “What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse” is a direct reference to Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, while the song “Thy Horror Cosmic” from the album Unhallowed is influenced by H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu myth. Without a doubt, Metal contains the most horror-influenced, quality, music. While this may be a preference, it seems that Metal contains the most artistic characteristics in music today. Meanwhile, mainstream music continues to degrade into “barslut” rock, and “partyslut” pop and hip-hop.
Horror Music continues even further. All sorts of Electronic music stems from horror, or at least the feeling of horror: Death/Dark Trance, Gloomcore, Dark Beats, Terrorcore/Doomcore/Evilcore/Deathcore, Speedcore, Metalcore, Noizecore, and Dark Ambient electronic music can infect your mood or scare the living shit out of you. Much of it is based on preference, if you like listening to Silent Hill Soundtracks in your free time, you probably have a lot of this stuff already. Industrial bands like Psyclon Nine, who are influenced by their complete lack of faith, uses many synthetic beats to create a dooming sound.
Video game music takes the artistic cake when it comes to horror music. Castlevania, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, No More Heroes, Fatal Frame, Dead Space and Bioshock all have critically acclaimed soundtracks that add so much more to the games than just atmosphere. Famous video game composers like Silent Hill’s Akira Yamaoka have diehard fans, leaving Silent Hill fans worried about the quality of the atmosphere in Silent Hill: Downpour, which is being composed by Daniel Licht, a long time veteran of horror composition, writing music for Children of the Corn II and III, Hellraiser IV, and the Showtime television drama Dexter, which is about a blood-splatter analyst serial killer. The recent Splatterhouse for Xbox360 and PS3 contains tracks from many popular metal bands, giving a brutal and sadistic feeling to the game. Many fans of the metal contained within get a very rewarding feeling ripping creatures in half to Goatwhore and High on Fire. Horror movie and video game soundtracks are at the dead center of Horror Music, appealing to many genres and qualities of music. For more on Horror Video Game music, check out some of RelyOnHorror’s previous articles… here.
This article gives you a sense of the broad scope that is Horror Music. From here on out I’ll be posting feature articles that highlight specific musical groups that encompass both a broad sense of musical talent and horror influence. Don’t expect to see full page write ups of bands you already know about or bands that have nothing to do with horror. Rely On Horror will be trying to give you information, downloads, and exclusive interviews with top quality horror influenced acts from around the globe.
If you have any suggestions or know of a band you think I would enjoy listening to, don’t be afraid to throw me a message at cbrandt@relyonhorror.com
My name is Christian Brandt and I’m a college student in Flint, Michigan. I’ve been a horror diehard since I was a child, who was sat in front of Chucky and Puppet Master instead of Barney and Blues Clues. Resident Evil kicked off my obsession with zombies, thinking the characters were yelling at me instead of Chris Redfield. My obsession with horror continues as I find this hobby writing for Rely On Horror, visiting horror conventions, and making connections with famous horror icons like Night of the Living Dead’s Kyra Schon, in hopes of one day becoming a professional zombie.
