Menacing Music
Has a song ever tried to hurt you? Do you ever find that the right chord progressions tickle and wake something else lurking in your brain? Are those spiders pouring from your eyes real or some cruel prank? And who is playing goddamn Geogaddi?
List will rank entries by level of menace: Scary AF!, Kinda Kreepy, or Not Really. Some entries will have blurbs. Some are just entries. List is missing Swans because I have not listened to them. Feel free to suggest other songs and I will listen to them and add them! |
| 1 |  | Butthole Surfers
Rembrandt Pussyhorse
Creep In The Cellar (Scary AF!)
An irresistible earworm lets Gibby Haynes pry open your skull and redecorate your brain to make room for the skinless creep |
| 2 |  | Unwound
New Plastic Ideas
Usual Dosage (Scary AF!)
The bridge's combination of Sara Lund's thunderous drumming and Justin Trosper's eerie guitar scratching is so creeping and compelling that Sprain shamelessly stole it for the outro to Reiterations |
| 3 |  | Boards of Canada
Geogaddi
The whole album is spectacular and scary; perhaps the only way outside of untreated mental illness or hallucinogens to commune with all the others living in your head |
| 4 |  | Sprain
The Lamb As Effigy
(Not really) the entire album
Obsequious self-hatred usually results in albums that are too pitiable to have the necessary confidence for robust terror, and tLaE generally falls into this category... |
| 5 | | Sprain
The Lamb As Effigy
(Except for) Privilege of Being
Kinda Kreepy, Privilege of Being is perhaps the only subtle song on tLaE, and it builds a heavy atmosphere of noisy menace before letting it all release into an incredible crescendo. Not super scary without drugs, but always satisfying |
| 6 |  | Metallica
Ride the Lightning
Call of Ktulu (Scary AF!)
R'lyeh herself rises at that fucking riff |
| 7 |  | Pig Destroyer
Terrifyer
This whole thing scares the shit outta me. Undeniably Scary AF! |
| 8 |  | Amigo the Devil
Decompositions
Hell and You (Scary AF!)
Menace comes in many different emotions, but horny is always a bit risky. The worst musical attempts at menace almost always end up as rapey domestic-abuse diatribes and that's usually because the menace is unthinkingly directed at a woman. Amigo the Devil hurdles this challenge by implicating his lover in his ne'er-do-welling and giving us a hellish Bonnie & Clyde style love fiasco qua "murderfolk" |
| 9 |  | The Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers
Brown Sugar (Creepy AF!)
Speak of the devil! Sure, this song is Creepy Af!, but not because it carefully examines the listeners paranoia or deconstructs their musical expectations. Instead, The Stones spend four unpleasant minutes leering at a young black woman through a naive and violent white male gaze. It doesn't take an academic understanding of racism or power-dynamics to notice that our sweet "Brown Sugar" doesn't have any say in what Mick Jagger is going to do to her. Gross |
| 10 |  | Behemoth
The Satanist
The Satanist (Scary AF!) |
| 11 |  | Billy Woods
Aethiopes
Wharves (Scary AF!) |
| 12 |  | Slint
Spiderland
Good Morning, Captain (SCARY AF!)
Classic, any list on menace without this is incomplete. |
| 13 |  | Elliott Smith
Roman Candle
Roman Candle (!DYNAMIC?)
The impotence or drive of the listener determines how menacing this banger really is |
| 14 |  | The Jesus Lizard
Head
If You Had Lips (Scary AF!)
Who doesn't love a writhing guitar lick and an unhinged vocal performance? |
| 15 |  | Daughters
You Won't Get What You Want
Ocean Song (Scary AF!)
While several Daughters' songs certainly cross into the Rolling Stones' Creepy AF! tier, Ocean Song is an undeniable force of horror storytelling and noisy collapse. Never before and never since has music given form to the presence over my shoulder so vividly. I must go, to run |
| 16 |  | The Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards
Do the Wrong Thing (Scary AF!)
Everything is collapsing and it wasn't particularly sturdy to begin with |
| 17 |  | Disturbed
The Sickness
Down with the Sickness (lol)
Domestic abuse solo time! Don't do it mommy |
| 18 |  | Unwound
Challenge For a Civilized Society
Side Effects of Being Tired (Scary AF!)
Starting off with your typical Unwound punk barrage, horns slowly work their way into the mix before everything erupts into a cacophony of violent noise. From there the mood shifts completely, descending into a looming drone of feedback, rolling drums, and sickly strums of Trosper's harsh guitar. One of my fav Unwound songs and one of their most menacing |
| 19 |  | Great Falls
Objects Without Pain
Dragged Home Alive (SCARY AF!) |
| 20 |  | Slayer
Haunting the Chapel
Chemical Warfare (Scary AF!)
CHEMICAL WARFARE *sick riff* |
| 21 |  | Converge
Jane Doe
Hell to Pay (Kinda Kreepy)
Most Converge songs spend too much time in their feels to scare me, but that bass line builds some magnificent tension |
| 22 |  | Die Kreuzen
Die Kreuzen
On the Street (Scary AF!)
Rabid |
| 23 |  | Chat Pile
God's Country
grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg (Kinda Kreepy)
The copypasta generation has grown up and are making adult music now. Late-capitalism in metaphor can come off gauche in the wrong hands, but these guys know what they're doing |
| 24 |  | Batushka
Litourgiya
Premudrost' (Scary AF!)
A clergy over black metal?? Its perfect |
| 25 |  | Acid Bath
When the Kite String Pops
Dr. Seuss is Dead (Scary AF!) |
| 26 |  | Manic Street Preachers
The Holy Bible
The Intense Humming of Evil (Scary AF!) |
| 27 |  | Akira Yamaoka
Silent Hill 2
Theme of Laura (Not Really)
Most of the purposefully menacing material on the SH2 soundtrack adopts an industrial edge that doesn't do nearly as much for me as the mournful bookends Theme of Laura and Promise. I suppose Overdose Delusion could have been chosen instead, but that is only a lil menacing |
| 28 |  | Panzerfaust
The Suns of Perdition - Chapter II
The Faustian Pact (Scary AF!) |
| 29 |  | Tool
Ænima
Third Eye (Scary AF!)
Maynard clawing a bloody hole into his forehead high as fuck because nothing inspiring is coming to him is a terrifying and effective picture |
| 30 | | Falling in Reverse
Popular Monster
317,035,026 Spotify plays for WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR GOD NOW
lol
Thanks for reading! |
| 31 |  | Swirlies
They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons
Two Girls Kissing (Delightfully Ominous) |
| 32 |  | Lisa Germano
Geek The Girl
...A Psychopath - Recced by Icebloom
Certified Scary AF!, that sample is harrowing and maybe a little voyeuristic? Fits the category and some, good suggestion |
| 33 |  | Swans
The Glowing Man
When Will I Return - Recced by Icebloom
Kinda Kreepy verging on Scary AF! Equal parts a horror vignette and a celebration of the euphoria of the triumphant final girl, a very solid entry that only loses points for slaying the menace |
| 34 |  | Swans
The Seer
Avatar - Recced by Icebloom
Oh I love this, Scary AF! |
| 35 |  | Swans
Soundtracks for the Blind
I Was A Prisoner in Your Skull - Recced by Icebloom
I needed to be really fucked up for this to really hit, Kinda Kreepy but I'll report back if I remember to |
| 36 |  | Krzysztof Penderecki
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima - Recced by dedex
This made me fear for my life. SCARY AF! I'm gonna 5 it and never ever listen to it again |
| 37 |  | Pink Floyd
The Wall
Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 - Implicated by Dewinged
After some of the suggestions made I'm afraid I can only slap a big, fat Not Really on this bad boy, even if I relate to the absurdities of childhood fears. There was a deeper thing about the dissolution of childhood and the cynicism of making children sing the refrain of adult life, but I'm tired |
| 38 |  | Diamanda Galas
The Litanies of Satan
The whole thing - Recced by Dewinged
1st Listen: Too abstract and unmusical for me to fully grasp, so I wasn't that scared of it. Feeling a Not Really for this
2nd: Wanted to revisit this because I don't think I gave it a fair shake the first time, especially after rating Current 93 Scary AF!. Did a lil research and I definitely appreciate this a lot more, but the only truly scary moment is the shift 7 minutes into the title track (and WOW is it scary) and I'm pretty ambivalent about the rest of it. I am deeply biased against the French language so perhaps that's coming through, in German this would be the scariest thing ever recorded. Her voice is very cool, I'll definitely give her other works a shot, hard Kinda Creepy, soft Scary AF! |
| 39 |  | Sectioned
Annihilated
Annihilated - Recced by MoM
More violent than menacing, I've been aware of this for a while but its never appealed to me. On a relisten I'm feeling much the same as I have about these guys, hard Not Really/soft Kinda Creepy |
| 40 |  | Akhlys
The Dreaming I
Tides of Oneiric Darkness - Recced by Egarran and twilight
Scary AF! This is the spooky sauce, def digging deeper into these guys asap along with Nightbringer and Bestia Arcana |
| 41 |  | Current 93
I Have A Special Plan For This World
I Have A Special Plan For This World - Recced by cylinder
I don't think anything will top Threnody for Hiroshima, but this is uncomfortably close. The delivery of the spoken word is perfect and the atmosphere is crushing, Scary AF! |
| 42 |  | Strict
Kiss
2 - Recced by cylinder
Yucky fuzz, Kinda Kreepy isolated and Scary AF! in context of the album. |
| 43 |  | Bambara
Stray
Machete - Recced by Icebloom
Reads like a r/horror story so effective and entertaining and a bit corny. Strong Kinda Kreepy. |
| 44 |  | Anna von Hausswolff
Dead Magic
The Mysterious Disappearance of Electra - Recced by Icebloom
Stunning build and climax, yeah this is great stuff. Scary AF! |
| 45 |  | Dead Can Dance
Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
Cantara - Recced by Icebloom
Cool stuff! Not Really scary but I'll definitely check more DCD when I get the chance |
| 46 |  | Arab Strap
As Days Get Dark
Sleeper - Recced by Icebloom
Excellent mood, very eerie and evocative, but not much more than Kinda Kreepy. |
| 47 |  | Gyorgy Ligeti
The Ligeti Project IV
Ligeti: Requiem: II. Kyrie. Molto espressivo - Recced by Valkoor592
Huge rec. A Biblical plague expressed musically, I can practically feel the locusts crawling up my back and around my ears and under my eyelids. Scary AF! |
| 48 |  | Mgla
Exercises in Futility
Exercises in Futility II - Recced by Valkoor592
I simply do not care for this band or their midtempo DSO-lite slogfests. Even the blastbeats are sluggish. Not really. |
| 49 |  | Andy Stott
Faith in Strangers
Violence - Recced by Valkoor592
*Patrick Bateman headphones gif* Scary AF! |
| 50 |  | Giles Corey
Giles Corey
No One Is Ever Going To Want Me - Recced by Valkoor592
This is the guy from Have a Nice Life?? ooh
I imagine this is what drowning is like. Big banger, Scary AF!, and I will be checking the rest of this album immediately |
| 51 |  | Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet
The Breadwinner
E5150/Body Transport - Recced by cylinder
Just leaving the BC link here for myself when I eventually check this: https://erstwhilerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-breadwinner |
| 52 |  | Igorrr and Ruby My Dear
Maigre
Barbecue (Kinda Kreepy)
Baroque breakcore that is more experimental than sinister, but it has its moments. Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSxhiNpgiuE |
| 53 |  | Misthyrming
Söngvar elds og óreiðu
Söngur heiftar (Scary AF!)
Battery of extreme cold and riffz |
| 54 |  | Crippling Alcoholism
When The Drugs That Made You Sick Are The Drugs...
Beloved (Scary AF!)
yesyesyesyesyes violent and dancey |
| 55 |  | Godspeed You! Black Emperor
F♯ A♯ ∞
The Dead Flag Blues - Recced by AnimalForce1
Fuck it the whole album belongs here, undeniably classic and scary
Edit: while I'm not sure where I've gotten this comparison from, I've always imaged the world in F♯ A♯ ∞ and the world in Cormac McCarthy's The Road are one and the same |
| 56 |  | Puce Mary
The Spiral
The Spiral - Recced by TheManMachine
Subtetly does wonders for eerie music, it never reaches the intensity to fully justify a Scary AF! rating, but this is one creepy piece of experimental industrial |
| 57 |  | Damien Dubrovnik
Great Many Arrows
The whole thing - Recced by TheManMachine |
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