Tales from the Jugular

Staff Favorite Songs for Halloween

There's literally thousands of metal songs that fit with Halloween. We picked the ones, well-known and obscure, that we're going to spin this year. They're most likely all on YouTube, so look 'em up!


Type-O-Negative - Instead of going with the normal "Black No. 1" this year I'm going to change it up and go with the under-rated Type-O classic "Wolf Moon".

Alice Cooper - I really dig the fun party antics of "Teenage Frankenstein". This is a really fun song that brings about that crazy synth sound of the 80s. This can be found on Alice's "Constrictor" album or the compilation "Prince Of Darkness".

KISS - Out of all the "creatures of the night" songs KISS has released, I really love to play "Unholy" from their under-rated album "Revenge". This is an evil sounding track that still has a good party atmosphere to it.

Iced Earth - "Dracula". Yeah, I know, not what you would consider a real classic Halloween song but I really like this one. Great retelling of the Bram Stoker tale with an emphasis on the romantic side.

Death Angel - "Leatherface" will be cranked up to offer some thrash to the weekend. This is the theme song to the '89 film "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3".

Overlorde - "Mark Of The Wolf" is a fantastic Halloween song! This is an old school werewolf tale based on the original Warner Brothers movie from the 30s. Great powerful ballad with some spooky overtones.

I couldn't possibly get through Halloween without hearing the song "Halloween" from the legendary Danish singer King Diamond. This is a classic from his '89 EP "The Dark Sides".

I'm gonna go with the rapid fire of "White Witch" from prog-metallers Savatage.

Gotta also play the epic-length "Halloween" from Helloween.

Ozzy Osbourne "Bark at the Moon" is a must, probably with the video.

I'll do this one without the video--"Gonna Get Close to You" from Queensryche, one of my favorite 'stalker' songs.

Force Of Evil - "Hobbs End". This year instead of focusing on John Carpenters legendary "Halloween", I thought I might dig into the film "In The Mouth Of Madness". To celebrate the film I'm going to jam Danish band Force Of Evil's "Hobb's End", a song penned about the eerie Carpenter masterpiece.

Alice Cooper hits my playlist again, this time weighing in with the "Friday The 13th" inspired "Man Behind The Mask". This is a great slasher song putting the listener in three environments where the "masked man" attacks.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--"Red Right Hand" and "Song of Joy". They aren't metal, but an album called Murder Ballads is perfect.

Also in the non-metal is the old, old killing song "Knoxville Girl". I'm going with the version by The Outlaws.

The song "Nosferatu" from Bloodbound sounds just like it was lifted from Iron Maiden...not a bad thing.

Fiddler's Green is supposed to be an afterlife filled with happiness and mirth.  I'm not so sure the Demons and Wizards version is the place you want to end up.

Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper" is a solid Halloween song, however their very best Autumn cut would be "Harvest Moon", a "sequel" so-to-speak of "Don't Fear...." that centers around a haunted plantation.

Dokken "Dream Warriors" - a power ballad about nightmares--of course it's getting played!

I'm skipping "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and putting on Charlie Daniels' spooky story-song "The Legend of Wooley Swamp".

Getting a double spin will be "Fear of the Dark" from Iron Maiden and Graveworm.

And, yes, a LOT of Black Fucking Sabbath!



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