FowlKrietzsche
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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!
1Butthole 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
2Unwound
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
3Boards 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
4Sprain
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...
5Sprain
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
6Metallica
Ride the Lightning


Call of Ktulu (Scary AF!)
R'lyeh herself rises at that fucking riff
7Pig Destroyer
Terrifyer


This whole thing scares the shit outta me. Undeniably Scary AF!
8Amigo 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"
9The 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
10Behemoth
The Satanist


The Satanist (Scary AF!)
11Billy Woods
Aethiopes


Wharves (Scary AF!)
12Slint
Spiderland


Good Morning, Captain (SCARY AF!)
Classic, any list on menace without this is incomplete.
13Elliott Smith
Roman Candle


Roman Candle (!DYNAMIC?)
The impotence or drive of the listener determines how menacing this banger really is
14The Jesus Lizard
Head


If You Had Lips (Scary AF!)
Who doesn't love a writhing guitar lick and an unhinged vocal performance?
15Daughters
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
16The Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards


Do the Wrong Thing (Scary AF!)
Everything is collapsing and it wasn't particularly sturdy to begin with
17Disturbed
The Sickness


Down with the Sickness (lol)
Domestic abuse solo time! Don't do it mommy
18Unwound
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
19Great Falls
Objects Without Pain


Dragged Home Alive (SCARY AF!)
20Slayer
Haunting the Chapel


Chemical Warfare (Scary AF!)
CHEMICAL WARFARE *sick riff*
21Converge
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
22Die Kreuzen
Die Kreuzen


On the Street (Scary AF!)
Rabid
23Chat 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
24Batushka
Litourgiya


Premudrost' (Scary AF!)
A clergy over black metal?? Its perfect
25Acid Bath
When the Kite String Pops


Dr. Seuss is Dead (Scary AF!)
26Manic Street Preachers
The Holy Bible


The Intense Humming of Evil (Scary AF!)
27Akira 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
28Panzerfaust
The Suns of Perdition - Chapter II


The Faustian Pact (Scary AF!)
29Tool
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!
31Swirlies
They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons


Two Girls Kissing (Delightfully Ominous)
32Lisa 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
33Swans
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
34Swans
The Seer


Avatar - Recced by Icebloom
Oh I love this, Scary AF!
35Swans
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
36Krzysztof 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
37Pink 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
38Diamanda 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!
39Sectioned
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
40Akhlys
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
41Current 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!
42Strict
Kiss


2 - Recced by cylinder
Yucky fuzz, Kinda Kreepy isolated and Scary AF! in context of the album.
43Bambara
Stray


Machete - Recced by Icebloom
Reads like a r/horror story so effective and entertaining and a bit corny. Strong Kinda Kreepy.
44Anna von Hausswolff
Dead Magic


The Mysterious Disappearance of Electra - Recced by Icebloom
Stunning build and climax, yeah this is great stuff. Scary AF!
45Dead 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
46Arab Strap
As Days Get Dark


Sleeper - Recced by Icebloom
Excellent mood, very eerie and evocative, but not much more than Kinda Kreepy.
47Gyorgy 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!
48Mgla
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.
49Andy Stott
Faith in Strangers


Violence - Recced by Valkoor592
*Patrick Bateman headphones gif* Scary AF!
50Giles 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
51Graham 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
52Igorrr 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
53Misthyrming
Söngvar elds og óreiðu


Söngur heiftar (Scary AF!)
Battery of extreme cold and riffz
54Crippling Alcoholism
When The Drugs That Made You Sick Are The Drugs...


Beloved (Scary AF!)
yesyesyesyesyes violent and dancey
55Godspeed 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
56Puce 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
57Damien Dubrovnik
Great Many Arrows


The whole thing - Recced by TheManMachine
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