10 of the Most Terrifying Pieces of Music You’ll Ever Hear

We get plenty of talk about the most frightening films, games, books and plays, but rarely is music ever mentioned in the same breadth. It’s not overly surprising, fear is an emotion derived from feeling threatened. It’s much easier to evoke through multiple senses than just the one. Things go bump in the night, but there has to be a night for the things to bump in. That sounded less sordid in my head, sorry. With that in mind, a piece of music that can fill your heart with paralyzing dread all by itself is quite the achievement, so I thought I’d give you a rundown of 10 tracks that have always given me some pretty pronounced heebie-jeebies. Get those headphones on, dim the lights and prepare for fright.

 

Radiohead – Kid A

Kid A is, in my opinion, the most interesting album Radiohead have ever produced. The then relatively new-found experimentation with electronic sounds, the abstract lyrics and just the overall feel of the album place it in many ‘best of all time’ lists, mine included. Allegedly much of the lyrical content for the album was conceived when Thom Yorke placed a series of abstract lines and phrases in hat, and knitted whatever was picked out together. If that is indeed true, then some otherworldly, unknowable poltergeist was possessing him when he penned Kid A. The lonely, haunting vocal distortions, tragic minor chords and percussive throbs are made all the more unsettling by phrases like ‘We’ve got heads on sticks, you’ve got ventriloquists’.

 

Suicide – Frankie Teardrop

Since contributing to the coining of punk as a description of music in the early 70s, Suicide have been quietly ticking away, producing atmospheric, abstract music. This shitifying 1977 track is as much a narrative as a song, detailing the murder-suicide of the titular character. The unsettling undercurrents ripple as singer Alan Vega details the brutal story, his voice becoming ever more pained as the song progresses. This is the kind of track you are helpless to appreciate, but refuse to ever experience more than once.

 

Throbbing Gristle – Hamburger Lady

Another set of generic pioneers, this time in industrial music, any number of Throbbing Gristle tracks could have made this list, but this is the one that seems the most intentionally frightening. Released on the 1978 album D.o.A: The Third and Final Report, the lyrics are taken from an actual burn ward doctor’s summation of a patient (hence the title). All the while weird, machine-like loops and crackles spur the music forward. It’s as sickening as it is scary.

 

MONO – The Hand that Holds the Truth

MONO, especially recently, are better known for making you feel hopeful, melancholic or awestruck than afraid, but on the darker half of their latest double album: The Last Dawn/Rays of Darkness, the Japanese instrumental foursome went to some interesting new places. This track, which features on the second half of the LP, ventures into some very spooky land with an ever climbing ominous series of riffs that build to an almost unbearable crescendo before petering out. Then something else happens. Without giving anything away, it’ll probably have this sort of effect on you. This is serious black metal territory. Without all the murder and people drinking ‘red wine’ out of big goblets.

 

Tom Waits – What’s He Building in There?

Another track that’s as much a narrative as it is a song, Tom Waits uses his gloriously ruined voice to detail the story of a suspicious man desperately trying to figure out what awful thing his reclusive neighbor is doing behind closed doors. We never actually find out, but it involved formaldehyde. The abstract buzzes, rumbles and clacks that make up the instrumental quotient of the song only serve to set you even more on edge than you already were. Frankly, if you aren’t scrutinizing everyone who lives nearby with binoculars after you hear this, there’s something wrong with you.