Tuesday 24 January 2017

Metal albums based on the work of H P Lovecraft

A couple of my favourite albums over the last couple of years have been concept albums based on the work of HP Lovecraft. I'm not sure why the subject appeals so much to metal / prog bands and I'm not sure why it works so well.

Here are the ones I'm aware of. If you know of any more, please leave a note in the comments. (I'll add a separate section for standalone tracks such as Metallica's Call of Ktulu if there are many more of those.)

Albums


Infinite Spectrum - Haunter of the Dark - big metal, definitely progressive and pulls off the amazing feat of telling the story Haunter of the Dark in the lyrics and music. Superb album, one of my favourites of 2016





Anthropia : Non-euclidian Spaces - Not a concept album in the same way as Haunter, ie it isn't based on a single Lovecraft story, but draws on various works and the general mythos for the themes to the songs. This is further into the symphonic and progressive area in its more experimental time signatures and rhythms, but all of that seems to work really well with the subject and echo the non-euclidian geometry idea.



The Great Old Ones - EOD : A Tale of Dark Legacy - a little heavy and growly for my tastes, but an enjoyable listen. Again drawing on various stories - titles such as Shadow over Innsmouth and When the Stars Align  indicate what's going on here.

Rage  - Soundchaser is a concept album featuring an original story based on Lovecraft's ideas. The third track is called Great Old Ones.

Alkaloid - Liquid Anatomy This very technical album "thematically picks up on the Lovecraft theme that was already featured on the last album" says drummer Hannes Grossmann.

Song titles include Azagthoth, Liquid Anatomy and Rise of the Cephalopods

Arkham Witch - I am Providence - traditional heavy metal 2015 release, 20 shortish tracks with names such as Necronomicon, Rats in the Walls, Re-animator, The Haunted Tomb.

References 

Metallica's Call of Ktulu (with an interesting spelling of Ktulu) is an instrumental at the end of Ride the Lightning, so only the title (which presumably inspired the music) is a reference. From the next album (Master of Puppets) The Thing That Should Not Be contains quotes and references to the mythos generally and maybe Shadow over Innsmouth.

Celtic Frost's Album Morbid Tales contains a couple of references - the title track (appearing on subsequent releases but not the original EP) has a reference to Yog Sothoth. The track Nocturnal fear has a number of references; 'the sleeping lord awakes', 'the old gods', Azag-Thoth and mention of the Yezidi, which may refer to 'The Horror at Red Hook'

Orange Goblin have a short instrumental  called 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' from the album Back from the Abyss. Blood of Them (the previous track on the album) has words which are clearly Lovecraftian but I'm not sure that the rest of the album follows the theme.


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