Radio One 91FM

It's our final album for the show so we dug out one of the most unsettling offerings of the cult underground - Kettle Cadaver's only album, Halloween from 1996. With a creepy atmosphere befitting the bloody legacy of the bands elaborate and violent stage shows, the album and the band behind it are possibly the most apt end to the show. We discussed our disagreements over the music, the alarming nature of the bands frontman Edwin Borsheim, and making horror real.

Wall of Silents - Nightmare
Plague of the Fallen - The Path of Bloodshed
Distant Fear - Mortal Column
Souls of Hades - Our New Hell
Satyricon - The King of the Shadowthrone
Possessed - The Eyes of Horror
Hallows Eve - The Mansion
Sacrifice - Flames of Armageddon
Kettle Cadaver - Halloween (full album)

A final note, while the footage of the bands live shows are not for the faint of heart (to say the least) - the 2016 documentary Dead Hands Dig Deep by Australian filmmaker Jai Love on the bands frontman Edwin Borsheim is a fascinating look into the mind of a deeply disturbed musician.

Get sweaty and get satanic, mates, we resurrected an early relic of the death metal genre with (arguably) its first studio album - Possessed's 1985 debut Seven Churches. We discussed the early development of extreme metal, the thrash scene the band emerged from, and just how impressive it is that a group of high schoolers made this album.

Limbonic Art - Arctic Odyssey
Bal-Sagoth - Shadows 'Neath the Black Pyramid
Death - Evil Dead
Celtic Frost - Nocturnal Fear
Kreator - Pleasure to Kill
Sodom - Deathlike Silence
Morbid Angel - Visions from the Dark Side
Possessed - Seven Churches

It's a Professor Flesh takeover! The good professor staged a show coup d'etat for an evening and Dr Rot took a backseat as we gave one of the seminal albums for 2000s/early 2010s emo a go - My Chemical Romance's 2002 debut I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. We talked about the experience of 9/11 & personal ill-health on the formation of the band & recording of the album, its outsized impact on metal/hard rock over the last two decades, and whether Dr Rot changed his mind of 2000s emo after listening to the album.

Hubrid - Lost Planet
Poppy - Fill The Crown
The Horrors - Gloves
My Chemical Romance - I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (full album)

Falling through the gaping maws of hell with the album that plays on the way down, we were torn asunder by the vocal extremity of Diamanda Galas' debut album The Litanies of Satan. We discussed Galas' insane vocal prowess, the impact of her life on her music, and how music itself can sound - or be - evil.

Quartz - Stoking Up the Fires of Hell
Death SS - All Soul's Day
Christian Death - Four Horsemen
Omen - Don't Fear The Night
Alice Cooper - He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)
Jason Richardson - Halloween
Gatekeeper - Chains
Goblin - Suspiria
Diamanda Galas - The Litanies of Satan (full album)

For a most unholy special we got together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Black Sabbath and Paranoid, 50 years to the day at the dread hour of midnight since Paranoid's release. We were absolutely buzzing and couldn't help but stay in the studio well into the night for this one. Our discussion sprawled across the music history of Birmingham, biographies of the band members, the traumatic aftermath of the Second World War, the music Black Sabbath were listening to in their youth, how their past as blue-collar factory workers impacted their sound, and how they integrated concepts of genuine evil & horror to popular music.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (full album)
Black Sabbath - Paranoid (full album)

Hangin' out with buff dudes in black makeup and mesh shirts to sing sweet words to creatures of the dark. We picked up our first Danzig project on the show, his third solo effort Danzig III: How the Gods Kill. We discussed Danzig's unique voice, the kind of horror he presented in his solo work, and whether Danzig III is his best solo effort (it is).

Stälker - Of Steel and Fire

Randy - Beast in the Night

Judas Priest - Night Comes Down

Cathedral - Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)

Gwar - Time for Death

Helmet - Iron Head

Blitzkid - She Dominates
Danzig - Danzig III: How the Gods Kill (full album)

We said we'd get onto a Mercyful Fate album eventually, it could only be stalled so long, and we thought we'd usher these Danish legends into the show by bucking the obvious choice and kicking off with the album that started their prolific '90s period - their 1993 comeback album In The Shadows. We rambled through the thrashier sound of the album, the broader approach to horror on this album, and gushed over how good a song The Old Oak is.

Metal Church - Watch the Children Pray

Forbidden - Forsaken at the Gates

Cirith Ungol - Fallen Idol

Queensryche - Take Hold of the Flame

Mercyful Fate - In The Shadows (full album)

Time to get your homies together and consider the inevitability of death, it's '90s goth time! Real sad hours, who up? We waded through the melancholy of Type O Negative's 1999 album World Coming Down, easily their most depressing album. We discussed the album's smothering soundscape, presenting feelings of mourning and loss in music, and what a loss the untimely death of frontman Pete Steele was. 

UFO - No Place To Run
Waysted - Night of the Wolf
Type O Negative - World Coming Down (full album)

With the album being a sliver shy of 75 minutes long, there wasn't much time for any other music. We did, however, get in a couple opening tracks to mark the recent passing of bassist & UFO founding member Pete Way.

A break from our usual programming to do a special tribute episode to mark the passing of British producer and sound engineer Martin Birch, who worked on a slew of exceptional releases in his 23 year career from 1969-1992. His work covers long periods with Iron Maiden, Fleetwood Mac, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Whitesnake, and Wishbone Ash; along with numerous one-off albums. We (mostly Dr Rot) talked about Birch's style of hands-on production, his penchant for integrating himself with a band over long periods, and the influence his albums had on us over the years.

Jeff Beck - Spanish Boots
Rainbow - Gates of Babylon
Bernie Marsden - You’re the One
Iron Maiden - Prodigal Son
Black Sabbath - Die Young
Skid Row - First Thing In The Morning
Whitesnake - Outlaw
Deep Purple - Speed King
Wishbone Ash - Queen of Torture
Fleetwood Mac - Coming Your Way
Iron Maiden - Flash of the Blades
Michael Schenker Group - Desert Song
Silverhead - Underneath the Light
Blue Oyster Cult - Monsters
Iron Maiden - Childhood’s End

Pour one out for a true talent behind the boards.

Time to get decked out in more leather and chains than could possibly be practical, we stepped back into the late '70s with one of two Judas Priest albums from 1978 - Stained Class. We discussed the 'look' of classic heavy metal that they pioneered, mixing in genuinely dark & serious themes with upbeat party tracks, and the idea of 'metal culture'.

Urchin - Countdown
Saturn - So, You Have Chosen Death
Budgie - Crash Course In Brain Surgery
Satan - Hear Evil, See Evil, Speak Evil
Def Leppard - The Overture
Motorhead - Dancing on Your Grave
Bad Axe - Mystified
Judas Priest - Stained Class (full album)

If we get back to Judas Priest, the other album from 1978 (Killing Machine) is high up the list alongside 1990s Painkiller for the album we cover.

From an ancient cemetary illuminated by a blazing church we finally dug into black metal with Mayhem on their infamous debut, 1994s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. We discussed the bloody circumstances of the album's making, the cycles of extremity in the Norwegian blackmetal scene, portraying evil in music, and the production quality of the album.

Venom - Witching Hour
Carpathian Forest - A World of Bones
Deathspell Omega - Devouring Famine
Gorgoroth - Under the Pagan Megalith
Blut Aus Nord - The Son of Hoarfrost
Darkthrone - The Pagan Winter
Bathory - Reap of Evil
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (full album)

We're partying with the Great Old Ones in the ruins of The Nameless City with Canadian Lovecraft nerds The Darkest of Hillside Thickets on their most recent album, 2017s Dukes of Alhazred. This was one of Professor Flesh' favourites albums of the show thus far. We dived with gusto into their unique take on punkish power pop, how their clear love of the subject matter translated into music, and having a laugh with Lovecraft.

Bitch - Skullcrusher
Blitzkid - Terror in the Haunted House
Bloody Hammers - The Witching Hour
Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem
Ghoultown - Under the Phantom Moon
Blue Oyster Cult - Godzilla
Super Heroines - Night Stalker
1919 - The Hunted
UK Decay - Rising from the Dead
The Darkest of Hillside Thickets - Dukes of Alhazred (full album)

As winter starts to give way to spring down here we thought we'd dive into one of the most literally frigid albums ever recorded, Candlemass' behemoth 1986 debut Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. We dug into the pessimism of the album, the impact on the doom metal genre, the early metal scene in Scandinavia, and how the conditions under which the band recorded the album impacted its sound & feel.

Saint Vitus - Return of the Zombie
Flower Travellin’ Band - Hiroshima
Trouble - Wickedness of Man
Black Sabbath - Symptom of the Universe
Crypt Sermon - The Ninth Templar
Witchcraft - Deconstruction
Melvins - Agonizer
Cirith Ungol - Better Off Dead
Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (full album)

There's no way we won't be coming back to Candlemass at some point, but hopefully we'll have worked our way through a fair chunk of the genre before we do. For those interested in the poorly conditions that went into the making of the album, this interview with Leif Edling on LouderSound is definitely recommended.

We finally deviated entirely from the horror part of the show with Professor Flesh's first album pick for the show, Brojob's 2018 debut Talk Shit, Get Kissed. It also happens to be the first instance of deathcore on the show, ticking another little chunk of the metal world off the list which we might not otherwise have touched - which is always nice.

Job For A Cowboy - Misery Reformatory
Opeth - In The Mist She Was Standing
Sodom - The Vice of Killing
Kittie - Severed
Autopsy - Impending Dread
The Black Dahlia Murder - What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse
Brojob - Talk Shit, Get Kissed (full album)

It's pretty unlikely that we'll ever get onto the -core genres of the 2000s and 2010s because it's not really either of our things, but we won't rule it out and at least a look at the early development of metalcore in the early '90s is probably on the cards. 

After a three week break due to Dr Rot being on bereavement leave, Haunting the Studio is up and running again. Been awhile since our last foray into synthwave so we put our cyber-upgraded heads together to talk about one the album that introduced Dr Rot to the genre - Perturbator's I Am the Night. We covered the gorgeous guest vocal performances on this album, the pan-media cyberpunk revival this album landed right at the start of, and the cultural inspirations the album (and cyberpunk generally) took from the urban disorder/crime films of the 1970s.

Magic Sword - In The Face Of Evil
DEADLIFE - Collapse Is Imminent
Orax - Ectoplasmic
Midnight Danger - Death Comes at Midnight
Carpenter Brut and Yann Ligner - Maniac (Michael Sembello cover)
Perturbator - I Am the Night (full album)

We will be returning to Perturbator at some point, given I Am the Night is arguably the least horror influenced album in their discography.

Yo, we're outta lockdown! And we've knocked off another titan in the metal world by having a crack at Iron Maiden, specifically their '80s prog-era, quasi-concept album Sevent Son of a Seventh Son. Steeped in the trappings of 20th century British mysticism, Seventh Son is one of the key albums in the early development of the prog metal genre along with being one of the bands most ambitious efforts. We took the plunge into their continued dabbling with prog, the fingerprints of Alastair Crowley on the album, and the arguable failure to pull together a truly cohesive story for the bands thus far only effort at a truly high concept album.

Dokken - Don't Close Your Eyes
Mercyful Fate - A Corpse Without A Soul
The Darkest of Hillside Thickets - Shoggoths Away
Misfits - Death Comes Ripping
Candlemass - Ancient Dreams
Fates Warning - The Apparition
Dio - Night People
Queensryche - The Warning
Savatage - Beyond the Doors of the Dark
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (full album)

For NZ music month we excavated the gritty sophomore outing by the self-described cigarette burn in the carpet of Palmerston North, Wall of Silents. Steeped in horror trappings and death rock aesthetics, 2008s Looking Through Cadaver Eyes is an album that could only be held off for so long on this show. Also, we're real pleased to have premiered a track for the first time with the leading track from Bulk Bogan's upcoming EP Suplex - cheers to 'em for giving us an advance copy, it's a ripper.

Bulk Bogan - Minotaur
Stalker - Satanic Panic
HEX - Witches of the Hex
Kaipirau - Patupaiarehe
Igni - The Path of the Dead
Souls of Hades - The Night
Blood Knight - Wasteland Wizard
Voice of the Black Pharoahs - Black Marsh
Demons of Noon - Mike
Filthy Lucifer - Cannibal Holocaust
Wall of Silents - Looking Through Cadaver Eyes (full album)

The interview on the defunct(?) local TV show Off The Stage, on the defunct(?) local station TararuaTV I might add, is somehow still online for those curious about the band. Bless local broadcasting, amirite? One thing I missed during the show which I should bring up is that the band also eerily reminded me musically (or at least vocally) of a less extreme Kettle Cadaver. Possibly just the extremely harsh, borderline death metal vocals over a much more traditional metal instrumental but there's something in that musically as well.

Get your sweat stained battevest and a jug of the cheapest beer available, we're finally doing a thrash album. Bucking the obvious choice of kicking off with a Slayer album or something by basically any of the big name German thrash bands, we instead decided to go with the Canadian heavyweights Annihilator's 1989 debut Alice In Hell.

Anthrax - Medusa
Venom - Countess Bathory
Destruction - Confused Mind
Acetic - Nailed to the Cross
Death Angel - Evil Priest
Megadeth - Last Rites/Loved to Deth
Overkill - Deny the Cross
Onslaught - Let There Be Death
Aggression - Blaspheming at the Altar
Exodus - Deranged
Annihilator - Alice In Hell (full album)

Quick note, though I'm not much of a fan of much of Annihilators output for the last couple decades we are pretty likely to come back to them at some point because I'd like to get to their 1990 sophomore album Never Neverland or their 1999 album Criteria for a Black Widow.

When one of the scariest men in rock 'n' roll faced down his own personal hell, severe alcoholism, he booked himself in and spent some time among the forgotten people of American society. When he came out, he wrote one of the best albums of the decade about the demons that haunted him and his fellow inmates. We took a reeaally deep dive into Alice Cooper's 1978 album From The Inside, which he wrote after an extended stay in a New York sanatorium.

Holocaust - The Nightcomers
Tokyo Blade - Night of the Blade
Twisted Sister - Under the Blade
Raven - Hell Patrol
Glenn Hughes - She Moves Ghostly
Bruce Dickinson - Dracula
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You
Deep Purple - Vincent Price
Judas Priest - The Green Manilishi
Alice Cooper - From The Inside (full album)

We covered a lot of territory on this one, and even at that there was still more to talk about that we just didn't get around to. One thing that really needs said is the original album sleeve the vinyl record came in, which is one of the most clever uses of the packaging itself for a vinyl record - using a series of folding 'doors' to show the sanatorium and the people who live in it, all happening inside Alice himself. It's genuinely ingenious in its simplicity.