Scott Walker’s The Drift will get under your skin
In my mind, Spooky Season music comes in two distinct flavors. There are the fun, occasionally goofy songs like “The Monster Mash” and John Carpenter’s “Halloween Theme.” Then there is the genuinely terrifying: Throbbing Gristle, The Body, or Scott Walker’s The Drift.
This 2006 album from the singer-songwriter is truly upsetting. On it, Walker explores death, disease, and tragedy. But not just from some abstract perspective. There are visceral descriptions of the hanging of Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci. He sings about 9/11, his stillborn twin brother, and the Srebrenica genocide. Lyrically, it’s about as dark as an album gets.
But it’s the experimental backdrop that drives it all home.
At times, the record sounds more like the score to an Ari Aster film than anything that could be called pop music under even the most generous definitions. Seasick guitars in the verses of “Jesse”...
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