Artist

In preparation for Revolver's March 15 Raw Power Management/The Agency Group SXSW showcase in Austin, Texas, we asked Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil to list her six favorite things about Texas.

Here goes!

01. The music scene, which is getting bigger and bigger and more vibrant than ever in Texas. SXSW and lots of musicians moving there are the proof that Texas is a state that has respect for music and creativity. I can't wait to perform at SXSW; it's our first time with Lacuna Coil, and everybody is already telling us it's going to be amazing!

02. I love to eat, and when it comes to the States I like to get myself some comfort food every now and then. I'm always happy to stop to taste some Tex-Mex food. I've never been disappointed. (I also highly recommend the Big Texan in Amarillo; it's a very characteristic place with great food, a place where you can dare to try to finish a 72-ounce steak in less than an hour, and not only the steak)! And the Blue Bell ice cream is Texan ... helloooo?!?

03. It will sound silly but I have to say it: cowboy hats. Imagine the perspective of somebody coming from Italy where everything related to the States is pretty much in the American movies full of cowboys and horses, played on TV. That's why, the first time we played in Texas with Lacuna Coil, it was the very first thing I bought. I wore it all the time. Black, of course. In Europe I would look a little strange with it, but when I was in Texas it made perfect sense to me!

04. Cowboy boots. Being a woman, it's kinda normal that I'm in love with a well-manufactured shoe, hahaha! Some boots are absolute works of art with their different materials and different textures, the designs, the way some of them are embroidered. I love the art some shoemakers are putting in their handmade boots, and of course, some of the best boots around are made in Texas. I wish I could learn to put together a pair of boots from scratch!

05. Six Flag park. I enjoy roller coasters, and when I tried the Titan, I learnt a new concept of the word "roller coaster." I think I lost 10 years off my life 'cause I was terrified by one of the "falls." I LOVED IT!!! Can't wait to go back again!

06. Chuck Norris, of course. He already knew you guys would have asked, and he already knew I would have answered this, of course.

Visit Lacuna Coil on Facebook, and look out for the next Top Six Fave Things About Texas blog post next week!

Revolver's SXSW showcase will take place Friday, March 15, at the Dirty Dog Bar, 505 E. 6th St. in Austin. The show, which is presented by Raw Power Management and The Agency Group, kicks off 8 p.m. (doors 7:30 p.m.). Here's the lineup: 8 p.m., Immanu El | 8:45 p.m., Monster Truck | 9:30 p.m., Crossfaith | 10:15 p.m., Young Guns | 11 p.m., Of Mice And Men | midnight, Chiodos | 1 a.m., Lacuna Coil

The show is presented in association with Revolver, Drop Dead Clothing and Tillys. Poster art (below) by Brian Ewing.

Here's part one of A Life Once Lost's new tour diary, courtesy of guitarist Doug Sabolick:

Our day started with an epic van rental fail. After hours of red tape, it doesn't end up happening. Onward to U-Haul, our old friend.

We are now hitching a trailer to a Jeep. After the first two trailers' lights don't work, the third is a charm. Kinda. The break lights work, but no running lights. Onward to Walmart!

We Gorilla Glue two push-button lights covered in red electrical tape to the back of the trailer. Problem solved. We are now embarking on a relaxing 30-hour drive to the Mexican border. Its rock and roll, brah.

Passing Chattanooga as I type this, and we are about halfway to the border. Can't wait to fill my pockets with pesos and slam Tecates into oblivion.

On a lighter note, we just found out we are now skipping the route in Mexico where last year they found 49 headless corpses stacked on the side of the road. This saddens me, but it's probably for the best.

Until next time.

Doug

A Life Once Lost on Tour

March 09 @ Festival Nrmal -Monterrey, Mexico
March 11 @ Aria -McAllen, TX
March 12 @ SXSW -Austin, TX
March 13 @ Spider House Ballroom Austin TX - THE TEXAS ROCK N ROLL MASSACRE Daytime
March 13 @ Hangar Lounge (4th & Colorado) - Metal Wreckage showcase ~ALOL plays at 8:30 pm
March 13 @ Metal & Lace / Headhunters - OFFICIAL SXSW SHOWCASE ~ALOL plays at 1 am
March 15 @ Melotov @ 1808 E. 12th ~ALOL plays at tba, doors @ 4 pm
March 15 @ The Annex at 1808 - Austin, TX
March 16/17 @ The Music Ranch - ALOL plays at 3 AM
March 17 @ The Chameleon Room - Oklahoma City, OK
March 18 @ Fubar - St Louis, MO
March 19 @ Jenny Wiley Convention Center - Prestonburg, KY
March 20 @ Ultra Lounge - Chicago, IL
March 21 @ Mickey Finn's Pub -Toledo, OH
March 22 @ Broadway Joes - Buffalo, NY
March 23 @ Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA
March 24 @ The Acheron - Brooklyn, NY

The all-new February/March 2013 issue of Revolver is available now at the Revolver Online Store.

Our new cover star is Phil Anselmo, who discusses his road to redemption, from Pantera to his new solo project.

The new issue also features:

• Black Veil Brides: Take a ride on the wild side with the glam-metal rebels.

• Hatebreed: The hardcore heroes put CNN in its place.

• Mitch Lucker's widow remembers the late Suicide Silence vocalist.

• In the Studio: Dillinger Escape Plan, Sick Puppies and A Pale Horse Named Death.

• Plus: Former Korn guitarist and current Love and Death frontman Brian "Head" Welch has nice tats, Vultures Unitied love the ladies, Carcass get resurrected in the studio, Flyleaf's hot new singer, Vinnie Paul and Lzzy Hale dish out advice and more.

Plus reviews of new releases by Bad Religion, Buckcherry, Rotten Sound and much more!

Head to the Revolver Online Store right now! The new issue is available now for $6.99!

The creative minds behind the Showtime series Californication have never hidden their love of metal. The show's antihero, Hank Moody (played by David Duchovny), has written three novels that share titles with Slayer albums (South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss, and God Hates Us All); rockers including Zakk Wylde and Tommy Lee have appeared on the show, and Marilyn Manson is set to glower his ghastly sneer in this season; and settings for the show have included gritty Sunset Strip rock Meccas like the Rainbow and Chateau Marmont. Add to this mix, Moody's fork-tongued turns of phrase and his general decadence—sex, drugs, and a lot more sex—and he carries himself like a rock star without the musical chops.

Last night's season six premiere, which boasted the Metallica-referencing title "The Unforgiven," naturally had no shortage of debauched moments. Of course, it helped that it started with at New York's famed and now-defunct CBGB club, which the producers faithfully recreated, and the original version of a song Guns N' Roses covered: Johnny Thunders' 1978 bum trip "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory." Below, we've collected together some of the funniest and most metal moments from "The Unforgiven," many of which you'll enjoy if you love spoilers.

Hank Moody's Total Meltdown

After waking up from a drug-induced coma, after his ex-girlfriend slipped some antidepressants into Moody's wine, he realized what a total fuckup he became and then got even more fucked up. Highlights—or in this case lowlights—included Moody going to the wrong house and accidentally climbing into a toddler's bed, his pissing into a whiskey bottle, rather than going to one of the "three-point-five baths" in his agent/best friend Charlie Runkle's house, and then drinking said piss-key to the stinger of "Deeeelicious." He ruins a wedding proposal, gets called a "dick in the mud," walks around with a bloody tissue hanging from his nose, and even sort of title-checks Slipknot when he explains the reason he dropped out of college as, "I'm a fucking disasterpiece." And then there's a question he asks Runkle early on, "Have you ever had a throbbing asshole, Charlie?"

The Introduction of Rock Star Atticus Fetch

"It was an honor and a privilege to hold your penis for as long as I did," said a flight attendant/masseuse/handjob giver to this season's rock-star foil to Moody, the guylinered and long blonde haired Atticus Fetch (Australian comedian Tim Minchin). Right from the start, the Fetch character is an over-the-top Golden God in the vein of '80s Ozzy or Vince Neil or, in the '70s, every Led Zeppelin member. The man has a TV broadcasting his own private satellite feed of scenes from the Sudan on his plane: "I can write a song about it." He snorts coke off a mirror and claims Moody's God Hates Us All "was like God came down from heaven and laid his massive, veiny ballsack on my face." Which of course made him want to make a rock opera out of it—or rather the watered-down Hollywood version of God Hates Us All: Crazy Little Thing Called Love. But since Moody's assessment of Fetch is, "You're smug, you're pompous, there's no cock in your rock anymore," there's likely plenty of mayhem ahead in the season.

Charlie Runkle's Incredible Hulk Stripper Show

Near the end of Moody's friends ill-executed "intervention," Runkle loses it and lets loose a scream dastardly scream. That he accompanies it by ripping off his sweater and then daintily unbuttoning his shirt (see gif) to reveal where he took a bullet for Moody in the last season made it the funniest moment of the episode. All in all, The Unforgiven was a great start, but let's hope there's enough Runkle rage to last the full sixth season.

By Damian Fanelli

Besides reliable gear, sensible footwear and a guaranteed ride to gigs, members of good backing bands must have:

• Humility. After all, they're not the stars. The frontman (or woman) is.

• Natural talent and/or undeniable skill. A frontman doesn't need to wonder if his guitarist will actually nail the tricky guitar solo this time. That stuff needs to be automatic.

• Personality. No, they're not the stars, but backing-band members can't be bland sticks in the mud, either. They need to bring something unique to the table, each part of the band combining to create a superior "whole."

The best backing bands, of course, have all these qualities — plus lots of success. Some of them of have played on countless hits. Some have played a role in music history. Others just have so much talent that they automatically move to the next level.

This story is about 10 such backing bands.

Note that we kept our choices to backing bands with actual "names." These are groups we call "ampersand bands," since their name, in most of these cases, follows an ampersand or an "and" in the act's full name, such as John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers or Johnny and The Moondogs (neither of whom are included on this list).

So even though Bill Black and Scotty Moore kicked vintage ass as Elvis Presley's backing duo, the duo never had a name. And the talented gents who backed Roger Waters or Paul McCartney at the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief? No name. You get the idea.

We also tried to focus on bands that kept a core group of members intact over the years. For example, we'd consider Elvis Costello's Attractions (always the same three guys) over Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention (This Wikipedia page says it all).

On that note, here they are, Guitar Aficionado's 10 best backing bands of all time, starting with band No. 10: The Band!

10. The Band

Although The Band are best known for their own dark, rustic late-'60s masterpieces Music from Big Pink and The Band, they hit the world stage in the mid-'60s as Bob Dylan's backing band.

Actually, their backing-band pedigree started in 1958, when they hooked up with rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and called themselves The Hawks. After short-lived stints as Levon & the Hawks and the Canadian Squires, the gang was hired by Dylan in 1965, just as he was ditching his acoustic/folk persona in favor of Strats and heavier rock.

Dylan and the Band (still known as the Hawks for a while) — Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel — toured the US in 1965 and the world in 1966, enduring the heckling and disapproval of folk-music purists every step of the way.

The Band were on stage with Dylan in Manchester, England, on May 17, 1966, when an audience member shouted "Judas!" Dylan replied, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!" He then turned to The Band and said, "Play it fucking loud!" before launching into "Like a Rolling Stone."

The Band followed Dylan to Woodstock, New York, where they recorded The Basement Tapes. It was a relationship that wound up lasting — albeit loosely — for several years, in the form of various touring and recording projects.

In terms of sheer talent, The Band were a dream team. Every member of the group was a multi-instrumentalist. They could provide soaring harmony vocals, oddball lead guitar, mesmerizing keyboards and everything from fiddle to trombone to sax to mandolin.

Maybe The Band were at the right place at the right time, but there's no denying they occupy a special place in rock history.

Chris Krovatin is the author of three young adult novels, Heavy Metal & You, Venomous, and Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones. He is currently working on multiple new writing projects, as well as new material with his local New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone's collective ass. This column represents his opinions–and probably only his opinions.

It is rare that great albums have great covers. On the odd instance they do, something beautiful occurs, a perfect coupling of music and imagery that cements that record into your mind. But plenty of incredible records have lame faces forward. For every British Steel, there is an Ace of Spades. For every South of Heaven, there is a Bonded By Blood. Sometimes, the lack of an awesome cover makes the album even better—a mind-blowing collection of songs with a solidly "Meh" cover makes the music even cooler, as it stands on its own without the help of flashy graphics. Most importantly, a bad album with a bad cover is the worst thing in the world and should be treated as such. Maybe the "Black Album" doesn't look as good as Master of Puppets, but we all know Lulu can go fuck itself.

This year in metal was no different than any other. Some bands blew our minds with the evocative imagery, and some really shat the bed in full-force. Of course, underground bands with more investment in actual art took the lead, creating awesome weird cover art that speaks to creative souls, while mainstream artists on major labels pumped out cliché and over-produced pieces of hackneyed crap (though in the case of Tankard, you can't even blame the big record companies—they just chose poorly). So if you consider yourself an artistic soul or a philistine, enjoy my Six Best and Worst Metal Album Covers of 2012. Damn your eyes.

The Six Best Metal Album Covers of 2012:

1. Sigh, In Somniphobia I wish I could even begin to describe what the fuck is going on here. The way I'm seeing it, the elderly aristocrat is pregnant with her eighth dead baby, and everyone at the Italian outdoor market is overjoyed about it. Incredible, but fuck, man.

2. Black Breath, Sentenced To Life This is like a cooler version of those old Exciter album covers—a single hand, leather-clad, coming out of the darkness and smashing the fourth wall with a sledgehammer. The image is both awesome on its own and a perfect representation of the album's general atmosphere. Brutal.

3. Lord Mantis, Pervertor Here's what I'm getting: Christ is in Hell, and a number of corpse-faced ambulatory cocks are using their barbed tongues to explore his newly created vagina. Is…is that what's going on here? Because if that's it, I'm really not sure whether I should be overjoyed or very, very worried.

4. Six Feet Under, Undead Not only was Undead a solid and entertaining death-metal album, but it had an absolutely incredible cover, with a whirling mind of evil meat perfectly illustrating the inner workings of the zombie. Finally, these guys figured it out.

5. The Howling Wind, Of Babalon Drawn by the inimitable Tony Roberts, this creeping and sinister cover exudes a sense of organic black magic that many fans dream of. It's one of the few recent album covers that features a naked woman which doesn't immediately seem corny to me.

6. Kreator, Phantom Antichrist Wes Benscoter, king among death-metal album artists, has done it again with this twisted, over-the-top illustration of…well, the Phantom Antichrist, I guess? Once again, it's probably a good sign that I have no exact idea what's happening here, I just want in.

Honorable mentions: The Northless/Light Bearer split for its creepy electric doom priests, and the Horseback/Locrian split for its giant woodland vagina castle.

The Six Worst Metal Album Covers of 2012:

1. Tankard, A Girl Called Cerveza BLECCH. Nevermind that Tankard's thrash paeans to beer have gone a little flat over time—this cover is beyond hideous. Don't get me wrong, we've all drank enough to flirt with a broad like this, but ugh. Why would you even. GYAH.

2. Geoff Tate, Kings and Thieves I promise, as much as I find Geoff Tate a ridiculous cornball, I won't make fun of his album cover if it's—oh, wait, it's a confused mess reminiscent of 2008 with its fleur de lis and ravens. Is the one raven stuck? How does this relate to the album? Man, you're batting a thousand, Geoff.

3. In This Moment, Blood Remember what I said about naked chicks in the last list? Case in point. Between teasing us with naked women that are then weird mannequins and showcasing Maria Brink (are there other members to this band?), In This Moment lost the plot with this album cover. Cool title—wish you'd done something here with it. So the record's about what? Boobs or crows?

4. Ministry, Relapse Whelp, sometimes the mighty fall far. The gods of metallic industrial have graced us with the image of a fat, foaming-at-the-mouth ODing metal dude in a…church? Or something? Ugh. This

5. Adrenaline Mob, Omerta BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH! Guys, let's not do this. Everything going on here has been done better by bands like Volbeat and Chrome Division. The rings on the skeletons finger only make me think of some jackass rapper, any jackass rapper. And the devil/angel girl card? Grow the fuck up.

6. Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, Spellbound What. An. Asshole.

Chris Cornell sits in the corner booth of a restaurant near his Los Angeles home, digging into a breakfast of bacon and eggs and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when—after an absence of more than a decade—the four members of Soundgarden decided to make music together again.

"I don't know," he finally says with a sheepish grin. "We were sitting in a room together, all four of us for probably the first time in 14 years, and the first five minutes were a little awkward. I guess it's just human nature. Everyone's a little guarded and a little cautious, and everybody looks a little different. But after five minutes, we're remembering when the roadie was lighting his farts, and when someone was in a blackout and swinging from a chandelier—just all the funny stories. And that went on for, like, an hour and a half. And once that was going on, it felt like… You just become a band again. That's all you know how to be together, anyway, because that's all you ever were."

One of the biggest and most influential bands to emerge from the phenomenally fertile Seattle music scene of the 1980s, Soundgarden broke up in 1997, following a worldwide tour to promote Down on the Upside, their platinum-selling fifth album. And now, 15 years later, they're releasing their sixth, the mighty King Animal.

While it's fairly common these days for bands "of a certain age" to reunite and hit the '90s nostalgia concert circuit, the likelihood of any of them coming back with an album that stands with their best work is pretty miniscule. But Soundgarden have willfully defied the odds with King Animal, a record whose 13 tracks—from the swaggering riffs of the aptly titled "Been a Long Time" through the brooding psychedelia of the closing "Rowing"—not only deliver all the heaviness, darkness, and beautiful weirdness that made Soundgarden so great in the first place, but also seem to actually benefit from the passage of time since the band's last studio album.

"I think we've all evolved pretty significantly as musicians," says drummer Matt Cameron, who joined fellow Seattle rockers Pearl Jam in 1998, and has also played on numerous sessions with other artists (including Geddy Lee and Tony Iommi), and released four albums with his garage-psych side project Wellwater Conspiracy. "We all love playing music, and I think we all do things outside of our groups that we're known for, just for the sheer joy of collaborating on projects and making records."

Indeed, the four members of Soundgarden have all pursued their respective muses following the band's dissolution. Cornell, the band's charismatic lead singer, spent six years fronting Audioslave, the hard-rock band he formed in 2001 with three-fourths of Rage Against the Machine, and essayed a successful solo career—though the latter was not without its controversy, in the case of 2009's Scream, his Timbaland-produced, Trent Reznor-derided electronic pop experiment.

Bassist Ben Shepherd, who'd joined the band in 1990 following the departure of original member Hiro Yamamoto, played and recorded with former Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, and released a couple of records with Hater, the side project he formed in the early '90s with Cameron and Monster Magnet guitarist John McBain (and which later morphed into Wellwater Conspiracy). Shepherd has also been working intermittently on an as-yet-unreleased solo record. Kim Thayil, the band's fearsomely bearded lead guitarist, maintained a lower profile than the others, but still made some notable appearances in the ambient/doom-metal world, including contributions to Altar, 2006 collaboration between Boris and Sunn O))), Ascend's 2008 release, Ample Fire Within, and two albums by Neurosis-affiliates A Storm of Light.

With four such creative individuals going down completely different artistic paths, a Soundgarden reunion once seemed entirely out of the realm of possibility, at least from Thayil's perspective. "People had grown in separate ways," he says. "There were creative decisions that I saw Chris make—and similarly with Matt and Ben—and then there were my interests… And my interests weren't going anywhere near there. It just seemed like people were going in their different directions, and I didn't see how we would satisfy that creatively. But what I didn't see was that everyone still had a fondness and a love for what it was that we did together. And even though people seemed to be going in different directions musically and creatively, everyone was still willing to contribute that particular element and love of music that they'd always contributed to Soundgarden."

To fully understand how Soundgarden could reconvene so successfully after all that time away, you need to understand why they split up in the first place—even though, in some ways, it's a tale as mundane as their recorded legacy is rich.

"All those Behind The Musics, they're all pretty close to the same story," Cornell laughs. "It's like, 'Yeah, we met in high school or the first year of college, we started a band, somebody's friend was an agent who brought in a manager, we made a record, it sold 60 million records in a week, and then we had trouble making the second record because everyone was super-high and we hated each other.' That wasn't us. We didn't have that. We chugged away and chugged away and chugged away. And we kind of still do."

Formed in Seattle in 1984, Soundgarden initially attracted attention for playing '70s-damaged heavy rock amid a punk/indie scene that couldn't have been less accepting of anything even vaguely redolent of long hair, bell bottoms, and head shops. "It was like, 'No, wait a minute, you can't do that!'" Cornell laughs. "I remember Soundgarden playing an early gig in Vancouver, and a big chunky glass ashtray whizzed right past my temple. The audience was all completely back against the wall and seated. They just hated us. At that moment, I felt like, Oh...we know something that they don't!"

By October 1987, when their Screaming Life EP was released via a fledgling Seattle label called Sub Pop, Soundgarden were already seasoned rock veterans, at least compared to most of the bands on the local scene. "A lot of Sub Pop bands had only been around for a year or two," remembers Thayil, "and when they went out on the road for the first time, they came back in pieces. We always felt we were stronger of character and able to endure it."

After two albums on SST, 1988's Ultramega OK and 1989's Louder Than Love, Soundgarden inked a deal with A&M, and released 1991's Badmotorfinger, a record many still view as their finest hour. Though they were one of the first groups from the Seattle scene to sign with a major label, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice In Chains quickly shot past them on the ladder to stardom.

"I love all those bands, but what we were doing just a few years before those bands started doing it gave them inspiration," Thayil says. "It's like, you can be a hard-rock band without being a dickhead. You can be a hard-rock band without being some moron doing a keg stand. It was heavy music that wasn't all hairdo…

"I remember the Nirvana guys wanting to be on Sub Pop, saying we were their favorite band," he continues. "The first time I met Kurt Cobain, I told him how much I loved their 'Love Buzz' single, and he said, 'Well, consider yourself our biggest influence.' These were the things that were important to us at the time."

Still, despite all the kudos from their peers, "It was a long, hard slog for us," Cameron remembers. "We didn't make any money for a long, long time. But I always felt like the band was such an awesome creative entity. I think we all had a lot of faith in our music, and that's what kept us going."

It wasn't until 1994's Superunknown, which spawned the melodic surprise MTV hit "Black Hole Sun," that Soundgarden finally broke through to the mainstream, even if the band's multi-hued array of psychedelic, post-punk, and progressive rock influences continued to be overlooked by fans and critics who found it more convenient to lump them in with the "grunge" movement.

"We've always been a little too diverse to figure out easily," Cornell reflects. "I think it's helped our longevity, and I think it will help our longevity after we drop dead. But I also think it was a minus when it came to popularity in the big picture, and selling a lot of records, and existing in the major label world. We still have the elements of indie post-punk that was kind of anchoring us and keeping us from being an easily understandable and accessible commercial rock band."

It was during the tour for Down on the Upside, the band's most musically diverse album yet, that the Soundgarden saga suddenly ground to a burned-out halt. On February 9, 1997, over an hour into a show at Honolulu's Blaisdell Arena that had been conspicuously marked by bad vibes and technical glitches, Shepherd slammed down his bass and stormed off the stage, followed closely by Thayil, Cameron, and Cornell. As Cornell and Cameron returned to the stage to play a brief encore, and Shepherd and Thayil argued in the dressing room, the end was drawing near.

Shepherd still fumes today when the subject of that fateful evening arises, though his ire has nothing to do with his bandmates. "I'd had it up to here with my equipment dying," he explains, "so I wasn't going to stand onstage and fake what I was playing. But people assumed that because I left the stage, I was the reason why we broke up, blah blah blah, and that pissed me off. Even when we were in the van driving home to the hotel from the show, some radio station that the driver was listening to was already lying about it: 'Yeah, Ben Shepherd quit the band—his brother died and he's really mad!'"

"I've read all kinds of things in the past few years that 'substance abuse' was the problem," chuckles Thayil. "And it's like, no, that was a particular aspect of Nirvana, that was a particular aspect of Alice In Chains. That wasn't our thing…

"You could see that people were getting a little bit stressed," he explains. "I don't think it was with each other, as much as it was just burnout and fatigue from collectively having to attend to something that is emotionally draining, that requires your personal attention and investment. That's what it was, more than anything else. There was absolutely no substance abuse problem there—other than maybe drinking more than a six-pack and smashing things." He laughs.

Cornell agrees. "I think that what caused us to split apart, rather than just take a hiatus, was just that Soundgarden had become a business," he says, "and that business had somehow, in a sense, started to be able to dictate to us what, where, and how we were going to do things, whether we were into it or comfortable with it or not."

On April 9, two months after the show in Honolulu, Soundgarden officially called it quits. Ironically, the business that tore Soundgarden apart would finally bring them back together in 2009.

"Initially, we reunited kind of as a partnership concern regarding our legacy: 'Hey, man, we don't have a website!'" Thayil laughs. "Friends of ours have kids who are in junior high and high school and learning instruments, and these friends were asking us, 'Why can't we find your T-shirts when we go to the store?' I thought that our band should be out there in the way that bands like Led Zeppelin were available for me to find out about, when I was learning guitar and starting a record collection. Everyone agreed, because in the decade or so that we'd been broken up, we'd kind of neglected that. The record company was gone, and our management office became a post office box and a voice mail, so there was no one minding the store."

"That's what started it," Cornell adds. "We were super-proud of every part of our history. There's no 'dark period' where we were bummed out about what happened. The last creative experience we had, Down on the Upside, was a great one, so we didn't really have to get over that hump of, 'Making those last three records was so awful, I don't know if I can do it again,'" he laughs. "We didn't have that."

Those initial discussions led to rehearsals, which in turn led to reunion shows in 2010, a full-fledged tour in 2011, and the creation of King Animal. Smashing Pumpkins head honcho Billy Corgan recently made headlines when he dissed Soundgarden as one of "Those bands that are essentially coming back only to make money—playing their old albums, and maybe somewhere in the back of their minds, they're thinking there might be a future." But King Animal has actually been in the works since late 2010.

"I've read all those criticisms: 'Soundgarden are only reuniting to play their old songs!'" Thayil shrugs. "We've been working on this record for a year and a half, we told people we were, we posted pictures of us in the studio… But still it somehow kind of got out there that we were playing all the riverboat casinos and county fairs!"

Though recorded in fits and starts at Seattle's Studio X due to Cornell's and Cameron's various touring commitments, King Animal actually comes off remarkably cohesive, a testament to the singularity of the group's vision. Not too many other bands could seamlessly fuse the myriad musical strains running through the explosive hard rock of "Non-State Actor" and "Blood On the Valley Floor," the punkish drive of "Attrition," the wistful ballad "Halfway There," or the Eastern guitar-and-horns drone freakout of "A Thousand Days Before," not to mention the many unexpected breaks and time signatures that pop up throughout. "Mark Arm from Mudhoney always used to say we were the Rush of Seattle," laughs Cameron.

"There's definitely that sort of alchemy and chemistry where when the four of us play together," Cornell says. "No matter what it is, it sounds like Soundgarden. The other thing that was there, and was evident immediately when we started writing together again, was that we still had vision in the same amount that we always did. I guess you'd call it a 'collective vision,' because everyone individually had their own vision of what Soundgarden meant, to them and to our fans.

"We all stuck to the vision, and I suppose that's sometimes what gets lost in the perpetuation of a band over a long period of time. But we haven't lost it, even a little bit. Everyone's head is still in the game the same way. Whatever problems we had before, personally, with just functioning as human beings, we probably all still have. Just maybe over the course of a few years, we've come to understand how to deal with those things a little better, but they're all still there. Nobody showed up with a Deepak Chopra book in their backpack, you know?" He laughs. "Nobody has completely transformed into another human being. And I'm thankful for that, in a weird way."

While there are plans afoot for a U.S. tour supporting King Animal, it's currently unclear whether the album will be Soundgarden's final studio statement, or the first recorded chapter of the group's second life. But that's OK with the band.

"I guess we'll have to see," Cameron says. "It feels good just to do it one day at a time, and to not really look too far ahead in the future. It just feels like we're in a healthy place, the way we're doing it now, which is to stay in the present."

Best of all, right now, "Everybody's on the same page," says Shepherd. "Especially when we plug in and turn on. There's nothing like it!"

By Andrew Bansal

Raleigh, North Carolina-based metal band Corrosion Of Conformity have presented various facets of their musicianship to fans during their 30 years of existence. They've dabbled in stoner, thrash, sludge, crossover and other genres.

With their latest release, their self-titled eighth studio album that was recorded at Dave Grohl's studio in Los Angeles, they've gone back to their three-piece Animosity lineup of Woody Weatherman on guitar, Mike Dean on bass and vocals and Reed Mullin on drums — they've released their most diverse set of tunes yet.

Besides, they've had a lot else going on this year, with the re-release of their debut album, Eye For An Eye, a new five-song EP that will be released soon and an extensive US tour that starts next month.

A few days ago, I caught up with Weatherman to discuss just about everything COC fans might want to know. Read our conversation below, and visit the band's official website for more information.

REVOLVER: I was looking at the list of your upcoming tour dates. It's a great lineup of bands. It must be exciting for you to go out on a proper touring run like this. You've done shows here and there, but this is a long run.

Yeah! We've been pretty lucky that in the last couple of years we've really had the opportunity to hook up with some pretty cool bands. You know, everything from the Torche guys, Black Cobra and, of course, on this trip we've got ASG and Royal Thunder, and doing some dates with YOB is going to be pretty cool. So we keep having pretty good lineups on these trips. It keeps us interested, and it's good for the fans that come out to see a pretty diverse lineup. It is kind of important for us to keep on that track, because you don't want to go out with bands that are exactly like you, but you do want to keep it in the family, in a similar genre, anyway.

Your first album, Eye For An Eye, is being reissued. What's the reason for that? Is it just because it was out of print?

Yeah, it's been out of print for so long, and when Candlelight signed us last year and we put out our latest album with them, they asked us if we'd like to have the first album back in print, and we decided to make a nice package, put a nice booklet in there with some old photos and just make it a little special thing. It's coming out in two or three weeks or something, and it's kind of cool to have that back out because it hasn't been out there in so long. We were just scared when we made that album. It was the first time we got into a studio so we were just figuring stuff out. So it's a time and a place, but some of it still stands out. There's a few good songs in there [laughs].

Does it sound any different, or is it exactly how it was in the original version?

It's pretty much exactly like it was. They re-mastered it, but it's the same stuff. They brought the sound quality up a little bit, but it's the same mixes and all that stuff. It's authentic. It hasn't been like retouched or anything like that (laughs).

Of course, the new release this year was your self-titled album. When I heard it in January, I thought it was so diverse; it felt like a good summary of what the band has done so far, musically, and that's why it's — perhaps, fittingly — self-titled. Would you go along with that?

I do. When we were finished recording it, we were just listening to it, and all of us kind of had the same idea that there's elements of all the different periods of COC. There's some of the faster stuff and there's some stuff that's kind of doomy, so we're stoner rock-ish or whatever you want to call it. I don't know whether that's still a genre these days or not [laughs]. I think the term "doom" has kind of taken that over. But yeah, that's why we decided to do it as a self-titled album.

A lot of people asked us whether it's our greatest album ever and if that's why it's self-titled. I think it's a great album, but I think we've still got even better stuff in the future. We just finished another five-song EP that's coming out mid-November, I think. It's kind of the same, and there's a little bit of everything in that too, some faster songs and some heavier slow stuff, so I think we're going to continue in that vein.

I was going to ask you about the EP. Is it completely finished and ready to release?

It is! It's totally done, mixed and mastered, and we just got finished with it this past week. And I think it's coming out in about three or four weeks. It's a pretty quick turnaround, which is unusual in this day and age, but they can do it, they can make it happen.

So this year you have three releases, the self-titled, the reissue and then this one.

[Laughs] Yeah, which is pretty good for us because we usually make people wait about three of four years between albums, so it's been a very busy year for us. But it's kind of cool to be this busy and be touring as much as we have been. It's been a lot of fun, and a good year.

The three-piece Animosity lineup came back to record this self-titled album. Did you approach the album in the same way as Animosity or is it just the similarity in the lineup?

I think it's pretty much just the lineup. We always approach a record kind of the same. Even way back then, we used to get together in our little practice pad, work the tunes up and then jump in the studio as quick as we can. A lot of times, though, it is good if you can get out and play some of the songs live before you put them on tape, and we were able to do that for this latest album. We did a little short tour right before we started recording that thing, and it gave us a chance to play three or four of them in a live setting. I think it really helped us gel the songs, you know, and made the recording process go a little easier.

Compared to when the band was a four-piece, did you change anything this time in terms of your guitar setup, since you're the only guitarist now?

You know, I really haven't. I've had my same gear and the same setup for quite a while, since probably the mid- to late '90s. I've been using the same amps, I've got some old dual rectifiers and they're still hanging in there. And I'm still playing my ESP, the same guitars I've had since '96 or '97. But I have kind of stopped using pedals live. I plug straight in. I don't even use a Crybaby live anymore. Just straight into the amp and let her go, you know. I think simplicity is what keeps me going, because if I get too much going on, I lose track [laughs]. Maybe it's old age or something like that, but the simpler I can keep it, the better I can play live.

So there's no pedal board at all for you on stage?

Nothing. In the studio, for instance, this new EP, I bust out a few things in the studio. I've got an MXR Phase-90, and I've got a little Crybaby on there. That's about it, but live, nothing. I go naked, as they say [laughs]. I don't use anything, just straight on get up and play.

When you use these effects in the recording, how do you recreate in on stage? Do you just end up sounding different on stage because you don't use them?

Well, it's close. One thing we've always said about ourselves is, we always go a little over the top in the studio, but live it's a different animal, you know. I pretty much recreate stuff. You can't get every effect that you have in the studio, but our live set is a different animal, so I don't get too caught up in trying to make it sound exactly like what's on the record. It's not what COC is really about.

So as you said, you've been using the same ESP guitars since '97. But when you meet other musicians or go to music conventions, do you still like to look at new guitars or are you just completely in love with yours?

[Laughs] There's a little story behind those particular ESPs. Shortly after they started making the Vipers, I did get some Vipers, but I've got three that they made in the custom shop for me originally, and they were a little too close in proportion to the Gibson SG. And I think Gibson said, "Naah, y'all can't make anymore of those" [laughs]. So I do have some Vipers that I occasionally play. I used some in the studio this time, but for the live play I'm just kind of stuck with the old customs I've got. They are real lightweight and well balanced, and they just play well. The only problem is, I've only got three and those are the only three they ever did [laughs]. So I've got to take care of them.

Coming back to the self-titled album, since every song has a different style to it, did you have to use different settings or does it just sound different because of the music itself?

Well, we did that album out in LA at Dave Grohl's place, and he had a back room that was full of amps, and he told us that we could use whatever we want. So I didn't even use my live rig out there. I ended up using different amps, and I wound up using a lot of the Orange Tiny Terror for that thing, stacking up with two or three tracks until it sounded the way we thought it should. So the self-titled record sounds a lot different than, for instance, this new EP we just got done with, which is called Megalodon. I used my total live rig for this thing, and it's a lot closer I think to our live sound than say the self-titled record was. But we had a good time layering the tones for that record. There are a lot of different amps in there, a lot of dual rectifiers and even a bit of Marshall for some of the solos. So I don't get married to my live thing all the time. I'm into experimenting a little bit whenever I get a chance.

So for this EP, I assume you recorded it somewhere else and not in Dave Grohl's studio?

Yeah, we did that in our hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, which is kind of nice, to be able to hang around in town and not have to go out somewhere, go to LA or New York. Sometimes it's nice to record at home. You get a little better vibe. Plus I got to use all of my own gear. So it was fun.

You mentioned guitar tones, which is something I never get tired of asking about. When you were starting out back then, for instance on the Eye For An Eye album, did it take a lot of work and effort for you to get the tone exactly as you wanted, or did you end up experimenting even through the music that actually came out on the album?

For that record, to be honest, we were such newbies at recording; I had a live rig that was just brutal. I had a Sunn Beta Lead amp and a crazy array of cabinets and stuff, it was just so brutal and I ended up in the studio with it. The studio guys didn't know how to capture that kind of sound! So I wound up using some amp I did not know about, and they talked me into it. I don't even remember what it was. It was some combo thing.

So, looking back on that, I really wish I had used my actual rig. I think that album would have been a lot heavier than it came out being, you know. But I was such a newbie at recording; I had no idea how to do it. It was a little home-studio type setting and those guys had never done a heavy band. They had recorded country bands and may be some rock bands, but not COC rock, you know, not that kind of heavy [laughs]. So we feel for them a little bit. The record doesn't have the tone guitar-wise that I wish it did, so it's kind of a different animal.

I don't really want to put you on a spot here, but I have to ask you this. Purely from a musical point of view, do you prefer the three-piece lineup?

Well, you know, I like the three-piece and four-piece lineups. I think there's going to come a time before too much longer where we become a four-piece band again. I would be into doing another four-piece with Pepper coming back, the Deliverance-era lineup. I think we're all into it; we've all talked about it. But it is fun as a three-piece because it's a little more wide open, you know.

Sound-wise and everything else it's a little bit different, but as far as my guitar playing, I'm kind of the same whether I'm playing in a three-piece of four-piece. I have the same rig and I don't feel like I have a lot more noise to fill as a three-piece, because I just do what I do. I guess some people say that it's a little bit more of a burden, and the less people you have on stage the more pressure there is on you, but I'm comfortable with it.

In the past, you've had a few guest musicians recording songs for you, and one of them was James Hetfield (who contributed vocals on "Man Or Ash" from Wiseblood). Since then, have you guys been in touch, or just been too busy with your own lives?

Ah, I haven't seen James in a while but we did a lot of touring with them back in the day. Heck, we were out with them for about one-and-a-half years on that thing, but I haven't seen him in a while. We did a Sonisphere fest this past spring, and they were on it as well. I think Reed and Mike got a chance to hang with them a little bit and say what's up, but I wasn't hanging right when they were there.

They're still good guys, but I think one of my favorite guest musicians that we've had who really did a good job was Warren Haynes, man. When he came in on the Volume Dealer album and plucked slide on this song called "Stare Too Long". He's one of those guys who just shows up and does it even without thinking about it. Just awesome! [laughs]

On this touring run coming up, what are you going to be focusing on in your set list? You have three releases to promote!

[Laughs] You know, we've got so many albums and such a vast catalog to choose from. We are concentrating on a little bit of the early stuff like we have been, but really I think the self-titled and the brand-new EP are going to be pretty heavy in the set list. And you've got to have a couple of classics thrown in there too, just to not disappoint the people who want to hear that stuff, and we enjoy it too. But I'm going to say on this tour it's going to be about these two new records that have come out this year.

We're not concentrating on the Eye For An Eye thing. It's cool, but we don't really do too much of that stuff live. We do a couple of little tasters and teasers or whatever, but that album is a piece of history for us. We're stoked that it's there, but we don't do much of it live.

Andrew Bansal is a Los Angeles-based writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, reviews and pictures on his website — with the help of a small group of people. Besides being hugely passionate about heavy metal, he is an avid follower of jazz music and recently started a blog called Jazz Explorer to pursue that interest.

Chris Krovatin is the author of three young adult novels, Heavy Metal & You, Venomous, and Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones. He is currently working on multiple new writing projects, as well as new material with his local New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone's collective ass. This column represents his opinions–and probably only his opinions.

One of the best parts of Halloween is dressing up like something you don't often get to be in your everyday life—be that a monster, pun, or sexpot—and parading around town, reveling in that borrowed personality. That's why Halloween will always have an aspect of the insane to it: because everyone is someone else, thriving behind their masks and cloaks in a life they'll abandon by sun-up. Of course, this has been taken in dangerous directions, especially with the Sexy _____ market. My philosophy, being a metalhead, has always been, "Gore, not whore." However, this is a night where people get to be what they want, so who am I to shoot their ideas down?

Answer: Chris fucking Krovatin, that's who. Because honestly, some costumes never work. Every so often, someone you know does a semi-decent job at pulling them off, but overall, they're garbage. More so, there are some costumes no one does, but which are so awesome it hurts. And then, finally, there are the classics, the costumes that most people should just rotate through every couple of years. So if you're feeling undecided, use this handy guide to help you pick your costume this October 31. Here, fear-mongers, is my second Halloween-edition triple six, with the Six Halloween Costumes That Never Work, the Six Halloween Costumes that I Wish People Wore More Often, and the Six Timeless Classic Halloween Costumes.

The Six Halloween Costumes That Never Work

1. Werewolf Torn flannel shirt? Check. Ripped jeans? Got 'em. Fully functional wolf-human hybrid head? Oh wait, those don't exist on the open market. Enjoy your mask or not-cool-and-gory prosthetic.
2. Mummy Don't get me wrong, there are bad mummy costumes: skintight white gauze that makes you look like Darkman on Ice, or a weird striped jumpsuit with some dangling tatters. But really, why not just be List 3, Item 5?
3. Jack Skellington Sorry, goth brother, but that shit always looks chunky and awkward. Jack is the world's spookiest stick figure, and you drank four Michelob Ultras last night. Ain't happening.
4. Mr. Hyde Edward Hyde looks like the evil side of a good man, the distilled darkness that resides within the darkest recesses of a good man's soul. You look like Monkey McMuttonchops out on the town in foggy old London. It's a nice idea.
5. Ghost What do you go for? A sheet? White clothing and skull lines of your face? Some Jacob Marley-ass chains? It never works. Ghosts are awesome in stories, movies, and video games, but you can't make yourself transparent, and scaaary voices sound retaaarded.
6. King Diamond Every year, I see a number of people rocking this outfit, and the truth is, it never looks good. I mean, unless you've got the pipes for it, you'll never be King Diamond. Besides, he's King Diamond so you don't have to be.

The Six Halloween Costumes That I Wish People Wore More Often

1. Witchfinder General The original holy terror! Matthew Hopkins, England's Witchfinder General, murdered countless young women in the name of Christ. But while it'd be fun to get all Exodus 22:18 on motherfuckers, you'd also spend the whole night getting asked if you were a pilgrim.
2. Hunchback I mean, I get why it's not done. Either you do it half-assed so you can drink and maybe bone someone, or you do it full hog and end up being the stooped-over uncomfortable goon all night at the party. But it's a cool costume, you have to admit.
3. Tetsuo The antagonist from the classic anime comic Akira is a scary and iconic figure in the sci-fi world, and would make an awesome Halloween costume. I was going to do it this year, but I just don't have the body type for it, and really didn't want to hear anyone use the phrase "Fatsuo."
4. Bat Not a vampire. Not a gargoyle, or some kind of…Deviant Art demon. A bat. Maybe do the ears, and, if you're a baller, the gross vagina-esque leaf nose. But just be a bat, OK? Just. A fucking. BAT.
5. Cthulhu It's hard to convince your friends that sitting on a bas relief all night and maybe rising up from your sunken city to devour the world would be the illest. But man, if someone busted out a truly solid Cthulhu costume, I'd give them props.
6. Baron Samedi This is actually a totally doable costume—the voodoo loa of the dead wears a tattered suit and tails, a top hat, and some glasses with one eye busted out. It's a shame that he'll forever be remembered as a Bond villain.

The Six Timeless Classic Halloween Costumes

1. Witch Nothing says "Halloween" like an old woman who fucks the Devil. Whether you're doing the Oz-style pointed hat or the Macbeth-ish stooped crone, the witch remains a classic in the Halloween pantheon. Variation: Gypsy.
2. Devil Halloween, we should remember, is a day when the fabric between our world and the world beyond is at its thinnest, allowing diabolical forces to slip through. Red-clad forces, with pencil mustaches, that want bite-size Snickers bars. Technically the most metal costume. Variation: The Man.
3. Skeleton The original. For some reason, a walking set of bones remains a classic terror for mankind. But more importantly, a black outfit painted with bones remains an iconic image for the best day of the year. Variation: Grim Reaper.
4. Vampire Creature of the night, clad in black, ready to swoop down upon your village and enact a series of sexual metaphors you'll never forget. A little white paint, some red dribble, and some wax teeth, and bam!—looking good, Dracula. Variation: A FUCKING BAT, GODAMMIT.
5. Zombie For the gorier horror fan, nothing is as simple and wonderful as the living dead—and given the recent zombie craze, you can buy all sorts of insane shit these days, intestines and lips-eaten-away mouth prosthetics and more. Variation: Zombie anything. "Zombie" is the new "sexy." We're them. They're us.
6. Pirate There's a reason "pirate" was an iconic Halloween costume before that Johnny Depp franchise: Pirates are fucking scary. They slaughter innocent sailors before jamming their syphilitic cocks into the stab wounds. Yarr, man. Variation: Popeye. 

Chris Krovatin is the author of three young adult novels, Heavy Metal & You, Venomous, and Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones. He is currently working on multiple new writing projects, as well as new material with his local New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone's collective ass. This column represents his opinions–and probably only his opinions.

My original plan for this Final Six—my first in a series of Halloween-themed posts, honoring my favorite day of the year—was to do a list of the Six Best Classic and Modern Horror Movies of All Time. The classic list would be all horror movies made pre-1970, while my modern list would feature films made after the year 2000. In that way, I was hoping to juxtapose the genre's grainy black-and-white history with its modern psychologically-troubling and overproduced incarnations. A cool comparison, right?

But here's the thing—the horror films of the era between those two periods (really the '70s and '80s, though, I mean, come on, the '90s were as good for horror films as they were for Iron Maiden) are the greatest horror films ever. Period. That chunk of time produced what I believe to be the most fascinating, well-produced, and above all horrifying films of the genre. I'd rather watch them than any other. So leaving them behind was just unfair—to me, to you, to the genre.

So in honor of Halloween and all things dark and ghoulish, here's my first-ever triple six, featuring the Six Best Classic Horror Movies, the Six Best Modern Horror Movies, and the Six Best Horror Movies of All Time. Turn down the lights, lock the door.

The Six Best Classic Horror Films (pre-1970)

1. The Phantom of the Opera (1925) This silent masterpiece sees thousand-faced man Lon Chaney playing the misanthropic skull-faced phantom. Though melodramatic and bizarre, the film drips with gothic atmosphere and frightening brilliance that would be imitated for years to come.
2. Dracula (1931) Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi permanently coins the Count's ominous cloaked appearance in this gorgeous vampire story, its crumbling castles, frightened villagers, and leering lunatics (everybody do the Dwight Frye—HNGH HNGH HNNNNNGH) still shiver-worthy to this day.
3. King Kong (1933) The original giant monster movie, this classic film might look dated with its stop-motion effects and giant fake hand, but its classic imagery and the genuine awesomeness of Kong devouring sailors and fighting dinosaurs stands the test of time to this day.
4. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) While not as iconic as the original James Whale-directed Frankenstein, Bride… brings much stronger chills, mostly arising from the Monster's emergence from the pit and his hunger for a mate. And then, there's Elsa Lanchester with that hair. Va-va-voom.
5. Psycho (1960) From fractured minds with butchers' knives to foreboding houses on steep hills, Psycho has it all. And while it is the father of the modern slasher film, this Hitchcock masterpiece goes beyond simple stabbings, and acts more as a nightmarish assault on the human mind itself.
6. Night of the Living Dead (1968) What else can be said? This brittle, paranoid fantasy of a world overrun by the ravenous dead first introduced film audiences to the flesh-eating corpse later known as the zombie, a monster who would stumble through the ages and into genre infamy.

The Six Best Modern Horror Movies (post-2000)

1. American Psycho (2000) Set in the brittle cocaine-caked nostril of New York in the late '80s, Mary Harron's and Christian Bale's depiction of Patrick Bateman, one yuppie Wall Streeter turned sociopathic woman-hating madman, is a perfect modern distillation of the horror experience. Do you like Huey Lewis?
2. 28 Days Later (2002) In a stark revision of the zombie genre, Danny Boyle paints a landscape of an evacuated London populated mainly by the bloody rage-fueled monsters known as the Infected. While many hate on this film's "fast zombies," its sense of impending menace cannot be understated.
3. The Ring (2002) This brooding adaptation of a classic Japanese horror film uses technology as the conduit for a malevolent and terrifying spirit. The result is disturbing to say the least—let's be honest, nothing's worse than that girl in the closet.
4. The House of 1000 Corpses (2003) Rob Zombie's tribute to the classic gorefests of his youth sees a family of backwoods maniacs tormenting a wayward quartet of 20-somethings on a disturbing Halloween night. The boogeyman's real—and you've found him.
5. Saw (2004) While its countless sequels have made this franchise a complete joke, the original Saw has an innate creepiness to it lacking in the horror climate of the time. Before now, circuitous death traps were for kiddies and grandfathers…
6. Let The Right One In (2008) A quiet, upsetting Swedish film, Let The Right One In focuses on the sad and lonely lives of a young boy and a perpetually-12-year-old vampire. Using the stark whiteness of the Scandinavian landscape, this movie is as much a work of art as a chilling tale of terror.

The Six Greatest Horror Movies of All Time

1. The Exorcist (1973) Forget horns, hooves, and pitchforks—William Friedkin's twisted tale of demonic possession shows that the Devil is truly a being of contortionism, vomit, and blasphemy. This movie caused nationwide panic, and remains as scary today as it was at the time of, oh, screw it, JESUS FUCK ME!
2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Bloated with disturbing imagery and sweaty, paralyzing terror, this low-budget explosion of madness forever changed the face of the genre. Forget vampires, ghosts, werewolves—nothing is scarier than family.
3. Dawn of the Dead (1978) NOTLD may have been the original, but Dawn is better. More zombies, more gore, more social commentary, more fear. The slow, grey-faced undead menace never felt so familiar. They're us, that's all.
4. Halloween (1978) Maybe there were some who did it gorier or bigger or with more creative means, but in the genre of horror, one thing is certain—no slasher is as cool as Michael Myers, the unstoppable force of insanity from the past coming home for one final visit. Cinematic perfection.
5. Alien (1979) Space may be the scariest place in the universe, its cold and endless vacuum as deep and dark as the human soul. And if you're a crew member of the Nostromo, you get to see what kind of organism that ocean of silence can cough up. Creepy? You have no idea.
6. The Shining (1980) Stanley Kubrick's mind-blowing rendition of Stephen King's classic haunted house story remains a testament to the artistic merit of horror. Jack Nicholson would be playing this role for the rest of his career.