The Silver Scream 2 provides a more consistent repertoire of horror-themed songs than its predecessor, with deeper cuts and heavier riffs.
Just like Horrorwood, this article is a sequel to my retrospective on The Silver Scream. As a brief rundown, like its predecessor, Horrorwood’s songs are based on horror movies, a formula that leads to fun lyrics and sounds that emulate their corresponding films.
Fans of Ice Nine Kills’ (INK) powerhouse heavy metal album, The Silver Scream, had to wait three years before its sequel, The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood was released in 2021. Luckily, you need not wait even a minute to listen to these two albums back-to-back.
Horrorwood gets off to a slower start than its predecessor thanks to the introduction track, “Opening Night.” This spoken word track substitutes heavy metal for tasty lore as an ominous narrator explains that the following songs are key pieces of evidence “allegedly linking Ice Nine Kills frontman, Spencer Charnas, to the brutal slaying of his 28-year-old fiancé.” To see the story behind that, you’ll have to watch the series of music videos for yourself, but for now, we’ll get into the album.
“Welcome To Horrorwood” is an interesting song for this album, because it’s not based on a horror movie. Now, that may seem contradictory to what I just said, but this song acts as a commentary on scary movies in general, introducing the audience to the album and the land of Horrorwood, “the only place it pays to be a hack.”
It’s also one of the best songs on the album, with its heavy drum beat and electrifying guitar solos. Whereas I wasn’t a fan of the anthem songs on The Silver Scream, this is a horror anthem done right, appealing directly to those who are “misunderstood” and “more bad than good.” Perhaps my enjoyment here comes from the fact that “Welcome To Horrorwood” isn’t related to any movie, so its anthem-like qualities aren’t connected to any specific villains but rather the horror genre as a whole. All in all, it’s a great start to a great album.
Next up is “A Rash Decision,” inspired by Cabin Fever. This one maintains the steady thrum from the opener, sure to keep your head thumping in time with the bouncing tempo. I’m not quite sure why Charnas sings about “love” failing to “stop the fever” — this could just be an allusion to sex — but the breakneck pace of screams and haunting choir voices clears all confusion, the song speeding along until its final second.
“Assault & Batteries” sets an early precedent in Horrorwood, much like the songs inspired by Freddy, Jason and Michael did in The Silver Scream. This is a fun take on Child’s Play, with an introduction that features a bouncy, child’s voice singing about being “your friend until the end” to a chorus of toys being wound up and squeaking enthusiastically. But this doesn’t last long as the cutesy façade melts to reveal the psychotic killer beneath, the evil doll, Chucky.
This song dances between cute and evil throughout its entire runtime, most especially in the chorus as a tinny voice taunts, “Na-na-na-booboo, he’s gonna get you” before a huge voice spells out the truth of this “E-V-I-L D-O-L-L.” Children giggle and bemoan about dismemberment as heavy guitar riffs blast all the way home, a dichotomy that comes to a head in the body-swaying, intense and jeering conclusion.
Introducing a level of drama to the album is “The Shower Scene,” based on the classic slasher movie, Psycho. Once again, this song balances its filmic elements — in this case, a slow-burning Hitchcock thriller — with entertaining heavy metal. Far and away the best moment of this song comes mid-way through it as running water sprinkles in the background and Charnas laments his inability to “come clean.”
As anyone will know, this is the titular shower scene, and INK uses Psycho’s hauntingly intense sting to excellent effect, remixing it with the sounds of a heavy guitar, a slashing blade and a woman’s screams to emulate the feeling of a knife being repeatedly plunged into the victim as the song and the listener swirl “down the drain.”
“Sometimes dead is better,” starts one of the grittiest songs on the album, “Funeral Derangements,” immediately re-introducing a head-slamming pace after the more dramatic song that came before it. Inspired by Pet Sematary, this song matches the movie excellently, starting intense before audibly skidding out of control, just like the semi-truck that killed young Gage in the film.
“Funeral Derangements” has an unexpectedly haunting and mournful chorus as Gage’s father vows to his dead son, “I’ll see you on the other side.” But as fans of the movie know, this is only the start of his nightmare. “The flesh is living, but the soils have spoiled,” sings Charnas in the song’s gruelling conclusion, describing the consequences of dredging souls from their place of rest. Dark and poignant, “Funeral Derangements” marks another win on an album full of them.
While Resident Evil is a movie, it began as a video game, something that “Rainy Day” acknowledges with its almost 8-bit instrumentals. Some of the lyrics are a bit on the nose, with Charnas and a Siri-esque voice saying that “there is no next level” and that it’s “game over,” but the ultimate effect is still fun, exciting and new for the band. Just like “Welcome To Horrorwood,” “Rainy Day” represents the new directions INK is taking in this album, necessary for a sequel such as this one.
“Hip to Be Scared” was the first single released from this album, and it’s not hard to see why. The song begins with an atmospheric introduction to the macabre and noir underbelly of New York City, where wealthy psycho Patrick Bateman commits his gruesome crimes, before kicking into a heavier tone. This feels like a ‘safer’ song on the album, with a less intense sound and more dramatic flair. While I tended not to prefer the safer songs from The Silver Scream, this one works for me.
The song oozes with atmosphere, just as theatrical as Bateman’s performance. There’s also a fun meta interlude which I referenced in my previous article, wherein Charnas playfully discusses his opinion on INK before presumably hacking his conversation partner to death with an axe as the sound sinks into a heavy metal breakdown, the grungiest section of this high-paced and dramatic song.
For a song about Valentine’s Day, “Take Your Pick” spares no feelings in its brutality. “There’s more than one way to lose your f****** heart,” screams a combined INK in the song’s first verse, paving the way for the rest of this bloody and gritty song featuring Cannibal Corpse vocalist George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, of all people. This song may not bring to mind its holiday in the same beautiful fashion that “Merry Axe-Mas” from The Silver Scream did; still, its visceral and gut-wrenching timbre and lyrics — screaming about a killer with a “f****** axe to grind” — perfectly represents the dusty mineshafts and the grimy murders within them in its source film, My Bloody Valentine.
“The Box” is an entertaining track that walks between such lines as pleasure and pain, angels and demons, virtue and sin, and Heaven and Hell, as well as the dramatic and heavy metal we’ve seen throughout this album already. These are fitting themes for the song, considering its source material is the sexually and violently gluttonous film, Hellraiser. Throughout “The Box,” Charnas praises the “priest of Hell” and “Master of Sin,” the cenobite traditionally known as Pinhead, in an upbeat chorus that evokes the image of a cult leader standing on the precipice of Hell, anxiously awaiting the arrival of his wicked leader.
In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, “F.L.Y.” introduces a rapid, almost enthusiastic tone in its intro, but this is actually the perfect sound for a song based on The Fly. This enthusiasm captures the smug and excited demeanour of a successful mad scientist: in this case, a Seth Brundle who’s just invented teleportation. This tone is most apparent in the cheeky, repeated line, “I’m not saying I’m not playing God,” a double negative that mirrors the demeanour of someone who doesn’t care that he’s breaking the laws of nature.
Of course, fans of the movie will know how this story plays out, and “F.L.Y.” does too, with its dozens of ‘fly’ puns. I wish the song better captured the disgusting body horror mess of the film’s conclusion, but keeping this as a knowing nod as the song ends with the lines, “and now I’m thinking / I was born to fly!” is still effective.
“Wurst Vacation” does much of the same, singing about painting the walls with flesh and bones while an electrifying, head-banging beat carries us through the song, but this time there’s a fun German twist! The basis for this song is Hostel, and INK successfully captures the gritty nature of the film with a consistently heavy sound spliced with voices begging and screaming for mercy.
Re-introducing some bombast into Horrorwood is “Ex-Mørtis,” a song inspired by The Evil Dead. This great track injects some of the excitement from the highs of The Silver Scream. It is almost carnivalesque in its glee, with lyrics telling you to “cross the Book of the Dead off your reading list,” while still maintaining a sense of dread. The chorus dips and rises like a roller coaster before a fitting boomstick blast introduces a short and “groovy” breakdown. All in all, this is a great song at the end of the album, which I wish was the closing track.
Unfortunately, the last song in Welcome To Horrorwood is “Farewell II Flesh,” based on Candyman. Perhaps I’m being too cruel to this song. It’s not bad by any means, but the first minute is a dramatic introduction that feels like a sudden drop-off after the excitement of “Ex-Mørtis.” On its own, I think this is a worthy addition to Horrorwood, but at the end of the album, it feels a little tired.
“Farewell II Flesh” does pick up after its intro, but its carnivalesque guitar solo interlude feels a bit too much like a rip-off of “IT Is the End,” and the whole song lacks a sense of cohesion. I think I’m looking for a bit more from this song, even if it has entertaining segments: just not perhaps enough of them for the album’s conclusion.
But much like last time, if you’ve got the album’s extended edition playing, Welcome To Horrorwood: Under Fire, you’ll get a bit more content, including one more original song. “Meat & Greet” is another somewhat inconsistent song, but for me provides a superior conclusion to the album.
Emulating the conversational tone from The Silver Scream’s bonus track, “Meat & Greet” takes its cinematic inspiration from The Silence of the Lambs. This song is dramatic while remaining exciting; in fact, it has perhaps the most exhilarating guitar riffs in the entire album. Moreover, its chorus is eerie, sinister and grand, perfect for this unique genre of horror-themed metal. My qualms, however, come from the almost banal tone Charnas employs in some of the song’s verses. I think this is meant to emulate the cold and calculating nature of the movie’s iconic serial killer, Hannibal Lecter, but in a song, it doesn’t quite hit the way it was intended to. The rest of the song, luckily, makes up for these strangely delivered lyrics.
All in all, The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood provides a gritty and thrilling heavy metal roller coaster ride. While it experiences a slight lull near the end — which unfortunately comes to a head in the standard version’s final song — it is an altogether more consistent experience than its predecessor.
Together, both Silver Scream albums are the perfect soundtrack to any metalhead’s Halloween season. Able to simultaneously express love and admiration for the horror genre while being gleefully entertaining, Welcome To Horrorwood is well worth your time whether you’re a hardcore heavy metal fan or a heavy metal fan-to-be.