8 Great Goth Albums from Fall 2025
Of course, the second installment of Last Dance must be unfurled in time for Halloween. Before I ever heard the word “goth,” Halloween was my favorite holiday. As a child, I only watched the black-and-white reruns of The Addams Family and The Munsters, but one night I happened to catch the Halloween episode of The Muppet Show. Vincent Price was the guest host, so I bugged my mom about it until that fateful night occurred. The most impactful moment for me was the musical guest, a guy called Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper would serve as the gateway to “goth” for me, and I’m not alone in this regard; Donovan’s guest spot on the song “Billion Dollar Babies” would inspire Christian Death singer Rozz Williams’ entire vocal approach.
Before the first plastic pumpkin was ever sold, Samhain was the celebration of the darker half of the year. Like “goth,” Halloween is a celebration of darkness. The new albums we are going to introduce here are, likewise, sonic celebrations of darkness. Some albums have recently toyed with various shades of melancholy; Ethel Cain’s depressive Americana is being called Southern Gothic, and plenty of metal bands have toyed with goth’s ghoulish imagery and sounds, but we are going to focus on the sweet music the children of the night make. This exploration of the bands that best set the Halloween mood ranges from deathrock to neofolk with varied shades of darkwave and post-punk in between, so let’s venture into the shadows.
Altar De Fey – Under a Waxing Moon
Having crawled up from San Francisco’s underground punk scene in the ’80s, this band deliver their brand of sonic skeletal swagger more potent now than in their formative years. Altar De Fey has perfected death-rock, past the point of where Christian Death currently parade their elegant corpse of nostalgia to pack a more frightful punch.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Menace Ruine – The Color of the Grave is Green
This Canadian neofolk project experiments with the shadows. They contrast organic folk dirges with swaths of post-rock noise that drone against the melancholic ache of their vocals to create something suited for the soundtrack of an A24 horror movie. A slow burn without jump scares, just a bleak nightmare set to song.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Ash Code – Synthome
After 8 years, Ash Code returns with a batch of morose darkwave that lurks amid the smoke-filled dance floors where Demonia boots go stomping in the night. This album finds the best balance of driving backbone to spectral atmosphere a DJ could ask for.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Scorpion Milk – Slime of the Times
Mat McNerney of Grave Pleasures continues to milk the Beast of Revelations with his new batch of apocalyptic bangers. This pulls inspiration from Killing Joke’s more thundering end times lamentations, with songs like “She Wolf of London” bringing the pulpy horror imagery.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Mater Suspiria Vision – Cinemagoria
The origins of this project go back to occult occult-inspired electronic niche of witch house, from which acts like Salem sprung. This album is a dramatic turn in a more experimental direction that emphasizes a sinister art house horror atmosphere more than the trap beats that were its former impetus.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Patriarchy – Manual For Dying
The LA duo places less emphasis on industrial aggression and puts the spotlight on Actually Huizenga’s dark pop anthems for sex addicts, which are mixed with violent fantasies that find her announcing that blood is everywhere, including her hair, but she doesn’t care.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Black Cross Hotel – Songs For Switches
This industrial band features members of The Atlas Moth and Stabbing Westward. They are cranking the kind of electronic-laced rock that has not sounded this good since the ’90s. Songs like “The House God Doesn’t Visit” set up the perfect demented vibes for the hallowed season.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
The Tear Garden – Astral Elevator
This long-running collaboration between cEvin Key and Edward from the Legendary Pink Dots finds their psychedelic-laced electronica going in an increasingly morbid direction as they ponder the futility of the future before us, and from the sounds of things, they decided to drop some acid about it.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
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