When you think about it, Halloween has either inspired or inherited some devilishly good music. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Mussorgsky's Night On The Bare Mountain, Ozzy Osbourne's Bark At The Moon or even Jacko's Thriller - all have their place on the night of the living dead. And that's before you even get to Alice Cooper.
To this vivid canon can be added the new album from MaJiKer - who sounds nothing like any of the above. The House Of Bones is a song cycle inspired by a number of sources, principally haunted house films of the 1940s, ghost stories and rich examples of Norse mythology. It bridges the divide between modern songwriting and the classic musical literature from before those haunted house movies, bringing in a frisson of Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler.
