13 Heavy Metal Horror Book Recommendations
Heavy metal has attitude.
Horror books have attitude.
Put them together and what do you get? Something monstrous, something that strikes a chord in an old cold soul, something that brings music to a horror fan’s ear.
Get ready to face the music, get those devil horns up, and join us in the mosh pit for some headbanging heavy metal horror.
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
― Bob Marley
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Table of Contents
We Sold Our Souls – Grady Hendrix
Psychological heavy metal horror
Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity.
Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes. A shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band.
Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival.
“For eleven years, Kris had been able to go anywhere in the world by picking up the phone.”
Schrader's Chord – Scott Leeds
Supernatural heavy metal horror
After his estranged father’s mysterious death, Charlie Remick returns to Seattle to help with the funeral. There, he discovers his father left him two parting gifts: the keys to the family record store and a strange black case containing four antique records that, according to legend, can open a gate to the land of the dead.
When Charlie, his sister, and their two friends play the records, they unwittingly open a floodgate of unspeakable horror. As the darkness descends, they are stalked by a relentless, malevolent force and see the dead everywhere they turn.
With time running out, the only person who can help them is Charlie’s resurrected father, who knows firsthand the awesome power the records have unleashed. But can they close the gate and silence Schrader’s Chord before it’s too late?
“I told you they were real.”
Heavy Metal Nightmares – Phobica Books
Heavy metal horror anthology
Twenty twisted and terrifying tales of headbanging heavy metal horror by the genre’s most talented writers. Stories to shock, scare, and haunt you.
Power metal, black metal, death metal, doom metal, stoner, thrash and hard rock; within these pages you’ll find twenty short sharp shocks of frightening fiction based on every subgenre of the world’s greatest music.
So, get in the mosh pit, rock your head, throw those devil horns in the air and get ready to turn your fear up to eleven!
“I first noticed her when the band started jamming during the outro to Temple Wall.”
One for the Road – Wesley Southard
Supernatural heavy metal horror
Only one more show and heavy metal guitarist Spencer Hesston can finally quit Rot in Hell. No more touring, no more fighting, and no more unwanted advances from the lead singer’s girlfriend.
But instead of waking up the next day in their Midwestern hometown, the band finds themselves dazed and confused in an abandoned settlement in the middle of the desert, with no idea of how they got there.
Things are done a little differently out here: the trees have perverse urges, the spiders have human fingers, and every time they step outside the town transforms into a new hellish nightmare.
In this town anything is possible, except making it out in one piece.
“This is what happened to us – the band – on that unforgivable day.”
Damaged – Timothy W. Long and Tim Marquitz
Supernatural heavy metal horror
Since the 1980s, Damaged has brutalized record charts, sold out countless stadiums, and amassed enough money and fame to last ten lifetimes. But the secret to their success has always been the devil in the details.
Wex, Michael, Seth, and Sunny have lived like rock gods for years, but the devil demands his due. The price of failure may be an unspeakable end for Damaged.
“A huge backdrop hung at the back, covered in pentagrams and demon horns.”
Try Not to Die: At Dethfest – Mark Tullius and Glenn Hedden
Interactive YA heavy metal horror
You and your friends arrive at Dethfest – the wildest metal festival of the year – expecting an evening of crushing guitar riffs, the heaviest headbanging bands, and a whole lot of partying. But as the music blares and the crowd roars, freak accidents, fights, and arrests occur across the festival.
Tess is acting strange, and Kyle’s talking conspiracies, but Luna seems to like you and is down to stay for the headliners. Faced with riots, stabbings, and the odd act of cannibalism, you’ll need to use all your wits and make careful choices if you want to drag your friends out of this mess in one piece.
Something sinister is going down at this festival – and as things become increasingly dark and twisted, you’ll be forced to question if this night of partying was the worst mistake of your life…
“Thirty ways to die. Just one correct path. Do you have what it takes to survive?”
Cadaverous – Jay Bower
Cosmic heavy metal horror
When the sun went dark, it was only just the beginning…
Gaige Penrod yearns for the light of musical greatness. A self-taught metal guitarist with a dream of being the greatest, he finds himself drawn to a concert celebrating an eclipse, where he is overcome by an otherworldly presence that changes him forever.
As Gaige searches for answers, he becomes obsessed with the idea of fulfilling his musical destiny, and he sets out to reunite his band on his quest for glory. But in his pursuit of fame, he makes a deal with a shadowy figure, and unleashes a sinister force that threatens to consume him and everyone around him.
“We never realize we’re at a turning point in life until it’s too late.”
Beast of Burden – Judith Sonnet
Heavy metal splatter horror
After their bassist decides to quit the band, Geriatric Genocide is low on morale. They want to be the next big thing in metal, but the remaining members are just stuck at home. Growing old … but not growing up.
They decide to go into the forest for a photoshoot, which should lift their spirits.
But things go wrong for the band members (Virtue, Mort, and Rufus) when they are forced into a cave. A dark place, where something evil, ancient, and hungry lurks!
“The child had prayed not to have this dream again.”
Dethfest Confessions – Mark Tullius and Lyndsey Smith (editors)
Heavy metal horror anthology
These horror authors are here to spill their sinister secrets about the 15 monstrous bands that shook the very foundations of heavy metal!
Whether you’re a die-hard horror fanatic or a headbanging metal enthusiast, this is an anthology you simply can’t ignore! Brace yourselves for a heart-pounding, mind-bending experience as the stories within range from spine-tingling chills to bone-crushing terror.
Are you ready to face your deepest fears? Will you survive the onslaught of terrifying tales inspired by the most intense heavy metal festival on Earth?
This anthology is based off Try Not to Die: At Dethfest by Mark Tullius and Glenn Hedden.
“Chloroform can be so unpredictable, and some people have zero tolerance for the stuff.”
Heart-Shaped Box – Joe Hill
Supernatural heavy metal horror
Aging death-metal rock legend Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals, a used hangman’s noose, a snuff film.
But nothing he possesses is as unique or as dreadful as his latest purchase off the Internet: a one-of-a-kind curiosity that arrives at his door in a black heart-shaped box – a musty dead man’s suit still inhabited by the spirit of its late owner.
And now everywhere Judas Coyne goes, the old man is there, watching, waiting, dangling a razor blade on a chain from his bony hand.
“Sooner or later the dead catch up…”
The Silver Scream – Ice Nine Kills
Slasher heavy metal horror
They say it’s hard getting into the movies … try getting out!
Fresh from the cutting room floor, The Silver Scream exposes the bloodiest behind-the-scenes details of the most gruesome, shocking, true-crime tragedy of our time.
Part autopsy, part grisly director’s “cut,” this is the only book with a comprehensive exploration inside the mind of America’s notorious, celluloid-obsessed, rock star turned cinema-copycat murderer, Spencer Charnas.
Bayonet Award–winning television reporter Roy Merkin is the only storyteller in possession of the journals scrawled by disgraced psychotherapist Dr. Ian Black.
The Silver Scream reconstructs, with unflinching detail, how fiction became fact, art imitated death, and the most horrific movie murders by the likes of Jason, Leatherface, Freddy, Michael, and the rest became real.
Merkin courageously slashes open the ghoulish mind and tortured nightmares of Spencer himself, probing deeply, with razor-sharp precision. Learn how the box office created so many oblong boxes. Understand why this rock n’ roll heartthrob chose to stop so many human hearts.
“Sometimes when he was most upset, his pain would manifest itself physically.”
Axes of Evil – Alex S Johnson
Heavy metal horror anthology
Axes of Evil collects the best stories from the out-of-print Axes first edition and second volume plus brand new tales and poems.
The book features the talents of veteran horror authors Lucy Taylor, Sephera Giron and John Claude Smith as well as up-and-comers like The Reverend Groucho, Neko Lilly, Russell Holbrook and many more.
“In the beginning there was no distinction between angels and demons.”
Polyphemus – Zachary Ashford
Supernatural heavy metal horror
When lead vocalist of Polyphemus Stephen Oaks’s near-fatal on-stage overdose leaves them under pressure from their label, the band’s remaining members must find a new vocalist, pick up the pieces and forge on without him.
Unfortunately, he’s fresh from rehab and desperate to reunite with his old band. In fact, he’s so desperate that he’ll bargain with dark forces and sacrifice everything – and anyone!
After the final encore is played and the house lights come down, there is no telling who will remain or who they’ll be in allegiance to. For Polyphemus, obsession costs far more than mere murder.
“Nathan March’s fingers danced across the fretboard like quicksilver spiders.”
Published: 6 July 2024
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