Seattle’s The Darts have spent the last decade turning sticky club floors across Europe and the US into late-night garage-punk revivals, and Halloween Love Songs feels like the band bottling that neon-lit electricity. What started as a little joke that the holiday deserved so much more than just Monster Mash, led to this concept album with thirteen spooky tunes.

Nicole Laurenne, The Darts’ bewitching lead singer and songwriter (also known for her Black Viiolet project), explains: ‘Side A is chock full of tasty, candy-colored Halloween kitsch, to be played while trick-or-treating as the sun sets, blasted over a school’s public address system, and headlining every seasonal sing-along. But Side B is the soundtrack for after dark, when the bonfire is raging. It’s for sweaty middle-of-the-night dancing, making out on a bed of empty candy wrappers, and spinning through an all-nighter apocalypse.’

Set to fuzzy guitars and gritty organs (actually, the music is the real hero here), B-movie horror imagery (vampires, ghosts, zombies, devils, the apocalypse) becomes a playful language where desire, darkness, and the thrill of the night blur together into supernatural intimacy (“Every night is Halloween // Some nights you kiss // Some nights you bite”). October 31st is still a while away, but anticipation has rarely been this loud, or this much fun.

Halloween Love Songs—recorded and mixed by Mark Rains—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Adrenalin Fix Music (EU) and Meow Hiss Music (US). Featuring Nicole Laurenne (vocals, organ, piano, Mellotron, music box, glockenspiel), Rebecca Davidson (guitars), Lindsay Scarey (bass, screams, Mellotron, sound effects), and Rikki Styxx (drums, tambourine, percussion, screams, dog bowls).

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