Best known for incredibly catchy punk songs about murder and monsters, Misfits mastermind Glenn Danzig landed a No. 1 album on
Billboard's classical album chart with 1992's
Black Aria. More sophisticated and eclectic, the sequel's instrumentals surpass the wonderful eerieness of anything the auteur has ever written. Inspired by the tale of Lilith — the biblical Adam's apocryphal first wife, whose fierce spirit led to her expulsion into the primeval wastelands, where she became a demon —
Aria II is the sound of evil things committing wicked acts in darkness. Danzig wrote and performed most of the album himself, breathing deeply like a demon and using keyboards to overlap classical, tribal and Eastern themes, simulating sounds from deep strings to kettle drums. The result rivals Philip Glass-style minimalism, with a Wagner- worthy leitmotif floating like a giant vampire bat. Singer Tania Themmen joins the dark maestro on the album's closer, "Lamenta Lilith," wailing like Enya reborn as a succubus. Eternal doom never sounded so beautiful.
