Graveyard smashes

Axe and the Oak.

Holidays such as Groundhog Day and Thanksgiving don't really need music, but Halloween, a night that aches for the sound of creaking doors, howling wolves and crashing thunder, is definitely a day in need of a soundtrack. That's why we dug up five songs by South Florida bands who offer tunes that are appropriately chilling, eerie or downright terrifying.

Falling in love with a zombie isn't something one typically plans, but when it happens, there should be a song for it. The Van Orsdels, a Miami band that bills itself as "South Florida's sick sons of psychobilly," understand that run-of-the-mill love songs don't cut it when it comes to zombies. The idea for "Little Zombie Girl" came to George Van Orsdel after he watched a zombie movie. He doesn't recall the title but remembers a female zombie who was in it. "I recall thinking, 'She's pretty cute for a zombie.' So I decided to write a love song for a zombie girl, nothing too complex, just a fun little ditty," he says. "It's definitely a fan favorite." The song's lyrics are pure romance: "The taste of flesh, the smell of love is in the air/Her pale-green, velvet skin, there's nothing that can compare/Oh, when she rises from her tomb, such a delight." To hear "Little Zombie Girl," released on the band's 2005 album "Miami Morgue Riot!," visit Myspace.com/thevanorsdels. The Van Orsdels will perform with the Koffin Kats Nov. 27 at Churchill's in Miami.

With songs such as "Skeletor Am I" and "Zombies Ate My Neighbors," Miami pop-punk psychobilly band the Coffin Caddies, not to be confused with the aforementioned Koffin Kats, is the perfect Halloween band. The group is inspired by villains from popular comic books and video games from the '80s and '90s. "Super Ghouls and Ghosts," which falls into the latter category, was released on the band's 2008 EP "We Are Venom." The point of the game, the song and some of our lives, seems to be one in the same: "The ghouls, the ghosts/The dead are all around me/I'll fight them off the best I can." On Halloween, however, we just give up the battle and give the ghosts and goblins M&Ms, Snickers and Hershey bars. To hear "Super Ghouls and Ghosts," visit Myspace.com/thecoffincaddies.

If you really want to scare off the ghosts and goblins that come knocking on Halloween, consider putting on Otto Von Schirach's "Her Blood Is Poison," which sounds like a scratchy voice that hasn't spoken in years is reaching up from the grave on a cold, dark night while a blood moon shines overhead. Or better yet, check out "Aliens Visiting Me," an equally distorted, spacey tune on Schirach's new 15-song Subconscious Records release, "Magic Triangle." The truly brave can view the chilling video for "Aliens Visiting Me" on Ottovonschirach.com, while weenies can just listen to sounds from the visitation at Myspace.com/ottovonschirach. We're pretty sure Schirach actually was abducted by aliens, as that's the only explanation we can conjure for sounds that are clearly not of this planet.

Axe and the Oak, a Miami band with psychobilly, surf, punk and goth influences, claims to "honor the grand tradition of all things spooky and twang," which explains song titles such as "Ghosts in the Fire" and "Vampire." "A lot of our stuff is really dark, but the beauty of Halloween is that it has a sense of humor," singer-guitarist Sander Willig says. While "Ghost in the Fire" is a serious song, Willig says, "Vampire" is slightly tongue-in-cheek. "The story is someone who has the opportunity to become a real vampire and how not cool that would actually be," he explains. The song opens with Willig slowly singing, "Pale girl, eyelined boy, her favorite film, his favorite story/This is not the silver screen, no cutting room, no editing the scream." Willig likens the word vampire to clichés such as "think outside the box." "Basically, they've been used so much that they have almost no power anymore, and personally I think vampire is one of the most powerful words we probably have," he says. "But it's lost a lot of its punch, so I wanted to bring it back, to make a duality of how powerful the real thing is but also poke fun at the fact that we love to take it as something really lighthearted. I mean, it's a pretty gruesome thing." To hear "Vampire," visit Myspace.com/axeandtheoak.

Jordan Davidson, singer for the JeanMarie, seems unsure about whether bloodsuckers are gruesome when singing the Miami garage-rock band's "Vampire Part II." In the downright danceable tune, Davidson sings that he doesn't know what everyone is fussing about, that he lives forever on a woman's blood because growing old is no fun. And then comes the confusion. "She goes down when the sun comes up I know/There was a problem when we got home," Davidson sings. "She didn't have any mirrors to look upon 'cause she is the type of girl with no reflection/I said, 'Well, I don't mind trying things I've never had/But something kind of worries me 'bout sleepin' with the dead'" If the blood is what's helping Davidson hit some of the high notes in "Vampire Part II," we highly recommend it. To hear the song, visit Myspace.com/thejeanmarie.

Contact Colleen Dougher at cdougher@citylinkmagazine.com.