A Halo Hung from Horns

*Play this song on YouTube.*

"**A Halo Hung from Horns**" is an October Noir song included on their fourth album *Letters to Existence*, released in 2023. The song is very gothic and melodic. It begins with '80s slasher film-styled synth riff sounding like *Halloween* film intro music. The rhythmic element in the verses is reminiscent of that in Type O Negative song "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend". The piano at the end of the song is a tribute to another Type O Negative song "Black No. 1". The very beginning has buzzing sounds produced when Tom recorded one and a half minutes worth of sounds of water pumping in cooling tower while he was working in an HVAC pump room. Tom said in an interview with *Brutal Planet Magazine* that it sounds very alien and incorporated that into very beginning of track.

The lyrics is about digging into the ground to find Hell only to encounter evil entities including demons. The lyrics contains samples of *Dante's Inferno* read vocally by Justin Oliver (who plays as speaking monk in music video) and the lyrics throughout were inspired by that poem.

On New Year's Day 2024 the single and music video for this song was released. It's the third single and second music video released of the fourth album. The video, which takes cues from the films like *Evil Dead* and *The Exorcist*, shows a possessed girl played by Tom's girlfriend Kat Noir, while the three guys including Tom Noir who is seen reading the Holy Bible perform exorcism on her. The events in the music video was filmed on location at Lookout Mountain, Georgia. The outro part of the album's another song "Winter" would be played during the credits at the end of the video, after the main song and thus the main video had ended.

"A Halo Hung from Horns" was voted as *Metal Hammer'*s third best new metal track for the week of January 5, 2024.

## Lyrics

**[Canto I. "A Halo Hung from Horns"]**

Past pyrotechnics

made this modern mess

Beneath the conflict

Pride, arrogance, selfishness

Can't find the reason

Unearth the great fool's knife

My little demon

snuffed out the light of Christ

Convince me of

lies masked as promises

Make me the savior

until you find a better man

Conspired evil

Cruel plots of our demise

My little reaper

carved out the light of Christ

Fake wings and wires

A halo hung from horns

You were my fire

Burned till I was nothing more

“With weeping and with wailing,

Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain;

For thee I know, though thou art all defiled.”

“How frozen I became and powerless then,

Ask it not, reader, for I write it not,

Because all language would be insufficient.

I did not die, and I alive remained not.”

Fake wings and wires

A halo hung from horns

You were my fire

Burned till I was nothing more

A halo hung from horns

A halo hung from horns

A halo hung from horns

A halo hung from horns

“Think for thyself now, hast though ought of wit,

What I became, being of both deprived.”

**[Canto II. "Trading Life for Hell"]**

I gave you life

and you gave me hell

I gave you life

and you gave me hell

I gave you life

and you gave me hell

I gave you life

and you gave me hell

## Personnel

* **Tom Noir** – vocals, bass, writing, engineering, mixing, mastering, production
* Trey Ozinga – guitar
* Tyler Fleming – drums
* Doug Lane – keyboards

**Session performer**

* Justin Oliver – vocal readings

### Music video credits

* Kat Noir – possessed nun, makeup effects
* Tom Noir – doctor, producer
* Doug Lane – priest
* Tyler Fleming – ghost pope
* Paul Lockwood – doctor's assistant
* Justin Oliver – speaking monk
* Leah Feeback – makeup effects

1. "The Haunting"
2. "Volatile"
3. "Trinity"
4. "Alpha Omega"
5. "Exhume"
6. "Silicon"
7. "Deep Woods"
8. "Vertebra Seraphim"
9. "Feel Heart Love"
10. "Beautifool"

1. "Tombstones"
2. "Burn"
3. "Spellbound"
4. "Little Drummer Boy"
5. "Symmetry"
6. "Black Light"
7. "Lavender"
8. "The Veil"
9. "Her Dark Embrace"
10. "Cauterize"

1. "Fate"
2. "Windows"
3. "Reverence (Make You Love)"
4. "Effigy"
5. "Wine"
6. "Persephone"
7. "Serendipity"
8. "Wanderlust"
9. "Cradle the Monster"
10. "Wisteria"
11. "Sistinas"
12. "Proverbs"
13. "Goodbye Black Bird"
 ***Letters to Existence***1. "Spring"
2. "Endless Lonely"
3. "**A Halo Hung from Horns**"
4. "Forever Haunt"
5. "Deja View"
6. "Summer to Autumn"
7. "Clench"
8. "Tourniquet"
9. "For Honor"
10. "Flash Paper Matches"
11. "She's Gone"
12. "Winter"

* "Pictures of Matchstick Men (RIPeter)"
* "Lips Like Sugar"
* "Wicked Game"
* "Race War"
* "Cry Little Sister"
* "Love You to Death"
* "Crimson and Clover"
* "Nights in White Satin"