Dead Eyes Opened by Severed Heads

Conceived initially as filler on a cassette, 'Dead Eyes Opened' defied its modest beginnings – twice. Released in 1984 and revived by a 1994 remix, the track became Severed Heads' (reluctant) signature. Deeply danceable and genuinely terrifying, it blends a horror voice-over fit for Vincent Price ('By a strange coincidence, a thunderstorm had been brewing…') with spectral proto-trance.

Built on a framework of oscillating arpeggios, 'Dead Eyes Opened' unfurls over six-and-a-half minutes; its sonic shifts are less progression than a tightening grip. Cascading synths are mesmeric, unabashedly beautiful, slashed open by a blast of pure noise at the two-minute mark: nightmare freefall. 

The central sample – a spoken-word narration by Edgar Lustgarten – is taken from a BBC radio series, which recounts a 1924 murder. Lustgarten's detached, matter-of-fact delivery cleaves to the siren call of those synths, adding a sense of eerie inevitability – like hearing a ghost tell its own story. The song's dream-within-a-dream structure is still unmatched, its loping melodies turning repetition into revelation.

Read more in 1984: Australia finds its voice, part 2.