When I pushed play on the new band Dead Man’s Bones, I was expecting something dark and morbid and awesome. I wasn’t expecting to hear a children’s choir. But as I let the first track off the band’s self-titled album run, I realized that hearing a child’s voice eerily chant, “like a lamb to its slaughter … buried in water … buried in water” is waaaay more creepy than hearing a grown man sing those words. Dead Man’s Bones is a new band, and this is their first album. Frankly, it sounds like the soundtrack to a really cool haunted house. I looked them up on the Internet to get more information and found their Web site to be nothing more that a creepy Tarantino-esque animation of two men digging a grave. But upon further research, I found out that the band is actually the pet project of actor Ryan Gosling, which was a turn off for me initially because I hate “The Notebook.” But the quality and theatrical spookiness of the album won out for me in the end. I learned that Gosling’s family actually moved out of his childhood home because they believed it to be haunted. In fact, Gosling is said to have a penchant for the paranormal, and the entire project was created partly from his love of the haunted house at Disneyland. The band mixes iconically creepy sounds like creaking doors, footsteps, screaming, thunder and howling with the sweet innocence of children’s voices to craft an album that is made for the month of October, but is just as good year round. If you don’t want to buy the entire album, I would definitely recommend downloading “Dead Man’s Bones,” “My Body’s a Zombie for You” and “Flowers Grow Out of My Grave.” After finishing this album, I was in the mood for the ghoulish and macabre. In other words, I wanted me some Tom Waits. Waits has a voice that sounds like someone let a mountain lion shred his vocal cords, then rolled them in gravel, doused them in whiskey and set them on fire. He has a cult following of fans who are fiercely loyal and, admittedly, I am a member of those ranks. I first heard Waits in high school, and the hair on the back of my arms stood on end, which only happens when I listen to a really good band.

He could be described as pre-rock or experimental, if you must classify it. Once, I heard him interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR, and she asked him how he got his trademark growl. He said he smoked as many cigarettes as he could and drank as much bourbon as he could, and when he was a kid, he would scream into his pillow until his vocal cords bled. Pretty raw. And pretty awesome. The reason I bring him up is because he’s coming out with a new album, “Glitter and Doom,” on Nov. 24. You can get a free, pre-released track from the album on his Web site, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a cover of a song written by the indie band Gomez called “Going Out West” and as much as I love Gomez, I prefer Waits’ version. Lyrics like, “People say I’m ugly, but I’ve got a masculine face” just pop when Waits barks them. Totally unrelated to Dead Man’s Bones, Tom Waits and Halloween are the Flight of the Conchords, but I’m writing about them anyway. Why? Because over the last year they blew up and just released their second studio album on Sub Pop Records titled “I Told You I Was Freaky” on Tuesday. I first heard the Conchords when they debuted their self-titled HBO show in 2007, and I was totally blown away. They’re witty, clever and funny. Plus, they have accents, which means they’re guaranteed commercial success in the states, as Americans practically orgasm when they hear an accent. Any accent. At all. It’s dumb. They use parodies of musical genres to poke fun at social norms, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s observational humor. “I Told You I Was Freaky” is a lot like their first album, just not as good. But if you like the Conchords, you’ll like this album, I sure did. Rumor has it that one of the songs will be available for free download on “Rock Band,” but I don’t play the game, so I don’t know much about that.

If you just want to download a few of the better tracks I’d go with “Too Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor)” and “You Don’t Have To Be A Prostitute.”