In keeping with today, I’m touting Testament’s Burnt Offerings, off their 1987 debut, The Legacy. If the name wasn’t Samhain-appropriate enough, I actually bought this cassette on Hallowe’en night 1987.

This song is 23 Goddamned years old.

Burnt Offerings is the third track from the album, and I’ve never heard Testament play it live (if you have, hit me up in the comments), but there is an absolutely Kraken (too big for Hercules) riff at 1:08 in the original studio version:

It’s perfect for Hallowe’en, and nearly perfect in itself: it dances around its minor/ diminished keys, hopping up and down like devils on Bald Mountain: it’s Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King refrain with Saint-Saen’s Dance Macabre, played at high gain through a Marshall stack, with Bay-area thrash palm muting.

It’s fucking awesome.

It was re-recorded around 20 years later by Testament on First Strike Still Deadly. Here, the riff starts at 1:10:

Happy Hallowe’en!