An estimated 98% of us experience earworms. Despite the annoying times that we can’t get a chorus or a hook of an overplayed pop song out of our heads, getting a really good earworm stuck can be one of the best things ever.

We here at Nerdist are dead-set on bringing you those types of songs, if only for the weekend. We’ll be scouring the internet for the best earworms we can shove into your meaty brains!

Are we still in the Nerdoween spirit? Of course we are! As Halloween approaches, I find myself wanting to listen to some holiday appropriate tunes. When all ghosts have been busted, monsters mashed, werewolves bar mitzvah‘d and bumps goosed, where does one turn? Oddly enough, around this time of year I turn to one band: Ludo. Some of you may know them for their incredibly catchy late-2000s hit “Love Me Dead” but I’ll really love you if you know them for their earlier stuff, which we’ll get to in a minute (depending on how fast you read). Ludo, named after everyone’s favorite rock-summoning beast from Labyrinth, happens to make some spooky stuff (if “Love Me Dead” wasn’t already an indication). Anyway, their stuff makes for some awesome listening especially around this time of year.

Lake Pontchartrain

Named after the massive lake in Louisiana the song tells a story of a road trip gone awry when the powers that be (Bayou Ghosts I believe is the technical term) cause the group to be the next victims of the lake itself. Drawing unfortunate souls to it who happened to eat the local fare (crawfish) and scaring the crap out of the narrator. The backing vocals are more of a ghostly chant which only adds to this awesome pop punk ghost story.

“Come down to Lake Pontchartrain
Rest your soul and feed your brain
Free for you and all your friends, crawfish ’til the bitter end.
Come down to Lake Pontchartrain
Wade to where the shallows break
That’s where you will get to see everything the water can be.”

It’s a fantastic tune but absolutely pales in comparison to Ludo’s previous work of a rock opera involving eternal love, regret, time travel, dinosaurs, zombies and dragons. Yes, that sentence is correct. Behold the majesty that is…

Broken Bride

This 28-minute EP released in 2005 tells one epic story in 5 parts and is sincerely one of my very favorite things in the world. Listen to it above but please do go and buy it on iTunes for $4.95. The album – to the best of my knowledge, since it is so great it can be pretty subjective – is broken down thusly:

1. “Part I: Broken Bride” – The narrator’s remorse over a lost love. A time machine is built and things go terribly wrong.
2. “Save Our City” – A rally cry to the surviving side of a battle raging on with undead hoards. The malevolent force can’t be stopped. The hopeful chorus and the drum march have an epic round toward the end as the final call to battle. Remember “Anything can be a weapon if you’re holding it right”
3. “Part II: Tonight’s the Night” – Jumping back to the time traveler we get a bit more detail of his motivation and the construction of the time machine.
4. “Part III: The Lamb and the Dragon” – The time traveler overshoots and ends up at the end of time (the zombie war) where things have not gone too well. Also, there’s an all out dragon battle.
5. “Part IV: Morning in May” – a reprise of the adventure and the time traveler’s success in finally making it to his lost love.

Or at least that’s what I get when I hear it. Guys, seriously. Buy this album. If you enjoy any inkling of pop punk music, zombies and beautiful storytelling, then it’s absolutely for you. It’s odd that one band can satiate the need for so many pop culture-y things. If you need me I’ll be listening to Broken Bride on repeat with my eyes closed imagining if it were a movie?

What are your favorite monster/ghost/undead dragon king songs? Let me know in the comments below!

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Image: Universal Pictures

Blake Rodgers writes for Nerdist from Chicago IL where he lives happily with his Guinness World Record for High Fives. You can be his pal by following him on Twitter (@TheBlakeRodgers)