Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has recorded a Halloween reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” with “Inamorata” accompanying his narration. Released on the band’s official YouTube channel on October 27, 2026, the video pairs the closing passage of Poe’s poem with the closing song from Metallica’s 2023 album 72 Seasons. Brett Murray filmed and edited the clip.
The video runs four minutes and nine seconds, concentrating on the final seven stanzas of the 1845 poem. Hammett picks up the story after the raven has entered the narrator’s room, as curiosity gives way to increasingly desperate questions about his lost Lenore. Each attempt to find reassurance runs into the bird’s repeated “Nevermore.” By the final stanza, the visitor’s shadow has become something the narrator cannot escape.
“Inamorata” makes an apt companion to that passage. Its lyrics describe a consuming relationship with misery, giving the pairing a connection beyond Halloween imagery. Both works dwell on suffering that has become inseparable from the person experiencing it, although Metallica’s song also pushes toward breaking that dependence. Poe’s ending offers no comparable release.
Horror has long been part of Hammett’s creative life. He documented his collection of posters and memorabilia in the 2012 book Too Much Horror Business, sharing objects gathered across decades of collecting. That interest also reached museum galleries through It’s Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection.
The Peabody Essex Museum exhibition ran in Salem, Massachusetts, from August 12 through November 26, 2017. Its 135 works included film posters, guitars, props and costumes, examining both the imagery of horror cinema and its connection to Hammett’s musical imagination. The museum identified his poster collection as a source of inspiration for his own work.
For this Halloween release, Hammett has turned to the words themselves. Metallica included the selected passage in the video description, so listeners can follow the reading from the narrator settling into his chair through the poem’s final line.
