Published: 10 May 2025 / Last Update: 10 May 2025
We’ve put together a list of dark and brooding indie-alt/folk albums with existential themes. It wasn’t easy to narrow things down, but we focused on records that explore the complexities of existence while pairing that depth with melancholic, often haunting melodies. If you have any favorites of your own, we’d love to hear them.
The Top Picks (1–16) are our core recommendations — a great place to start. If you’re hungry for more, the Further Recommendations (17–32) offer additional standout albums that are just as worth exploring.
P.S. If this kind of music speaks to you, check out our Dark Folk playlist on Spotify.
Now, onto the albums:
1-16: Top Picks
(in no particular order)
Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)
OK Computer is Radiohead’s third studio album and probably one of the most widely-known entries on this list. A landmark in alternative rock, it blends experimental production with themes of alienation, technology, modern life, and the loss of personal agency in a rapidly changing world. While the entire album offers a cohesive exploration of these themes, tracks like “No Surprises” and “Karma Police” stand out for their haunting portrayal of alienation, leaving a lasting impact on music and culture.
Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss (2015)
Abyss, Chelsea Wolfe’s fifth album, draws from doom folk, gothic rock, and industrial influences, crafting a dark and immersive sonic atmosphere. The album explores themes of fear, inner turmoil, and personal struggle, with Wolfe’s haunting vocals and heavy instrumentation driving the emotional intensity. The sound is both atmospheric and crushing, with tracks that shift from brooding to aggressive, encapsulating a sense of apocalyptic unease.
Matt Elliott – Farewell to All We Know (2020)
Elliott’s ninth studio album, Farewell to All We Know, blends dark folk and progressive influences with his signature introspective style. The album creates a somber, end-of-the-world mood through intricate guitar work and poignant vocals. Tracks like “Crisis Apparition,” “Farewell to All We Know,” and “Hating the Player, Hating the Game” reflect on regret, inner conflict, and societal decay.
Anna von Hausswolff – Dead Magic (2020)
Dead Magic is Anna von Hausswolff’s fourth studio album, blending experimental dark folk, drone, and gothic sounds. With its towering organ compositions and haunting vocals, the album creates an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere. This immersive quality is particularly evident in tracks like “The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra” and “Ugly and Vengeful,” which enhance the album’s chilling and intense experience.
Giles Corey – Giles Corey (2011)
Giles Corey is the self-titled debut album by Dan Barrett, known for his work with Have a Nice Life. This project delves into dark folk, blending haunting vocals with minimalist instrumentation to explore themes of depression, death, and the paranormal. Tracks like “The Haunting Presence” and “No One Is Ever Going to Want Me” stand out, embodying the album’s bleak and unflinching examination of existential despair.
Low – Double Negative (2018)
With its embrace of experimental and electronic elements, along with abstract lyrics open to interpretation, Low’s twelfth studio album marks a significant departure from their earlier work. The album offers a striking blend of distorted vocals and fragmented melodies, crafting a disorienting and apocalyptic atmosphere.
Have A Nice Life – Deathconsciousness (2008)
Deathconsciousness is the debut double album by Have a Nice Life, blending post-punk, shoegaze, drone, and dark ambient into a sprawling and deeply emotional work. The album explores themes of existential despair, mortality, and the passage of time, often referencing obscure philosophy and history to add depth to its bleak narrative. With its raw, unfiltered intensity, it has earned cult status among fans of underground music since its release.
Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (2022)
Big Thief’s fifth studio album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, brings together indie folk, rock, and Americana in an expansive 20-track collection. Exploring themes of love, nature, introspection, and human connection, the record offers moments of existential reflection. Songs like “Change” and “No Reason” ponder impermanence and the fleeting beauty of life, adding a thoughtful layer to its broad emotional range.
The Microphones – The Glow Pt. 2 (2001)
The Glow Pt. 2 is the third studio album by The Microphones, a raw and atmospheric blend of lo-fi indie folk and experimental sounds. The album explores themes of love, loss, self-discovery, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Interwoven with these are existential reflections on impermanence and the passage of time, captured in tracks like “I Want Wind to Blow” and “The Moon.”
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree (2016)
Skeleton Tree is a deeply emotional album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, completed during a period of profound personal tragedy following the accidental death of Cave’s 15-year-old son. The album’s sparse instrumentation—blending ambient textures, droning synths, and fragmented piano melodies—creates a hauntingly intimate atmosphere, amplifying its themes of love, mortality, and existential fragility.
Ethel Cain – Perverts (2025)
Perverts sees Ethel Cain abandon Southern Gothic balladry for a rawer, more confrontational sound steeped in religious trauma and erotic shame. Tracks like “Punish” and “Onanist” unravel themes of submission, guilt, and spiritual decay over sparse, haunting production. Stark and ritualistic, the album feels like a personal exorcism — intimate, unsettling, and unflinchingly honest.
Listen: Spotify
Emma Ruth Rundle – Marked for Death (2016)
Marked for Death is a raw and emotionally charged album by Emma Ruth Rundle, blending elements of alternative rock and doom folk. The record explores themes of pain, mortality, and self-acceptance, with moments of existential dread woven throughout. Tracks like “Marked for Death” and “Real Big Sky” delve deeply into despair and the struggle for meaning, capturing the album’s stark emotional core.
Lingua Ignota – Sinner Get Ready (2021)
Sinner Get Ready is the fourth studio album by Lingua Ignota, the musical project of Kristin Hayter. Released in 2021, the album marks a shift from her earlier industrial and noise influences, embracing a more acoustic and folk-inspired sound. Drawing on the religious fervor and traditional music of rural Pennsylvania, Hayter incorporates Appalachian instruments and televangelist samples to craft a haunting and intense atmosphere. Among its most striking moments, “Pennsylvania Furnace” and “The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata” explore themes of isolation, spiritual longing, and the search for redemption, seamlessly tying into the album’s raw emotional depth and existential undertones.
Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya – Orbweaving (2023)
Orbweaving is a collaborative album merging the slowcore intensity of Midwife with Vyva Melinkolya’s ethereal shoegaze textures. The record explores themes of loneliness, existential yearning, and isolation through hypnotic, droning soundscapes. “Blood River” and “Plague X” are perfect listens for fans of minimalist music.
Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle (2015)
Julien Baker’s debut studio album, released in 2015, features minimalist indie folk arrangements, primarily centered around Baker’s emotive vocals and guitar work. The album explores themes of personal struggle, mental health, and resilience. Tracks like “Sprained Ankle” and “Rejoice” showcase Baker’s talent for conveying raw emotion through simple yet powerful melodies.
Lankum – False Lankum (2023)
False Lankum is the fourth studio album by Irish folk group Lankum, released in 2023. Combining traditional folk melodies with heavy drones and experimental arrangements, the album crafts a dark and immersive atmosphere. Its themes reflect on mortality, grief, and the relentless cycles of human suffering, offering a somber meditation on life’s harsher realities. Rooted in folk traditions yet unafraid to innovate, False Lankum stands as a powerful exploration of timeless struggles through a modern lens.
17-32: Further Recommendations
(in alphabetical order)
A.A.Bondy – Believers (2011)
Current 93 – Sleep Has House (2000)
Current 93 – Thunder Perfect Mind (1992)
Esben and the Witch – Hold Sacred (2023)
Jessica Pratt – Here in the Pitch (2024)
Leonard Cohen – Songs of Love and Hate (1971)
Low – I Could Live in Hope (1994)
Marissa Nadler – Strangers (2006)
Matt Elliott – The Broken Man (2012)
Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked at Me (2017)
Nick Drake – Pink Moon (1972)
Olin Janusz – Please Leave Quietly (2024)
PJ Harvey – White Chalk (2007)
Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
Sun Kill Moon – Benji (2014)
The Microphones – Mount Eerie (2003)
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