An album can be a glimpse into the soul of the artist. Sometimes it is tender, introspective, delicate or beautiful — and sometimes it locks eyes with the listener with a piercing glare. Sometimes it is a glimpse into something the listener never wanted to see. This article is part one in a series looking at the latter category of albums — albums that, from inception to execution, are nothing short of unnerving.

Band: Suffocate For Fuck Sake

Album: Blazing Fires and Helicopters on the Front Page of the Newspaper. There's A War Going On and I'm Marching In Heavy Boots.

This precariously titled monster of an album was one of the first to combine the hazy dissonance of shoegaze with the ruthless aggression of black metal, with hints of '90s skramz and post-rock. "Blazing Fires and Helicopters" revels in an air of hopelessness, with aggressive tracks like "Empty" and "A Japanese Flag" bursting with unhindered rage, before being subdued in soft, instrumental interludes such as on "Blue Lights and Sunshine." Accompanying the quiet sections are samples from a 2005 radio documentary entitled "Jag skulle kunna vara USA:s president (I Will Never Be the United States President)," chronicling writer Linda Boström Knausgård's struggle with mental illness. It is intense, angry and, above all else, dismally hopeless music, yet still shining with some sort of powerful beauty.

Band: Stalaggh

Album: Projekt Misanthropia

Here's the story of Projekt Misanthropia: members of Stalaggh, former members of the Dutch and Belgian black metal and ambient scene, were growing a bit weary of a regular old Joe growling like a maniac into a microphone. Yeah, he sure as hell sounded crazy, but Stalaggh just wasn't believing it, so they found a new vocalist. If "find a new vocalist" means "gather up 30 or so patients from a local mental asylum and record them screaming at each other inside of an abandoned monastery" to you, though, you should really be talking to a therapist, and also you are totally right. The music itself is not exactly music, but more or less cacophonic noise mixed with the screams of the criminally insane, one of whom was institutionalized after stabbing his mother 30 times. If that is what you're into, Stalaggh has two other similar projects for you to check out: "Projekt Nihil" and "Projekt Terror."

Band: The Butthole Surfers

Album: Locust Abortion Technician

The Butthole Surfers are responsible for a lot of things. From being the background music to Kurt Cobain's introduction to Courtney Love to directly inspiring countless over-ambitious mushroom dosages, they are as groundbreaking as they are utterly and unquestionably unique. Locust Abortion Technician is the pinnacle of that. It is sheer audio insanity composed of inexplicable samples, bastardized carnival music and an overwhelming vibe of impending dread. In short, it's absolutely awesome.