If you thought the Krampus craze had reached it’s climax last Christmas, you clearly couldn’t have predicted what this cloven-hooved foil to Santa Claus had in store for all the bad kids this year. With his most notable appearance being in the big screen holiday horror film Krampus, this demonic Christmas creature has also been immortalized in music thanks to the black metal project known as Krampus Parade. Conceived by extreme metal musician Thomas vom Krampus, the album Alpine Nightmares and Holiday Horrors is influenced more by Cradle of Filth than the cradle of Christ. Joined by his wife Francesca vom Krampus, Thomas has created a screeching sinister and cynical take on the holidays backed by ornate orchestrations of guitars, cellos, Irish whistles and drum machines.

“I started working on these songs in August of 2014,” he says. “I had no idea anybody was going to even know what a Krampus was, aside from people maybe thinking it was some sort of bowel disease. It was good timing because, aside from people saying, ‘Are you doing a band about that movie?,’ it has brought a little more exposure to the myth and legend of Krampus in general. It’s cool that it just exploded in pop culture in the U.S. all of a sudden. It was completely unexpected.”

When vom Krampus first happened upon footage of a European Krampus parade a few years ago, he was immediately swallowed up by this monster’s mystique. As a fan of both Christmas and Halloween, he saw it as the ultimate marriage of two of his favorite holidays.

“I thought, ‘Wow. Where has this been all of my life?’,” he recalls. “I’ve always liked anything that was dark and spooky. I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of this before and kind of became obsessed with the fun of it all and the idea that there could be such a thing as a monster that follows Santa Claus around and punishes the bad kids. I thought this dark side of Christmas was totally enchanting.”

Having been a musician since he was 12, and always gravitating to darker and more extreme genres of heavy metal, vom Krampus obviously identifies with his namesake Christmas demon on a musical level, as well.

“Krampus is about as metal as it gets,” he says. “The first song on the album ‘Season’s Beatings’ is very heavily inspired by some of my influences like Morbid Angel, Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. I just wanted to blend some of my favorite styles of music together and put my own spin on it all, then throw in ridiculous Krampus Christmas-y lyrics. It came about out of ridiculousness. I’m a ridiculous person, so it’s a reflection of my sense of humor and the craziness that goes on in my head.”

Having released some of that craziness this holiday season, vom Krampus is currently working on a EP that will further expand his musical and mythological methodologies.

“It’s a little bit more technical, a little bit more melodic,” he says of Krampus Parade’s next release. “The music’s more challenging and the lyrical concept is more along the lines of dark fairy tales, some Halloween influence and, of course, there’s going to be some more Krampus stuff.”