Metallica's Kirk Hammett Reads Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" in Halloween Video

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett shared a video on Tuesday, 27 October, of himself reading the final seven stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven." The reading was released as a Halloween feature, and Rolling Stone reported the details of the video.

Poe's poem is a long story told in rhyme. A grieving man is visited by a bird that repeats a single word. Hammett delivers the closing verses in a setting built for the season. He wears a raven-black jacket decorated with a raven and a grim reaper, and he sits on a couch with a charred-black skeleton behind him.

The background music is "Inamorata," the final song on Metallica's album 72 Seasons. The track gives the video a slow, moody backing under the spoken words.

Horror has been a recurring theme in Hammett's solo work. In 2022 he released Portals, an instrumental album inspired by horror movies. The new video follows that interest in the same spooky spirit.

Hammett's Halloween interests have also shown up in his gear. Guitar World reported in October 2025 on the Gibson Custom Kirk Hammett Raven, a signature acoustic guitar with a horror-themed twist on the classic dreadnought, the large-bodied acoustic shape that many players know. Guitar World describes the Raven as a counterpart to Gibson's Hummingbird, another well-known Gibson acoustic.

Metallica is also in the middle of a residency called Life Burns Faster at the Sphere in Las Vegas, the domed venue known for its very large screen. The band's live dates are a separate matter from the video, and the reading itself is a short piece of seasonal content.

For fans who follow the band, the video is an easy way to see a different side of Hammett. It is a poem, a jacket, a skeleton and a song from a recent album, all in a few minutes. For anyone else, it is a reminder that Poe's verses are still being read aloud, nearly two centuries after the poem first appeared.