On a recent Friday night, amid the howling winds of an incoming hurricane, two people dressed as skeletons grinned as Chris Lahey screamed into a microphone.

“The sun fades to blackness, the moon to blood,” Lahey shrieks, fog hissing from a nearby smoke machine.

“Stars fall from a darkened sky!”

He was performing “From a Cloudless Sky” by thrash metal band Skeletonwitch. It’s not a track you’d find on offer at most other karaoke bars. But this is Heavy Metal Karaoke at Lucy’s Bar in downtown St. John’s, N.L.

The crowd is a tight-knit community of people who go there to “scream their guts out,” Lahey said.

It was Halloween, but co-organizer Susan Smith said regulars often dress up any time it’s held.

Smith and Vicki King started the event during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, wh

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