Black Aria is an instrumental album composed by Glenn Danzig, the vocalist/songwriter for Danzig and previously of Samhain and The Misfits. Although some of the material on the album was recorded as early as 1987, it was not released until 1992. The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard classical chart. This original release was on Danzig's old Misfits-era label, Plan 9 Records, and like his Misfits and Samhain releases, was distributed by Caroline Records. The album was reissued in 2000 on E-Magine Records, and a sequel followed on Evilive Records in 2006. The album is largely modern instrumental classical music, and is very dark, with perhaps "gothic metal" tendencies. Select tracks from the album served as intro music to early Danzig shows, and excerpts of some songs were included on Danzig's first two compilation home videos released by Def American Recordings in 1989 and 1991. The song titles reference a sort of "soundtrack" to John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, which describes Lucifer's rebellion from the Christian God, and his subsequent expulsion from Heaven with the angels who joined him. The final three tracks do not reference Paradise Lost, because they were written earlier by Danzig while he was still in Samhain. All tracks were written by Glenn Danzig, who also performed most (or all) instruments. Engineering was provided by Nick Didia and Martin Schmelze (tracks 1-7) and Bob Alecca (tracks 8, 9). Female voices were provided by Janna Brown and Reneé R