E-Mail This Article to a Friend Hard Rock Halloween Scissorfight slices and dices New England, the Headbangers Ball tour smashes into the Palladium, and more BY MIKE MILIARD

What’s it gonna be this Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Scissorfight? At least with the latter you’ve got a fighting chance. A sick-slick remake of Tobe Hooper’s ’74 Texas torture fest is currently eviscerating the box office, but whereas that flick is dressed up in all the latest gut-churning special effects, Scissorfight, those quasi-inbred hicks from the White Mountain wilds, are as unreconstructed as ever. And they’re scarier to boot. They’ve been lumbering across the Northeast like Leatherface, trailed by Tortuga labelmates the Dukes of Nothing, a bunch of Lemmy-lovin’ Saxon warriors who’re bringing their bloodthirsty brand of berserker rock to these shores for the first time. (Confuse them with Boston rockabilly dudes Kings of Nuthin’ at your peril.) They’ll swoop down on Asylum (207-772-8274) in Portland this Thursday, lay waste to the Middle East (617-931-2000) in Cambridge on All Hallows’ Eve, and test the sturdiness of the Bombshelter (603-647-8465) in Manchester on Saturday.

There’s more Halloween metal. You thought you’d seen the last of MTV’s Headbangers Ball, but after eight long years of moldering in the crypt, it’s risen like a revenant and now airs every Saturday night on MTV2. This Friday night, see it in the putrid flesh as the MTV2 Headbangers Ball Tour — featuring Masshole metalheads Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage and heretic hellions Lamb of God — hits the Palladium (800-477-6849) in Worcester. (See Sean Richardson’s story, on page 23 of the Arts section.)

Weird-rock maestros Ween always have the best costumes, flitting in among corny country croons and glue-damaged loony tunes and phony Philly soul like bats using sonar in the tar-black night. And when they head up to Vermont — not far from the namesake of their latest record, Quebec (Sanctuary) — and knock on the door of the Burlington Memorial Auditorium (802-863-5966) this Halloween, we’ll wager they can expect pillowcases full of Zagnuts and Whatchamacallits rather than maws full of shaving cream.

Still stuck for a costume? Just take a magic marker, scribble all over your face, and call yourself a Badly Drawn Boy. Damon Gough, the grown man who calls himself that 365 days a year, has undertaken a tour of small clubs that brings his shapeshifting, winsome pop to the Iron Horse (800-843-8425) in Northampton for two shows, at 7 and 10 p.m., on Saturday and to Higher Ground (866-468-7619) in Winooski, Vermont, on Sunday. Smoky songstress Leona Naess, for whom a mask would only hide her Nordic pulchritude, opens at both.

Peter Wolf ain’t badly drawn, he’s just bad (in the good way). He’ll be up all night with his band the Legendary Sleepless Travelers at Plymouth Memorial Hall (508-747-0234) on Saturday.

Rounding out the week: Teutonic industrial propagandists KMFDM assault Axis (617-423-6398) in Boston on Saturday and Lupo’s (617-931-2000) in Providence on Sunday; the ever-eccentric E’s vehicle for his warped pop muse, the Eels, reaches Higher Ground on Monday, Toad’s Place (617-931-2000) in New Haven on Wednesday, and the Paradise (617-423-6398) in Boston next Thursday, November 6; and the Supersuckers bring their Satan-and-liquor shtick to the Met Café (617-931-2000) in Providence next Thursday.