Soundtrack Black is, from left, Joel Stooksbury, Steve Britton and Brian Jolley.

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KNOXVILLE — Following the disbanding of former Knoxville heavyweight Immortal Chorus, Steve Britton took a long break from the music scene before spontaneously recharging his creative batteries with former band mates Joel Stooksbury and Brian Jolley to form Soundtrack Black.

The band began work on fresh material two years ago and took advantage of Stooksbury’s home studio to put out its inaugural release “First Born” in February. Soundtrack Black has been performing live ever since. Now the band looks to begin work on a second release after playing a trademark Halloween show.

Shying away from the term “goth” for its most modern associations to Hot Topic, the Twilight-inspired teen-vamp craze and general mall punk-ism, the band excels in casting dark, macabre moods. Much like Immortal Chorus, the group fills a niche seldom explored in Knoxville, and this time around hopes to intensify its focus on lyrics and recording clarity.

“Soundtrack Black is a direct descendant and, really, the metamorphosis of The Immortal Chorus,” says bassist/vocalist Britton. “I had taken a long hiatus from music, and quite suddenly and out of the blue, I started feeling inspiration again to write. I locked myself in the attic office and Joel and I began sending ideas back and forth. When writing the music for the album, I kept picturing a movie and its soundtrack. Little scenes would pop into my head and inspired some of the songs. The focus is definitely on lyrics and portraying various emotions, hopefully in an intellectually stimulating way. It is also meant to entertain and is infused with a theatrical sensibility as well.

“I would say the sound is a mixture of pseudo-goth, post-punk progressive and a touch of death metal thrown in the mix — very hard to describe. It’s semi-comparable to a mixture of the sounds of bands like Type O Negative, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Swans and HIM, though some songs completely break from that end of the spectrum and sound a bit lighter.”

A major element the band intends to improve upon as it progresses is its intensity. While touting “First Born” as his best recording effort to date, Britton points out that he’d like to up the energy output of the band’s future recordings. Crediting the album’s quality to the unlimited time available through the use of a solid home studio, Soundtrack Black will certainly produce on its upcoming release, already in the works.

On Halloween, a night typically dominated by cover shows, Soundtrack Black is lined up to play an original, yet holiday-appropriate, set at 4620 Reinvented. Saturday night the band joins Asheville’s Bootstraps Burlesque in a show that will include an audience-determined costume contest with prizes for first, second and third places. The show kicks off at 10 p.m. Admission is $10.

“The haunting tone in many of our songs is very conducive to Hallows Eve,” Britton explains. “It was always a big event when Immortal Chorus played a Hallow’s Eve gig; the transfer of energy and emotion from the band to the audience was something to see, and now a new audience can experience this. ... This thing is gonna be a three-ring circus.”

n Triick or Thrreatt: The Pilot Light holds its ninth annual Halloween Masquerade Show Saturday night, this year at the Midtown Art Center, 513 Cooper St. Local musicians perform in disguise as some of their favorite acts. Bands to be impersonated include Cheep Triick, Miinorr Thrreatt, Thhe Smiithhs, Fliiperr and Ggo Ggos. Bands take the stage at 10 p.m. and the show costs $10.

n Cover your tracks: Saturday night Barley’s Taproom holds The Coveralls Halloween Bash. The classic rock covers are slated to begin at 10 p.m.