A Demon Lives In The Voice of Diamanda Galas. When she performs, Galas doesn't so much sing conventional songs as cackle cracked arias, suggesting a demonically posessed Maria Callas.

Think early Yoko--only more so.
Over the last 16 years, Galas has drawn a cult audience to her operatic assemblage of shrieks and gurgles. Small wonder she chose to make her Carnegie Hall debut on Halloween. Clearly, her audience views this date as the highest of holy days. Their ghostly get-ups lookid like the real thing.

Galas herself appeared in shiny black leather, highlighting features that already make her look like a more severe Morticia Addams.

And yet, there's nothing cartoonish or campy about her music. On Thurday, this classically trained musician avoided her most abstract work to follow the ballad approach of her 1994 album, "The Singer." Performing solo at the paino, Galas offered a brilliantly chosen collection of songs, penned by herself and others, straddling blues, standards, gospel and world beat.

Galas' arch piano playing - and bone-chilling vocals - helped make these selections all her own. Her take on the Supremes' "My World Is Empty Without You" turned this frilly soul ditty into a tale of exestential abandonment. Her versions of B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone" and Willie Dixon's "Insane Asylum" approached the blues with more originality than any artist since Captain Beefheart back in 1969.

By combining Algerian ululations, operatic bellows, hard rock brays and the kind of yelps that could drown out Janed Leigh in "Psycho," Galas offered more than just an innovative sonic melange. She captured a stunning range of negative emotions - from loss to fury to terror.

Shockingly, Galas could even sound pretty. In another passage, she used her demonic howls for laughs, proving that beneath her music's dark solemnity beats a human heart.