The Haunted
Revolver
Century Media
A few years ago, while I was fully immersed in metal, The Haunted became one of my favourite bands. Their first album took the art of the no-frills trash record to new heights; to me that record was better than Slayer's "Reign in Blood" or "Season in the Abyss", Metallica's "Master of Puppets" or Megadeth's "Peace Sells". It was a revelation and it carried afterwards a slew of other good (Darkane, Defleshed, The Crown) and not so good (Carnal Forge, Gandalf) bands that were brought to prominence at the end of the nineties. While The Haunted continued their road on the thrash map, in the process changing vocalist from Peter Dolving to Marco Aro, I lost a bit of interest. Aro's delivery, while aggressive, was run-of-the-mill death vocals that did absolutely nothing for me. The additional consequence was that the bands felt the need to go as aggressive as possible with Aro and were losing the subtle things that made them good in the first place.
Two records later: Dolving is back and so is the band. First of all, this supposed evolution of the band is not that big of a deal. What they did is finally picked some melodic elements in the old At the Gates' bag of tricks, which was left unopened since the demise of the band and the formation of this one. We are talking about a majority of the songs here being extremely up tempo and a few numbers being mid-paced. The return of Dolving permits the band to use his vast array of talents in different situations and vary the attack with a lot more ease than it would have been possible with Aro. Here is how it goes song per song:
"No Compromise" starts the record as if recorded in a shoe box with strange rhythm pattern before going all out in the traditional Slayer-at-their-best thrash number that starts off the record not only with a bang but also reintroduced shouted backing vocals to the foray, something that was never part of their arsenal with Aro. The slower mid-section is so chest-pumping heavy it is amazing.
"99" is a bit of lower bpm affair that brings memories of "The Red in the Sky is Ours", with a bit a more modern melodic Gothenburg style but not without your scarifying on the violence.
"Abysmal" starts with clean guitars and Dolving doing what makes him a better fit for this band: the ability to actually sing (although he does very little of that on the record), and it is a nice change of pace. Once again this one lowers the bpm a little more and shows the band in all their mid-paced glory. This song sounds a bit like what Entombed sound like since the Death 'n Roll conversion.
"Sabotage" is one of those songs that is meant to blow your head clean off and does not quite succeed even though the song is pretty good. The breakdown at the end of the song particularly good the chorus just doen't do it.
"All Against All" is more of a mid-paced song that is probably the weakest on the entire album. I don't know why they felt the need to put it right in the middle of the album. It does have a nice lead and melodic guitar riff that accompanies it.
"Sweet Relief" is a throwback to the self-titled album: Fast and furious riffing but once again a very nice melodic lead and a breakdown changes things up mid song, much to my delight. This rocks.
"Burn to a Shell" once again displays Dolving's abilities, in the singing and screaming department. This could be considered The Haunted's ‘ballad' much like "Fade to Black" was but this one never stays in the ballad mode for long. Perhaps the strongest number on the album as it shows everything they are able to do, as well as combining them with a lot of ease.
"Who Will Decide" continues in the not-so-fast department but also shows just about every tempo change in a single song this band is able to do, and they do it well. Not the strongest song but certainly not the worst.
"Nothing Right". At this point if you did not enjoy the rest of the album, then you have no reason listening to this, but you would be missing out. The Haunted on this record throws at you everything but the kitchen sink and this song is a perfect example of subtle changes in riffs, stopping the guitars there and just changing things up mid-song. Just great stuff.
"Liquid Burns" continues the tradition of fast thrash and melodic enhancement this record brought to us.
"My Shadow" finishes the album, much like the self-titled one finished with a half spoken-word, half singing affair in depressing fashion. This is a good finishing song, although it is certainly not the band's strength.
- Simon Thibaudeau