The Haunted (SWE)
The Haunted from Sweden are the lucky stars that can be thanked for the trash metal's Noughties renaissance. The band's self-titled debut album from 1998 made the almost forgotten genre timely again with its intensive, fresh-sounding thunder that eventually even took the band on tour with their idols Slayer.
The band's numerous visits to Finland reveal that they must be quite fond of their Eastern neighbours. It was in 2003 when The Haunted last ravaged the Laulurinne ground. Back then, Marco Aro was spending his last summer as the frontman of the band, having four years earlier jumped into the boots of the original vocalist, the hyperactive Peter Dolving. The band was at the peak of their savageness, right in the hard core of their genre.
Now The Haunted is ready to return to Joensuu, again led by Dolving that for many fans is the only true vocalist for this band. Musically, the band unveiled its more experimental mood with the album The Dead Eye in 2006, but again returned with a more straightforward look with their latest release Versus. Early in their career, the band set the fire back to trash metal, so why not stay on the tried and tested path, particularly when so far only very few of all latter-day trash novices have been able to even bite The Haunted's ankles.
The Haunted is here to serve us with a hearty and unceremonious portion of metal, equally consisting of Peter Dolving's frenzied enthusiasm and a storm of tighter-than-tight riffs as it does of lyrics that do not leave any of the wrongdoings of the children of men unexposed. Revivalism by the brute force of stark guitars, that's how the essence of The Haunted can be defined.
www.the-haunted.com
myspace.com/thehaunted
