The Dead Eye

The first four studio albums of the Swedes are really great, but the here presented work pisses me off. It is the fist in the face of their loyal fans. Just for the benefit of narcissism, the once powerful band betrays its supporters. Anyway, let's fulfil the sad task to write a fair review for "The Dead Eye".

The biggest advantage of the album is its technical implementation. The transparent, powerful and clearly defined sound qualifies the production team for greater tasks. In particular the guitars give you the feeling to listen to a genuine metal album. This is unfortunately just an illusion, because The Haunted are taking pleasure in unfitting experiments. They have integrated a lot of unexpected parts that reduce the power of the songs significantly. Only a very small number of the pieces emits a certain fury. The vast majority of the tunes fails to leave a coherent impression, because the single parts mostly do not blend seamlessly into each other. It seems as if the band wanted to write more "intellectual" songs, but this was no good idea at all. For example, "The Cynic" has some good leads, but the tranquil verse generates an inadequate atmosphere. Lead vocalist Peter Dolving seems to sit in a sticky bar at midnight instead of entering the stage in a concert hall. Lousy reality. The beginning of "The Reflection", to mention another example, sounds like a sick version of Oasis and all these components damage the overall impression sustainably.

The worst is yet to come. Dolving's contribution to "The Dead Eye" is horrifying. He delivers a lot of different approaches and wants to sound lascivious, thoughtful, sensitive, dreamful or, in extremely rare cases, aggressive. What truly irks me is that he behaves like a rockstar who has lost any relation to reality. He thinks he has to entertain a high sophisticated audience, but any type of academic art lover is not interested in this shitty little band from Sweden. Worse still, true metal heads must realize that Dolving does not take care for their expectations. This is annoying. A band whose only aim is self-realisation at all costs should not go into the studio. Play for yourself in your stinking rehearsal room and don't tempt us to buy your nonsense. Okay, "The Medication" is a fast track in the vein of their previous speed attacks, but it is far away from destroying the speedometer. This track seems to have an alibi function and its only purpose is the sedation of the old fans. "The Shifter" points in the same direction at the beginning, but a break kills its fury in a matter of seconds. It's an ironic twist of fate. On the one hand, the band wants to expand its musical horizon for the benefit of its complacency. On the other hand, The Haunted try everything in order to satisfy everyone. The result is that I am totally dissatisfied. The majority of the tracks just sucks due to aimless guitar lines, psychedelic interludes and paltry choruses.

The limited edition comes with four video clips and a making of documentary. Not to mention the two bonus tracks, for example "The Highwire", a ridiculous instrumental which surprises with the formidable length of 50 seconds. All these additional offerings cannot change the miserable appearance of "The Dead Eye". I wish I had two dead ears.

Why oh why has it taken me so long to review this album? Certainly the dark horse of all The Haunted's releases (as opposed to 'Unseen', which is the dark horse faeces), 'The Dead Eye' is a strange beast when taken on its own terms and even stranger when considering the previous four albums. Until then a ferocious melodeath/thrash shooting range, this album saw the Swedes significantly broaden their sound, departing from much of the breakneck aggression and all-out riff worship of the past in favour of a more rounded metal sound that included a few ventures into atmospheric and progressive spheres. I was baffled and disappointed with this when I bought it, but now I see it more as an adventure than a compromise and have come to recognize the more subversive qualities at work beneath the skin.

Any owner of a physical copy of 'The Dead Eye' will quickly register that the x-ray on the cover is taken up by the inner artwork and lyrics, which appear as doctor's notes on several cases, seeming to depict the status of a group of patients who are afflicted by trauma, stress, psychosis, and helpless rage. That range of themes (for themes they are, making up the bulk of the lyrical content) may seem familiar to those who enjoyed 'One Kill Wonder' and 'rEVOLVEr', yet the handling of the anguish, anger, and angst is carried out more deeply and subtley than ever before, both as a result of Peter Dolving's compelling vocal delivery and the way the rest of the band vary their angle to show many snapshots - case studies if you like - of the same basic condition, which would appear to be the bitter venom of modern life. What baffles me is that there wasn't really a precedent for the sharp departure in sound, 'rEVOLVEr' having toyed with some different ideas though never taking them much beyond the basic intention of diversity. Here, almost every song throws something unexpected into the mix, making 'The Dead Eye' easily the densest and most elusive of The Haunted's efforts.

Something else that becomes ever clearer upon repeated listens is that this doesn't particularly sound like any other band either. Certainly The Haunted's early work put them in league with Darkane, Hatesphere, Dew-Scented, and the other bands blending melodic death with explosive, angry modernity, but the more obtuse, less aggressive (though no less hooky) riffs on 'The Dead Eye' cut them adrift from that scene and floats them out towards an odder assortment of bands. I think of some modern bands like Sylosis, whose sound has always combined thrash's vitality, a melodic sensibility, and an ear for the unexpected; Grip Inc. started to head out towards a vaguely similar destination with 2004's 'Incorporated', though they kept the riffing style of old; I think of Katatonia of all bands during the gentle intensity of 'The Fallout' or 'The Cynic', along with a wonky post-punk sense of rhythm and guitar tone. That Katatonia comparison should instantly ring alarm bells for any thrash fans, but it highlights the way that the heaviness is sometimes redirected through roundabout attacks instead of direct ones, while Dolving captures every mood between bug-eyed venom-spitter and recounting hermit. This album has nooks and crannies that you will think you have explored by the third or fourth listen, though some of the mellower parts and more obvious curveballs will have you working until you're well into double figures on the play count.

The songs on 'The Dead Eye' run the gamut from riff-hungry monsters ('The Shifter') to hooky melodic oddness ('The Medusa' plays like Insomnium with modern Dark Tranquillity shoved up their arses) to tranquil catatonic reveries ('The Fallout') that burst madly into flame with unnerving spontaneity. The flow of ideas is subtle compared to the band's early releases, though there is still plenty of power in instruments and vocals, the five bandmembers striking at least once per song in unexpected places, such as the bass-heavy gurgle of 'The Drowning' or the gargantuan doom of 'The Guilt Trip' that rises up to towering heights at the end of the album. There is an overwhelming sense of drama and gravity to most of the songs, which Dolving is pivotal in creating. His performance is by turns anguished, impotently raging, mellow, haunting, and nostalgic, while his greatest asset by far is his ability to always sound like he means every word. Listening to the pleasingly soothing opening of 'The Reflection' is a revelation for fans of this band: "She was a little girl and I was only just learning to crawl / I would call her name to see her beautiful eyes glow". The lyrics elsewhere are outstanding and poetic too, such as this verse from 'The Fallout':

"Seaweed's like emerald veins
She sleeps beneath the breaking weight
A silent dying ocean's slow defeat
The floods will rise and take us all".

Aside from the delicious gentle moments, there are a few bursts of real anger and ferocity, in particular the super-strength 'The Medication', speed demon 'The Shifter', and the most classic Haunted-sounding track of all, 'The Stain'. They stack up moderately well against songs from 'Made Me Do It' and 'rEVOLVEr', though serve more as sudden stabs through the mist than as concentrated battles, since the real damage is done by the album's scope and spine-tingling moments like the closing song. Perhaps my marginal favourite track of all, 'The Guilt Trip' is both menacing and inevitable in its weighty progress, but it's Dolving's howl of "And it's all dead quiet at the centre of the pain" that really digs itself into my brain and steals my breath every now and then.

Manifestly not an album for steadfast fans of The Haunted's neo-thrash sound, 'The Dead Eye' is so much more than just an experiment that has its moments - it is the band's unique statement and a rare gift unlikely to be repeated. Subtle, poignant, and magisterial in both victory and defeat, this is amazing in its own right.

The Haunted are and have always been an extremely mediocre band, and despite managing to release four albums they've written only two different songs. They're a boring, predictable band for people who want to listen to groove metal that flirts with 'Slaughter of the Soul' melody every now and then when Dolving isn't barking like a doberman with a tennis ball wedged firmly in its ass. They're basically a 50ppm solution of At The Gates, at their lowest point.

With the release of 'The Dead Eye' however, we see The Haunted play the same riffs they've always played but now there's some quiet sections and Dolving does clean singing or whispers occasionally. I'd elaborate, but that's pretty much the entire album. Every song has this insipid quiet part shoehorned into it while Dolving whispers over the top having a big ol' cry about his chronic impotence and how much The Haunted suck. Okay I don't have the faintest clue as to what he is singing about; to be honest every time they move into those sections I go blank and have flashbacks to a time when I used to willingly sit through Linkin Park albums. I wish I was exaggerating but songs like "The Fallout" and "The Reflection" really do dial up the self-loathing and angst to levels only suitable for fifteen-year olds who haven't gone through puberty yet. Contrastingly there are songs like "The Prosecution" with sadistic lyrics about watching someone bleed, presumably a former lover whom scorned Dolving for his aforementioned wang dysfunction. "The Medusa" also whines heavily about a girl, and has this awful vocal line; "Sanctuarrrrry....sanctuaryyyyyy". Want some cheese with that?

Regardless of the lyrical subject at hand the entire album is loathsome and unabashedly insipid in every aspect possible; the one metal riff that manages to appear in each song sounds like a derivative of the first one off "D.O.A". Or was it "No Compromise"? Bah, whichever song it was doesn't matter because the riff is shite and after listening to it in a different form for the tenth time you get pretty sick of it. There is the occasional lead work but its appearance is always anti-climatic and manages to work against anything the album was previously building towards, which isn't saying a lot but it's still irritating.

I really am at a lost over how to approach 'The Dead Eye'; I'd love to label this a sell-out due to the sonic similarities to Linkin Park and other commercial rock/nu-metal bands during the whispery/whiny/angsty sections but then considering the album as I whole there's nothing catchy about the vocal lines and most of the riffs still sound metal even if they are groove-based. If this is an attempt at experimentation then it's fucking atrocious and evokes only pity because clearly the members of The Haunted are colossal fucktards for even briefly believing they had the creativity and song writing to pull off something ambitious. To simply vary the percentage of which a song is composed of quiet/clean sections does not constitute dynamic song writing and to simply apply this template to your previous style is disgustingly lazy and insipid. The Haunted are not the first nor do I doubt they are the last to abuse this technique thanks to the popularity of wank-juggernauts, Opeth.

Speculating on the intention behind 'The Dead Eye' is a complete waste of time however; no matter how sincere the band may have been they've managed to produce an album devoid of positive aspects. I'd recommend it but I fear to even begin imagining the sad, pathetic creature that this album would appeal to.

There are some things that I expect when I buy The Haunted. I am going to hear a mix of death and post-thrash with heavy vocals and fast music. I got almost NONE of that on The Dead Eye.

The Dead Eye is full of surprises from a usually consistent The Haunted. This album focuses on the “feel” of the entire album rather than individual songs. There is a definite flow and well thought out feel to where the album is headed. It really tries to tell a full story as the listener progresses from The Premonition to The Guilt Trip. The atmosphere devours the album as the listener dives into this strange world The Haunted have created on The Dead Eye. In fact, The Dead Eye really works way better as a whole album then individual songs. To tell someone to only listen to a few songs is depriving them of the interesting and unique experience that The Dead Eye really encompasses.

Musically, The Dead Eye is full of melodic guitars overlaying erratic drum working and thick bass lines. Not the usual style for post-thrash stalwarts like The Haunted. There is almost a gothic feel for the music. They went into The Dead Eye with some interesting ideas and came out with an even more interesting work of art. There are moments of post-thrash in the album, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not near the style presented on earlier albums. The riffs are not as muddy sounding and most of the intense speed has been replaced with thought out placement of the guitars. The melody is really what caught me off guard. You can have dark atmospheric music without melody and I thought that was what The Haunted would be doing….wrong.

Vocally, Peter Dolving really brings a new layer to The Haunted. We already heard some experimenting on rEVOLVr – but Dolving really brings a new thought to the mix. He may not be the greatest vocalist to begin with (never was) but he does what he can on the album. He has the barking style that The Haunted is used to but he also varies it with some low tone singing and catchy choruses. Lyrically is where Dolving really shines. He presents listeners with dark and usually symbolic lyrics. I was really wrapped up in his interesting wording and placement for lyrics. Probably the neatest part of the album is reading the lyrics in the booklet or online while the music plays.

All in all, I think a lot of people got the wrong impression with The Dead Eye. Of course it’s different, but no one ever recorded a world changing album by playing it safe…well AC/DC could but very few. You aren’t going to hear the usual on The Dead Eye. But its all right. Listen with an open mind and you should be golden.

Songs to check out: The Flood, The Medication, The Prosecution.

The new Haunted record is definitely a departure from their Swedish death/thrash stylings. And like another reviewer already mentioned, a more experimental approach that was hinted at on Revolver, has been taken to the forefront on The Dead Eye.

The fast tempos, enraged screams, and thrash like riffs and rhythms we are accustomed to hearing from The Haunted have been replaced by mid-tempo riffs and clean vocals that create a dark moody atmosphere more akin to the Cure. In fact, a lot of what this album sounds like is The Cure meeting head on with Slayer-a strange mix that oddly enough works here.

The song writing on this album has eclipsed anything The Haunted has done before. The songs are well thought out and thoroughly arranged creating melody and mood, rather than the ol' cut and paste riffing. The songs here take the listener for a ride through heavy riffing, textured layering, odd phrasing and melody, as well as other pleasing surprises.

If fans are expecting a typical Haunted record then they will be extremely disappointed. You have to listen to this album for what it is. And for what they were trying to accomplish, they did in spades. It is a re-invention for a band that initially had a great influence on defining what we all know as "the Swedish sound", and have now have come around to define themselves rather than again adding to the typical Swedish metal genre.

This album is a really interesting departure for The Haunted. On the album rEVOLVEr, they hinted at the sort of prog-metal-meets-nü-metal influences that they have on this album. One thing that I hear throughout the course of this album is the continuing use of riffs that sound an awful lot like Soundgarden, but in a more chromatic nature. This album also features the extensive use of clean vocals. There is about a 50/50 proportion of clean vocals to yelled ones on this album.

As far as the actual music goes, this album isn’t terrible, but it’s not what I have come to expect from The Haunted, especially considering their first two albums. Ever since they signed to Century Media, the band has taken a much more streamlined, accessible approach. This album even borders on the nü-metal range. There is a significantly smaller amount of the old school thrash sound on this album.

Overall, this album tends to, at moments sound like your basic melodic death metal, at other times it sounds like Soundgarden, at others it sounds like American Metalcore, and then there are a few hints of that thrash sound. As a result, this album seems to sound really forced, like they are trying way too hard to please everybody. It seems that Century Media is trying to influence the direction that The Haunted take in an effort to gain some accessible bands and ultimately make a bit more money for itself, especially considering that the label lost out on the Shadows Fall bidding war. The band seems to be trying to put itself squarely in the middle between being an extreme metal band and being an accessible alternative rock band, for the album shows many moments of both.

This album is not, by any means, a bad one. As I listened to it, I kept saying to myself, “this is forced and they’re trying way too hard.” Never did I say that the album is lame. By no means is it a top-notch metal classic, but it’s not terrible either. Further, I can probably imagine that The Haunted have long abandoned the old-school thrash sound that got them an MTV You Hear It First feature, so I have to keep listening to Haunted albums like this one. This isn’t that bad, but it’s not that great either. All in all, the album is a big slab of mediocrity, one that is an ok listen, but you forget as soon as it’s over. There’s no song that really stands out as being that one “great” song.