Unseen

The Haunted made a bunch of catchy, melodic hard rock tunes, changing it up once again while maintaining a strong standard of quality. This might be their best album to date, being the furthest from their roots which nobody could reasonably expect them to exceed. In their years when they still played melodic death/thrash metal, it always seemed to be looming that they would never top Slaughter of the Soul, something that might seem unfair to the members of the band who weren't in At The Gates, but seemed very fair whenever their vocalists shouted and growled. This album has few shouts and growls, it's mostly singing, and it actually works well for them.

The album finds a nice mix of hard rock and metal, with a bunch of melodic, vocal-driven tracks kicking off the album. The half a dozen tracks that kick of the album seem to be the strongest, being strong songs in their own right - while they sound like they could have been a hard rock/metal band that got radio play in the late 90s, the number of strong songs in this style sets it apart from the old formula of a few good singles and some filler. It's strong as an album, and the first half flows quite well.

The album turns heavy with a groovy death metal riff that feels right at home in modern Gothenburg, appropriately titled "The Skull". The one soft track, "Ocean Park", is an interesting choice, as it is under a minute and quickly fades out. It serves as an interlude from the first heavy track on the album to the songs that show their past style a bit more. The shouts on "The City" change the album's tone a bit as it shifts to being more like their older stuff, but it also shows a contrast, that the lack of screaming fits the band better.

It is interesting that they buried a few heavy songs to start the second half of the album - it might fit the format of a record to have six melodic, vocal-driven songs on the first side, then a heavy song, a soft song, and a transition from heavy to lighter over the next few on the second side. The last two tracks are the lightest, but given the context of the heavy riffing before them, they feel more like the band flexing dynamics than anything else.

All of this adds up to a really good album where The Haunted set themselves apart from a lot of bands that has been converging towards the sound they started out with 15 years earlier. It's an odd comparison that their sound could fairly be described as something that was more common 15 years ago, while they got away from what was a much less common sound 15 years ago, but they blended the two well and retain and sound off their identity better than ever. Bottom line: this is a good album, catchy tunes, and worth a few listens.

Since this is not a metal album and was not advertised as such by the band, I'm basing my review on its merits as a pop rock album. I haven't been a huge fan of popular rock since I was much younger, but I can still appreciate it when it's done well and I most certainly can have an open mind when a metal band takes a stab at it.

I've never been a huge fan of The Haunted's odd approach to melodic death metal. I honestly can't say any one of their albums is worth mentioning in the same sentence as greats like The Gallery, The Jester Race, Slaughter Of The Soul, or Heartwork. To really make a name for themselves, I think this album was just what the band needed. Plenty of people didn't get into Amorphis or Sentenced until they softened their sound, so why can't The Haunted try a similar approach to gaining fans?

This album sounds like it's straight out of the late 90's of radio rock. There's actually a healthy variation of styles from song to song which keeps it fresh and shows diversity in what The Haunted wanted to show off here. If they wanted to prove their range as musicians, then this is likely the band's masterpiece. With all of that said, this album has decent production. It sounds like it's from the above mentioned period of radio rock, which is exactly the quality it needed. All of the instruments are performed well and get their moments to shine despite the simpler musical direction. The vocals were actually the most surprising as they are actually quite well performed and show a great range with the differing niches of pop rock The Haunted explored on the album.

I don't expect most metalheads to like this, nor do I expect almost any of The Haunted's fans to really enjoy it either. If you're curious about this album and can have an open mind, or if you just like 90's radio rock, then by all means check this one out. It might be forgettable at times, but for a metal band, this is still a successful experiment.

It seems The Haunted have decided to seriously try their hand at some sort of modern/alternative metal sound. To say the effort falls on its face is really putting it nicely. I'm a fan of a couple of their earlier albums but there is really none of that thrashy melodic death metal style present on Unseen. What we instead get is a blatant attempt at commercially accessible radio rock/metal. But lets face it, if that's what I was looking for I'd just turn on the radio.

This album is seriously lacking in real aggression. We get glimpses here and there but they are just that. Its strange but The Skull is probably the most raging song here. Its strange because its starts off more mellow than most the others with clean guitar parts before ramping into a heavy build up. And to be honest, even being probably the best song on the album its only ok. The City actually has some pretty decent riffs as well. Its not that much heavier than anything else on Unseen but the quality is there so I can look past it.

And then there is Peter Dolving. Peter is like the Swedish version of Phil Anselmo. He does a sort of hardcore shout that a million other vocalists have done, many better than him. There is nothing unique or interesting about his style. He isn't heavy or interesting and nothing about his vocals stand out. This goes for his cleans as well, which have just as much if not more time on Unseen than his shouting. Its sort of a plain style through and through.

The problem with Unseen is that it is highly forgettable. The vocals, the music, is all just kind of there. We get hints in tracks like Them, The Skull, and The City, of the former greatness of the band. But just hints. Ocean Park somehow made it on the album which is a "song" that comes in at under a minute and proves rather useless. I cant fathom why this is even on here. The Haunted seem to have been trying to emulate some sort of heavy grunge sound. Take a listen to All Ends Well, there is a sort of Stone Temple Pilots thing going on there. Which is another problem, a lot of the songs on Unseen just sound derivative.

In the end there are very few redeeming factors in this album. Besides a few songs this is a extremely weak showing. There are other bands out there doing the same thing but better and you should probably go listen to them. Even if I had heard most of this on the radio one day it wouldn't have stuck with me. In keeping with their fellow countrymen like In Flames, Soilwork, and Sonic Syndicate, The Haunted have opted for safe, uninteresting and drab music. What a shame.

Originally reviewed @ http://abaddonsmetalshop.blogspot.com/

I don't know what The Haunted were thinking on this one. I would consider myself a fan of these guys and I enjoyed their particular brand of thrash metal meets melodic death metal with a few experiments thrown in on different albums. Generally a band that mixes it up isn't a bad thing from my point of view as it prevents them from repeating themselves over and over again, however there is always a risk that bands that do this will abandon their roots and isolate the majority of their fan base. That is exactly what The Haunted have done on "Unseen".

There is very little thrash/melodic death here. It is manifesto of Pantera-esque grooves and a more 'accessible' than ever vocal style from Peter Dolving who actually delivers more cleanly sung vocals than screams (this wouldn't be an issue for me if they stuck to the Gutenberg meets thrash riffage, but they didn't). The first verse of 'Never Better' rips out at their old pace, but its not long before that promise is crushed when it enters the softly sung chorus and the grooves kick in. The lead single, "No Ghost', sounds so much like Pantera that it's almost impossible to believe that this is the same band that released 'Verses' just three years ago. The next few tracks are so melodic and ridden with modern rock elements that they just barely sound like metal, let alone extreme metal. 'Montionless' has some redeeming qualities and for what it is, isn't a bad song. It actually contains quite a thrashy passage amongst all the melody through the middle of the song (Huzzah!). Unfortunately, the title track goes straight back into the style of the rest of the album and actually reminds me of Australian rock band Karnivool. 'The Skull' continues the modern rock sound and doesn't indulge in metal sound until almost two minutes in where it actually gets alright, well, you know, until they again become keen to remind us that they have changed their sound. This pattern continues throughout the album. Any time it looks like it could pick up and go back into their old style, they go back into what I can only describe as a melodic 'pop hook' which takes us right back to where we started.

I guess you might enjoy this album if you weren't a fan of The Haunted's previous albums (except maybe The Dead Eye) and are heavily into groove metal, but other than that this is one to be quickly forgotten.