Thursday, February 13, 2014

"Eye of the Storm (7" Single)" by The Haunted


The Haunted are a long running metal band from Sweden. Honestly, what is it with the Swedes and death metal...and hockey?

They have released a bunch of albums over the years. How have they never found my ears before today? Well, here we are and they are releasing an album called "The Eye of the Storm" later on in the year. Today we're considering the first single off of what will become their eighth studio album.

It's still surprising that this is the first I have heard of them, but I'm glad to have the opportunity to check out their first single.

The band got together in 1996 when the brothers Bjorler decided to be totally metal and start it all.



This 7" contains only three tracks, and starts of heavy and ends heavy.

This Swedish brand of death metal is very different from its American counterpart. Instead of thundering drums and inaudible basslines, the drums are a part of the riff and the blast beats aren't constant, but here and there. The bass drums are doubled at all times, but they sneak into the riffage which makes them more powerful.

The bass guitar is a strong component of the music. It's loud and thunderous.
Deftly played and a very important part of the music. It sounds like what Jeff Walker envisioned all those years ago.

The guitars are very heavy and chunky. The riffs lack the standard power chording nad contain some wonderfully inserted melody lines. It would be hard to hear anyone who loves death metal complaining about the guitar work. The solos lack the over top musicality of other acts, but act as melodic songs within the song.

The vocals are growly without sounding like Cookie Monster trying to get a snack. They lack no power and have a perfect audibility and are very intelligible, a rarity for this genre of music.

Many seriously heavy records have mixing issues, but this single lacks all of that. After hearing these three songs, I'm very much looking forward to the full release later this year.

Year: 2014
Genre: Metal
Label: Century Media

Tracklisting:
1) Eye of the Storm
2) Infiltrator
3) My Enemy

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