The Dead Eye

Back from celebrating freedom by drinking quality beer. Returning with some thrash metal from Sweden. The Haunted were born out of the ashes of At The Gates who called it a day in the late 90's. Armed with the fire still, The Haunted set out to expand on the Gothenburg sound. The band has somewhat of an issue keeping a vocalist. Dolving started out on the debut only to be replaced by Marco Aro for the next two albums. Aro leaves and Dolving comes back for a few more releases to much fanfare, then recently abruptly leaves the band again. Now the peak of the band in my book comes around the time of Dolving's return, 'rEVOLVEr' was an amazing comeback record, but the follow up 'The Dead Eye' sealed the return. The album is solid through and through. First half dozen tracks are stellar to say the least. My only gripe with the album is all the song titles start with "The", kind of annoying, but hey whatever. Good solid album for some thrashing around.

I've had the pleasure to see The Haunted twice. And even better with both vocalists. I saw them first with Aro shortly after 'One Kill Wonder' came out. I was still living in California at the time and found out day of show they were playing in LA. So i made the trip down and actually got to meet Marco and drummer Per Jensen a few hours before the show. Nice guys and got my CD signed so even better. Also got a poster signed that hung and the venue in Vegas the night before. The show was solid, very tight band that sounds better live than on record. Few years later I saw em on The Blackest Of The Black tour with Danzig out in Arizona. This time with Dolving on vocals. I hadn't been in the state long and the was the first thrash metal show I took the ex wife to. Second time was around was amazing, Dolving just killed it onstage. I still maintain he is one of the best frontman in metal. The man leaves everything on stage, the are no words on how intense he is on stage. You know it was a good show when then ex wife, who wasn't a big metal fan, leans over and goes, "damn, that guy was amazing". The Haunted are still one of my favorite metal bands and to me have one of the more modern iconic logos. Great band hopefully they can secure a vocalist and continue on.

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