### The Haunted: The dead eye

#### 24/02/12 || BamaHammer

Before you just scroll down, look at the score, and have whatever feelings you may have, just hear me out. If you listen to this album in a mindset where you’re waiting for a classic The Haunted thrash piece, you’re going to be greatly upset, and you’re going to start blabbering about how cool The Haunted used to be in the good ol’ days. What the band did with this album is ingeniously chronicle a unique, evil journey though some of the darkest reaches of the human psyche, places devoid of all things good and overrun with the most sinister visions that are in all our minds whether we like it or not.

In terms of style, I can’t even begin to confine “The dead eye” to a genre. I know it ain’t thrash. It ain’t melodic death either. I just know it’s metal with more than a few noticeable rock-ish moments. From the moment the album kicks off with the string-only intro, the ominous “The Premonition,” one of my favorite intro tracks of all time, you feel like you’re in the mind of a murderer. The spooky, bending harmonizing notes create an atmosphere that is absolutely unnerving, and when opening riff of “The Flood” suddenly interrupts, you almost expect a relentless Swedish thrash assault, or as I call it, a Björler beat-down.

However, after a a healthy dose of semi-thrash, things abruptly slow down near the song’s end for an interlude featuring Peter Dolving crooning atop a slow, eerie clean riff, and therein lies a microcosm of what this album is. It’s a psychological rollercoaster ride through the depths of psychotic hatred, aggression, anger, and ultimate remorse, and the whole thing is utterly fascinating.

The songwriting, in my opinion, seems very deep and cerebral with every nuance of every song formulated with painstaking thought and precision in order to sustain the dreadful, malicious atmosphere. Everyone knows the Super Björler Bros. and Jensen have a knack for penning some groove-tastic riffage, and this album, despite popular belief, is no different. The riffs are catchy as hell but force you to listen closer and closer for every note just to figure out exactly what’s happening as a song progresses. For example, every time I hear the opening riff to “The Fallout,” it always sounds so simple, but when I listen closer, there are so many tiny elements to the riff that make it that much more exciting and interesting for me. The same can be said of countless other moments during the course of this album as well. “The Shifter” has some fantastic riffs, “The Medication” is thrashilicious, I love the bluesy licks in “The Drowning,” and “The Medusa” is one catchy song in 3/4 time. I don’t even like referring to individual tracks from an album, but there’s just so many excellent songs here, and no two tracks even sound remotely similar. There’s not a single weak moment to be found on this record for me. Even the interludes are great.

From a production standpoint, “The dead eye” doesn’t have the hard edge that “rEVOLVEr” had just two short years before. I feel like the production here ranks right up there with “The Haunted made me do it” in terms of pristine clarity and character. The guitar tones are sharp as a murder weapon. The bass is big and ballsy. The drums sound excellent. Dolving’s vocals, while personally I’ve always liked his stuff, have never sounded better.

Dolving is really the catalyst for this album, but depending on how you feel about him as a vocalist, he can also be the cataclysm that destroys it for you. If you dig his style, you’ll definitely enjoy what he does on “The dead eye.” His croons feature an almost Southern drawl at times that add a little bit to the already dark atmosphere, and the screams and growls sound more inspired than his recent outings. Dolving sounds like he’s giving it everything he’s got on every song. He varies styles to match momentary lyrical themes and really portrays himself as one of the premier versatile metal vocalists. However, I totally understand that Dolving (today anyway) really annoys a lot of people with his work, but I think it’s fantastic.

I could talk about this album for days, but I like to keep things short and to the point, so I’ll wrap it up. The Haunted released a very polarizing album with “The dead eye,” and I’m sure if you’ve ever heard it, you either love it or hate it. The truth is that this album marked the turning point for the band where they became more than just another modern thrash band playing lame, generic modern thrash. They combined stellar songwriting and storytelling with a dark, foreboding atmosphere to create something truly original.

- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.the-haunted.com/
- Band
- Peter Dolving: vocals
- Anders Björler: guitar
- Patrik Jensen: guitar
- Jonas Björler: bass
- Per Jensen: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. The Premonition
- 02. The Flood
- 03. The Medication
- 04. The Drowning
- 05. The Reflection
- 06. The Prosecution
- 07. The Fallout
- 08. The Medusa
- 09. The Highwire
- 10. The Shifter
- 11. The Cynic
- 12. The Failure
- 13. The Stain
- 14. The Program
- 15. The Guilt Trip