Review of the Album "Unseen" by Swedish Thrash Metal Band The Haunted

Swedish thrash metal veterans The Haunted may have reached their finest moment as a band with their 2006 album called The Dead Eye. In 2011, they released the album called "Unseen" and vocalist Peter Dolving would make his return for this one as well. Unseen is an album that will be unseen and unexpected coming from one of the heaviest bands in the entire music business. I’m listening to this and saying “wow!” It is truly a departure especially from their first three albums.

"Catch 22" has some repeating vocal lines but it is not a bad song in the literal sense. The album is a kind of watered down and more modern album and this is something that Sweden’s In Flames did and that turned off some fans. The Haunted have been bringing heavy, hard hitting thrash metal since 1996 and this album will turn off some music fans definitely but not for an open-minded person like me.

No Ghost is a song that actually has a positive message and that message is that we should count our blessings and fill our cup to the brim. A glass half full is always better than a glass half empty. The song has riffing similar to modern In Flames and that’s a good thing. Motionless sounds like a song that Finnish band Throne of Chaos would have written later in their career. I know that some people will be disappointed with what they hear on Unseen but sometimes bands have to change in order to fully mature as a unit. The Skull really takes things to a whole unseen level with these Swedish guys as Peter really softens his voice for a while before the music gets sort of heavy again. If Metallica’s most mainstream and watered down moments were the album Load and Re-load, for The Haunted it is this album.

For the decade of the 2010’s at least among Swedish metal bands, there has been a sort of musical restructuring and that’s okay and good because Swedish musicians show that they can still get the job done musically and even the song No Ghost shows this even if it may seem boring. I was listening to the band Lamb of God this morning and I almost want to forget about them when I hear THIS! I tell you what: Unseen is definitely different for The Haunted but there are still some good tunes on this album especially "No Ghost" which is sort of like a more modern approach to music.

“The City” is a song about the city being so decayed that it is pretty much not habitable. The song vocally reminds me of the band Soilwork. “Them” is a very groovy modern rock meets thrash metal song which is about the fact that some people make the same mistakes in life only to keep on repeating them thinking that these mistakes will bring them success. “Unseen” may or may not be a better album than even 2008’s Versus but it still represents good modern Swedish metal.