### The Haunted: One kill wonder

#### 22/07/09 || Daemonomania

Talk about a sadly prophetic album title. The Haunted, after releasing the darn spiffy “Made me do it,” came back at us a scant two years later with this pile of ehhh. Not meh, ehhh. And “One kill” got them a Swedish Grammy or two! However, Backyard Babies won the SweGram in the hard rock/metal category at some point. Now there’s a moniker which sucks worse than Aborted Christ Childe. No wonder I never heard of ya, ya fucks. I guess they’re just handing those damn Grammy’s out like candy – cuz if Grave never won it, the award must be bullshit.

What am I talking about? Oh yeah, The Haunted and their swift fall from quality. So the basic sound hasn’t changed much from MMDI. Melo-death/thrash with harsh high-pitched barking vocals and some competent solos. The production got slicker (maybe too slick) and songwriting seems to have been defenestrated. Yep, where catchiness reigned we now have a pile of anonymous tracks with a few kind buds amidst the schwag. What are the good tunes you ask? You’ll have to wait for that till the end, I reply with a distant, shellshocked stare.

However, that shellshock was induced by actual shells raining down upon my muddy trench, not by The Haunted. It seems like they took a simple idea and decided to stretch it out for a whole fucken album. That idea being let’s make some songs like we did last time when everyone loved us so much. Well that idea ain’t enough for 11 compositions. And the love of the metal public is fickle.

So to mimic IG’s creative Haunted review, I’ll break down the tracks into a restaurant menu format. If you can’t figure out which songs are denoted as bad and which as good, it might be time to stop sticking needles in your dick to get high.

Side dishes/poops on your plate: “Privation of faith Inc”., “Everlasting”, “Bloodletting” (despite a guest appearance by Mike Amott). Appetizers/heavily spiced with ehhh: “Shadow world”, “Demon eyes”, “Downward spiral”, “Shithead”, “One kill wonder”. Main Courses/you can remember them ten seconds after eating them: “Godpuppet”, “D.O.A.”, “Urban predator”.

There you have it. Mostly filler, three good tunes, and the end of the band as we knew them. Usher back in Mr. Dolving, whose vocals I didn’t like before and I still don’t like since his return. As experimental or interesting as The Haunted may have become, he always ruins the experience for me. So I guess the legacy of the Aro era is really just a single album. How sad. But still:

- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Earache
- Website: www.the-haunted.com
- Band
- Marco Aro: vocals
- Patrik Jensen: guitar
- Anders Björler: guitar
- Jonas Björler: bass
- Per Möller Jensen: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Privation of Faith Inc.
- 02. Godpuppet
- 03. Shadow World
- 04. Everlasting
- 05. D.O.A.
- 06. Demon Eyes
- 07. Urban Predator
- 08. Downward Spiral
- 09. Shithead
- 10. Bloodletting
- 11. One Kill Wonder