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The Haunted: Road kill
15/10/10 || revenant
I last saw The Haunted live in 2009, not long after the release of “Versus”. At the time I was pretty unsure whether to go or not. “Versus” had not made a good impression on me, and I was not interested in shelling out my hard earned dosh for a bunch of songs I only half liked. As it was, I only made my mind up to go an hour before the doors opened, and a well made decision it was. The band was on that night, they absolutely killed it, playing fast and precise. The sound was spot on, there was a lot of enjoyable crowd interaction (including one girl throwing her bra at Jensen) and despite my qualms about some of the newer songs, it was a fantastic night. In fact, I would go as far as to say it was one of the best gigs I have been to over the last few years.
One year on and my curiosity has been drawn to “Road Kill”, a live set recorded on that same tour, only this particular set played in a differed city (Amsterdam to be precise). I’m not usually a big purchaser of live CD’s (I usually go for the DVD’s instead), but in this instance the CD carried a longer set plus some previously unreleased tracks, so it got the nod. Yes , I know the DVD comes with a documentary but fuck, it’s not like they got a plane and flew it around the world themselves, so how interesting could it really be?
The set itself opens with “Little Cage” and one thing is immediately apparent – the guitar sound is weak. Now I know that live recordings are not always going to have the best sound in the world, nor should you expect note for not precision, but when I saw them live the guitars were positively booming. Here, though, they are a bit weedy. Thankfully that’s the only technical flaw, and the bass, drums and vocals all come through cleanly and clearly.
Now I also mentioned above not to expect note for note precision on live records. In that aspect, however, the boys carrying the guitars and bass do such a stellar fucking job I’m beginning to wonder if they are robots. Drums are also tight and to the record except for “D.O.A.” where, for some reason, the chorus has been altered to an emphasis on the kick drums. The question begs to be asked: why? This does not sound as good as the original arrangement in it’s revised form.
And then there’s Peter Dolving’s vocals. For the most part, his performance is ok, but at times it slips into atrociousness. The songs that were originally written with Marco Aro on vocals do not suit him at all. Marco’s and Peter’s approach to the vocals were quite different, and the result seems to leave Peter taking his own style into a song which doesn’t match it. “D.O.A.” is one example, as is “Trespass”, though with the latter Peter doesn’t help himself by not pronouncing the lyrics correctly. “Tre-pa-ing in sacred realms” indeed. But there worst performance of the set lies in one of his own songs, “All against all”. Here is seems to go into free-form mode, though somewhat erratically. The backing vocals are poorly done as well, leaving the performance all over the place like a mad woman’s shit.
The setlist, as you would expect, leans most heavily to the most recent album, “Versus”. Unfortunately, a lot of material from “The Dead Eye” also makes it into the setlist. In fact, 8 of the sixteen tracks come from the most recent two albums. One thing that does stand out in mixing the tracks up is how much better their older material is. “Trenches” for example, is sandwiched between “In Vein” and “Dark Intentions/Bury Your Dead”, something that only serves to highlight how weak “Trenches” is. I get that maybe it’s best not to have many Marco Aro-era songs (given the difference in approach mentioned above), but more from their masterpiece debut would have been better (“Shattered”, “Three Times” & “Undead” for sure!)
The bonus studio tracks have a very similar feel to the songs off “Versus”. Apart from “Seize the Day” (which, for the life of me, I can’t figure how they overlooked this for “Versus”) there isn’t anything worth mentioning in this collection.
Overall, I can’t call this an absolute must have for all fans of The Haunted. If, like me, you have a strong preference for the earlier material, then “Caught on Tape” is a much better option, even if it is quite old and only has songs from the first two albums. If you are a fan of the newer stuff, then by all means check out it out, but be wary of the somewhat erratic vocal performance.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.the-haunted.com
- Band
- Peter Dolving: vocals
- Patrik Jensen: guitars
- Anders Björler: guitars
- Jonas Björler: bass
- Per M. Jensen: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Little Cage
- 02. The Drowning
- 03. Trespass
- 04. The Premonition
- 05. The Flood
- 06. The Medication
- 07. Moronic Colossus
- 08. D.O.A.
- 09. All Against All
- 10. In Vein
- 11. Trenches
- 12. Dark Intentions
- 13. Bury Your Dead
- 14. Faultline
- 15. 99
- 16. Hate Song
- 17. Sacrifice (Studio)
- 18. Meat Wagon (Studio)
- 19. Walk On Water (Studio)
- 20. Seize The Day (Studio)
- 21. Infernalis Mundi (Studio)
