"Versus" CD by The Haunted

by Björn Thorsten Jaschinski (22.10.2008) Well, the festival activities of At The Gates should have stuffed a brick in the mouths of those who still see The Haunted as the successors of these kings of Swedish Melodic Black Death. "Versus" is a bullet against all those who aren’t versatile or creative enough but try to cover that by a synthetic overkill when in the studio. The Swedes step on it considerably after low-key "The dead eye", yet there are only four excessively fast trips among the eleven regular songs of this output (the first edition also contains four bonus tracks taken from the album sessions): "Little cage" (which is constructed around the drumming) , "Crusher" and "Faultline". Of course, the usual suspects, Doom parts (think Down and Trouble here), and Dolvings calmer alter ego (voice-wise, that is) say hello, and "Skuld" is actually a kind of experiment. The hefty opener "Moronic Colosus" features some weird film samples à la Ministry which reappear in the very slow closing track "Imperial death march". Terrific stuff.