Album Review: The Other – ‘Haunted’

Just when you wondered did Horrorpunk die a poetic death or just dive below ground and live on its own entrails.  Out above the parapet to see if we still interested pop a Misfits look a like outfit, one that has been around since the turn of the millennium, spawned eight albums now, yet still as a matter of course take some pleasure in killing a number of women within the lyrical onslaught (far too much male domination for my liking I might add).

Haunted  due out 12th June, does in the most part, feel like your being hauled back to a time when horrorpunk emerged for the first time, when delving deep into the subconscious and finding dark foreboding thoughts, that should be locked away and never be allowed out, were actually encouraged.  

Its wall of guitar driven songs, give that sense of a power that is all encompassing.  With a heavy mix of Metal and Punk, the sound is a harder and brasher sound than many their peers, with a definite slide toward the Metal Head fan.  

Opening track ‘Mark Of The Devil’ uses the afore said wall of guitar sound that spreads throughout the album like a veil of dense mist that swirls around and licks at the face with its dark tongue.  Moving through this album is like spending the night with all your nightmares or watching every scary B Movie worth watching in one sitting.  Painting pictures with musical artistry and lyrical gruesomeness that challenges your sanity at times.

‘Dead To You,Dead To Me’ which has been released with its own video, paints a story of what on the surface could be realised as domestic discontent that ends badly for the women, which in realty is a subject that maybe cuts to the bone too far, killing whom you love to keep them solely for your own sanity, clearly insane!   Where the track ‘Was Uns Zerstort’ sung in their native German fits in perfectly is that it has in one song, the power to sum up a whole 13 song album, “what destroys us” makes us stronger, and fear drives us to the brink, which pushes the limits of what we are capable of.

If there were something that doesn’t quite sit right here though, it would be that being a horror punk fest, maybe the production and quality is too polished which gives it more of a commercial feel than ultimately this deserves.  What made some of the great exponents of the genre, would be rawness and the DIY approach as to how it was played and performed.

To Buy/Pre Order your copy, check out their website shop HERE 

See the band on their Facebook HERE