I’ll admit it. I’m a fan of The Haunted. Sure, they’re by no means impressive thrash and are hardly anywhere near the caliber of the band that spawned them (At The Gates), but The Haunted Made Me Do It and One Kill Wonder both had some excellent tunes on them. Couple that with Marco Aro’s vocals and you had a decent, catchy slab of metal. Well, if Revolver is any indication of what is to come, then The Haunted will become nearly as dead to the metal world as most of the other post-Gothenburg style bands out there.

This album fucking blows. Why? First, Aro was replaced by original vocalist Peter Dolving. While Dolving "worked" on the original self-titled release, Aro was what gave the band that lasting vocal edge on the past 2 releases. Dolving can’t deliver that same bark that Aro can. Not to mention that Aro meshed a lot more with the heavier sound of the last two releases. Not that Dolving is a particularly bad vocalist, but Aro just worked better.

Second there is the music itself: this is the self-titled album Mach 2. Literally. Go grab The Haunted. Play it side by side to Revolver. Notice any similarities? Yeah- with the exception of a few Haunted Made Me Do It type riffs- this sounds nearly identical in structure, style, and arrangement as the self-titled album. Fuck, the spoken word parts of Dolving are almost in the exact same places time-wise as they were when he recorded with The Haunted back on the self-titled album. Hell, Revolver ends the same way too!

So essentially they threw out any heavier progression from the last two albums in favor of redoing their debut. That’s fucking idiotic. So, how does this measure up to the original release? Poorly. Sure, there are a lot of decent songs, but they just touch the first release or are a level or two below them. Then there is the song which truly lives up to its name: "Abysmal". This song is fucking horrible. It sounds like Dolving was jacking himself off while playing with frilly Barbie doll clothing; it just has this out of place feel to it as the vocals try to sound emotional and disturbing simultaneously, all the while failing at both. Ugh.

I can’t help but feel this is a marketing move. The Haunted relocate to Century Media, bring back their old vocalist who is a hell of a lot more accessible with today’s metalcore obsession, write the album to be nowhere near as heavy as they have become, and even pull an In Flames-esque album name (the artwork of the album actually reads rEVOLVEr). It just screams it.

I can’t recommend this album to anyone, not even the most retardedly die-hard fans. Just avoid Revolver and keep moving.

Written By: Necro-tron