.

THE HAUNTED

w/ Double Dragon

Amplifier Bar – Perth, 13th November, 2008.

***Gig photos coming soon!!!***

Double Dragon are proof that a regular bunch of Aussie bogans can play some killer metal. Blending modern thrash stylings (think Pantera or Down) with a touch of Swedish influenced melodic death, Double Dragon played a flawlessly tight set with tracks from their latest album ‘Devastator’ and a few older songs from the ‘Scars of Fire’ EP. Some of the guitar licks and solos are world-class and front man Leeroy’s vocals are delivered ferociously and passionately. Playing to only a semi-full venue was unfortunate, however they definitely won over a few new fans as plenty of DD shirts could be seen later in the evening.

Being a huge fan of The Haunted’s earlier work with Marco Aro, I am probably very biased in doing this review. Having been lucky enough to see them already this year at Wacken Festival in Germany, I expected a set list comprising of mostly newer material, which I guess is fair enough being a tour for the latest album ‘Versus’.

“Everybody say good morning to Jensen, he just woke up five minutes ago!”. With this comment from Dolving, The Haunted got straight into ‘Little Cage’ from the latest album. You would never have guessed that they had just woken up, as the stage presence of the band was immediately felt, with the Bjorler brothers banging their heads and Dolving working his way around the stage.

The venue was far from full, but the crowd reaction was massive. What began as simple moshing quickly turned into crowd surfing and stage diving. With Microphone stands being knocked over and guitar pedals jumped on, the security began protecting the stage, but as Dolving’s Red Bulls set in he embraced everyone who made it on to the stage to headbang with him, encouraged people to continue going crazy, and a genuine gratitude towards the crowd was obviously evident.

The more Red Bulls that were skulled by Dolving, the more entertaining his antics became. The somersaults all over the stage were highly amusing, as was the regular banter between song intervals. The other major standout of The Haunted’s performance was the melodic thrash metal frenzy of guitar riffs from Anders Bjorler and Patrik Jensen. More recently the band’s style has progressed to a lot more groovy and rocky-ish amidst the standard Gothenburg thrash sound, but this works really well for them live.

As the set went on it became clear that there wouldn’t be many songs played from ‘Made Me Do It’ or ‘One Kill Wonder’. This was probably a good thing as the songs that they did play (Bury Your Dead, Trespass, DOA) were butchered by the vocals. However, the nice surprises were the one’s from the first self-titled album (Hate Song, In Vein & Forensick) that Dolving nailed perfectly. Despite the disappointing lack of tracks from my favourite albums, there was certainly no shortage of quantity with nearly 20 songs!

All in all it was a solid performance from a great metal act. If you want to see them play some of their earlier death/thrash styled stuff then maybe give it a miss next time, but if you’re after a night of entertainment and seeing some of Sweden’s finest metal musicians, then you won’t be disappointed!

THE HAUNTED PERTH SETLIST: Thursday 13th November, 2008
Little Cage
The Drowning
Trespass
Trenches
Forensick
DOA
Rivers Run
The Flood
The Medication
In Vein
Faultline
The Fallout
Dark Intentions
Bury Your Dead
AAA
Moronic Colossus
No Compromise
99
Hate Song

Reviewed in Perth by Cabba (check out his band Claim The Throne!)
Photos (up soon!) taken from The Haunted’s gig in Melbourne by Scott Boelsen.