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I have no idea what happened to The Haunted in the eight years between their 2017 album Strength in Numbers and their new record Songs of Last Resort, but whatever it was totally worked. Songs of Last Resort is easily the best record The Haunted has put out in roughly 20 years.

Classic Swedish melodic death metal band The Haunted — who is currently vocalist Marco Aro, guitarist Patrik Jensen who you know from Witchery, guitarist Ola Englund who you know from the internet, bassist Jonas Björler and drummer Adrian Erlandsson who you also know from At the Gates — is back for the first time in eight years. But why now? What spurred The Haunted to all of a sudden make a new record and get back out there on stage?

According to Jensen, it was just simply time for the band to make their return: “We all thought that it was time to do something. We wanted to keep the band alive. I don’t think anyone has ever played better than they do on this album, and Marco sounds better than ever, stronger than on any album he’s done. I guess the planets were aligned. We didn’t have a plan. We didn’t say it was going to be a fast album or a melodic album. We just wrote. And then we had a sit down, and we had a multitude of songs to choose from.”

And while it might sound like PR fluff that The Haunted‘s new record Songs of Last Resort is quote-unquote “the best they’ve ever sounded,” it’s really not fluff. Songs of Last Resort is forceful in its delivery, and it’s practically dripping in conviction the entire way through.

And if you’re wondering what the title Songs of Last Resort means, it’s named after the “Letters of Last Resort,” which are letters sent from the Prime Minister of the UK to commanders of the four British ballistic missile submarines, containing instructions for what to do in the event that the British government had been destroyed by a nuclear attack.

On the concept of the album, Jensen stated: “One British newspaper had some information about the letters, and the part that struck a chord with me was the message, ‘Put yourself under the command of the United States. If it is still there.’ That’s the most brutal thing I ever heard. And it could be true, you know? Maybe the US could have been destroyed. So there’s a very strong anti-war theme, at least in my songs.”

So with that pretty grim context in mind, let’s take a look at the songs on this record.

Songs of Last Resort kicks off with “Warhead,” which given the subject matter of the record is an appropriate launching pad, both musically and topically. It’s got plenty of old-school melodic death metal riffing, with the lower notes serving as tonal pedals for the upper melodies, varied drumming that encompasses everything from plodding mid-tempo tom grooves to furious double bass, and arguably the most violent vocals from Marco Aro we’ve ever gotten on a Haunted record.

One notable section in “Warhead” is the pre-solo bit, where the vocals and the instruments kind of drift away from one another rhythmically, only for everything to come crashing right into each other as the solos hit. It’s a really clever way to build up suspense and to make the ending parts of the song hit that much harder.

“Warhead” is followed by “In Fire Reborn,” which makes great use of variations on a swing feel. The song is either in 3/4 or 6/8 depending on how you want to count it, or a very swung 4/4. “In Fire Reborn” feels very much like a comeback-era At the Gates song, which isn’t too surprising considering The Haunted‘s rhythm section is also in At the Gates. It’s just got that menacing swagger that is so easily associated with the Gothenburg melodic death metal scene of the past few decades.

“Death to the Crown” immediately and frantically speeds things back up right until the two-minute mark, when The Haunted drops into this bludgeoning, full-band breakdown riff. You see this thing coming from a mile away with the parts that precede it, but it’s still an unquestionable spine-breaker that rides out the last minute of the track.

And I want to talk a little more about that breakdown for a second here too, because I think the way that it’s written is genius. The Haunted doesn’t slow down the tempo for the breakdown, but they do switch from a straightforward 4/4 feel to a swung 3/4 feel — or essentially, they’re fitting three eighth notes into the space of four eighth notes at the same tempo. So it feels way slower, but it’s not. It’s an extremely cool effect that you’ve definitely heard in other metal songs, but this one just felt particularly striking. And even better, you could just headbang at the same speed that you were, without having to think about it.

It’s worth mentioning at this point in the review—because I’ve brought it up I think twice now, and I’m gonna bring it up a few more times—that The Haunted uses a swung feel to great effect throughout this record, and it’s always really heavy for whatever reason. It’s a style they lean into super hard on Songs of Last Resort, and it works every single time.

What I also love about “Death to the Crown” is that “Warhead” and “In Fire Reborn” are so aggressive that they kind of lull you into this false sense of where you think Songs of Last Resort might be going in terms of heaviness, but you’re not even close to that threshold. It also helps that this song practically bleeds late ’90s and early 2000s melodic death metal—which makes sense, because The Haunted was part of both of those scenes too.

“To Bleed Out” takes after “In Fire Reborn” with more swinging riffs before hitting arguably one of the catchiest choruses The Haunted has ever had—not because there’s this huge soaring melody or clean vocals or anything like that, but the lyrics “To give in, to bleed out,” that refrain with the vocal echo that repeats them, is just such an excellent and subtle hook.

“To Bleed Out” also makes solid use of some non-diatonic melodies before a very old-school In Flames guitar solo, plus some backing synths that really tie the song together. There’s a lot to love about this song.

“Unbound” is more of a punk-tinged rager, complete with some dual guitar harmonies on the solo. And then we’re onto “Hell Is Wasted on the Dead.” What I really like about “Hell Is Wasted on the Dead” is that yeah, it’s another fiery offering from The Haunted. But the accents and how the riffs fall throughout the song are pretty wonky. There’s a lot of offbeat stuff happening throughout that never quite lets you get a really good grip, but still, you can find the beat and windmill appropriately. It’s just they’re always sort of playing with your expectations, and it’s a neat little effect.

There’s also a really small moment at the end of “Hell Is Wasted on the Dead” into “Through the Fire” that’s one of my favorite moments on Songs of Last Resort. “Hell Is Wasted on the Dead” ends with the whole band coming down on the quarter notes all together 12 times before the song completely stops. That’s the end of Side A of the record.

Then Side B picks up with “Through the Fire,” which kicks off with the whole band coming down on the quarter notes together – but in a different key – before launching into the fury that is the rest of that song. So there’s this uniformity of the end of Side A and the beginning of Side B that’s just a really nice attention to detail, and I thought that was so cool.

As for the rest of “Through the Fire,” it just burns hard and fast across three minutes of S-tier melo-death riffing and incorporates a lot more of those feel changes where The Haunted switches between that kind of triplety swung feel and a straightforward four again. It’s a great writing mechanic, and The Haunted just constantly makes it work.

Then you’re on to “Collateral Carnage,” and this one sounds straight up like Pantera‘s Cowboys from Hell if Pantera grew up in Gothenburg at the dawn of the Swedish death metal scene. “Collateral Carnage” is a slow-burning behemoth of a track that I think really showcases Aro‘s ability as a vocalist. He employs a more guttural, stomach-churning approach to his growls on this one that fits the menacing, destructive, and even at times clean guitar-heavy march of this track. As far as the Pantera comment on this one, I don’t know who came up with that super Pantera-y riff, but I’m guessing it might have been Ola Englund, given his love of Pantera.

Then there’s the one track that Songs of Last Resort could have done without, and that’s “Blood Clots.” It’s not quite an interlude because it has some vocals, and it’s not quite a full song because there’s just not really enough to it. “Blood Clots” is this 90-second oddity that doesn’t really offer a sonic reprieve from the musical beating that you’ve been getting from this record so far—because “Collateral Carnage” was a slower track that offered that kind of palate cleanser.

“Blood Clots” also doesn’t thematically tie into the next track “Salvation Recalled.” It’s just kind of this short sorta song. But it’s 90 seconds, so whatever. It’s not like The Haunted just tanked five minutes of their record. It’s a fine little tune. It just feels out of place. And yeah, if I had to cut a song from this record, this would be it.

“Salvation Recalled” is the last old-school melodic death metal ripper The Haunted has to offer on Songs of Last Resort, as the final two tracks are a slow funeral march to the end. In terms of the apocalyptic concept behind the record, two slower and dirgier tracks to end this thing makes sense. Nobody’s exactly partying when the nukes are closing in. It’s the end of the record, and thematically, the end of everything. So let’s get slow and depressing.

The first of the two dirgier tracks is “Labyrinth of Lies,” which picks up where “Collateral Carnage” left off in terms of speed but really doubles down on some pretty dissonant riffing and arpeggiated chords that ring out. “Labyrinth of Lies” doesn’t pack much in the way of surprises, but it doesn’t really need to either. The Haunted picked a very miserable tonal palette for this song, and they stick to it very closely.

The aural discord bleeds right into the final track, “Letters of Last Resort,” where the only thing you’re really allowed to feel at this point is a sense of immediate and paralyzing dread. And for a quick sample of what I’m talking about in terms of feeling that really deep-seated dread, look no further than the opening lines: ‘Some call it deterrence. Others call it madness. Machines programmed to strike if struck, so the world itself becomes one vast dead man’s switch.”

The Haunted weaves their way through endless empty nuclear silos as the world ends around them with these slinky basslines, voluminous tom grooves, and the same narrator that opened the album—but far more broken sounding. There’s a lot more static. It’s almost like the radios are broken. It’s almost like this is the end. Then everything goes silent, and you’re nothing more than a shadow burned into a wall.

Songs of Last Resort isn’t just a comeback for The Haunted. It’s the band opening a new chapter in their career. For every old-school melodic death metal crusher Songs of Last Resort offers up, you get counterbalances like “Collateral Carnage” and “Labyrinth of Lies.” Songs of Last Resort sounds like a band who meticulously planned every second of their new record as a blueprint to move forward, to engage fans, and to kind of dive into their old sound and remind themselves of who they were.

I also really love how Songs of Last Resort is split up. The first half has a lot of really driving, energetic songs akin to a missile screaming through the sky, and then the latter half seems to deal more with the grim realities of what happens next. It’s an engaging record that despite one or two very minor bumps, is going to keep you hanging on for dear life.

One note that I had written down about Songs of Last Resort when I was listening to it was that a lot of songs feel like a strong contender for a second track. As in, you have an opening track and that’s really strong, so you need a second track that is equally strong to really drive people into listening to the rest of the record. And a good chunk of Songs of Last Resort could have easily been that—they could have easily been the second track on this record.

It’s a very strong record with a lot of really strong songs. Overall, Songs of Last Resort is a very solid 8 out of 10 for me. I like this quite a bit. And really, I’m just glad The Haunted pulled me back in. I love a lot of their earlier works, but Exit Wounds in 2014 and Strength in Numbers in 2017 made me think that maybe I was just done with this band. I wasn’t really going to be interested in anything else that they were doing. But that is absolutely not the case anymore—especially if this era of The Haunted is going to produce quality records like Songs of Last Resort.