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HAUNTED
Dayburner

Twin Earth / Graven Earth (2018)
Rating: 9/10

Only recently did I review the half-decent debut album Burst Into Flame by the U.S. outfit heavy metal outfit Haunt, and I also reviewed the incredible Free Me Of The Sun debut by Slovenian troupe Mist. So, now let’s talk further about haunts and hotness in the form of Italian doom metal cult Haunted.

Now, if you liked that Mist record, then you’re gonna love this; although I touted that particular female-fronted platter as one of the year’s best within the genre, then surely Haunted’s Dayburner is the best doom opus of the year.

I clocked onto Haunted via their 2016 self-titled debut, but this new effort has taken things up a notch as again we’re treated to stark, dark layers of thick doomness led through the peat bogs and mires by the wailing vocal cries of Cristina Chimirri. And yet, this is a woman not interested in deftly coating those tight, restrictive rolling riffs; instead, her cries are of despair, despondency and horror because as soon as ‘Mourning Sun’ comes oozing from the cracks, you’ll be feeling all those emotions and more. Haunted conjures up great feelings of dread akin to running through pitch black forests from unknown labouring terrors.

It’s not original by any sense; those deep rolls of menace trudge like many and are up there with the best of them. Like all pure doom, however, it traipses this orgasmic orgy of blackness which just leaks, crawls and heaves with gloom and sombreness. Forget “stoner”; no-one in their right mind would light up to this, unless of course they were on their own smouldering funeral pyre. Everything about Dayburner drizzles like grey sheets of thick, hammering rain, all delivered at one suffocating pace. A panorama of pain is constructed as steamy columns of black, soupy mist rise from the moors and Cristina calls like the banshee, her plights turning to mocking scowls as you find yourself at the edge of some precipice.

From that gargantuan opening tremor, the tracks just lumber with suspense; the slow emissions are the result of Francesco Bauso’s and Francesco Orlando’s aching chords that are caked with silt and yet somehow bulked by their hindrance, in turn enabling them to heave themselves along to the sparse percussive thuds and the reverberating bass of Frank Tudisco. Mightily, the nine-plus minute slogs of ‘Waterdawn’ and the title track trudge hand in hand; the former boasting the spectral wisps of Cristina’s dulcet howls, her echoes somewhat remote as she calls to the night sky.

Don’t be expecting swirls of variety because like that Mist opus, there’s something tight about the affair; everything sticks to that concise doom metal origin whereby all contained herein are weighed down by a duskiness, before the blubbery ‘Orphic’ and ‘Vespertine’ muddy up the ears with their unholy marathons of sadness. Haunted certainly live up to their name, as do Mist, but while Mist veer into a Black Sabbath or Saint Vitus hike, Haunted simply remain – almost still in their glum expression, even as the vocals ascend like smoke into the atmosphere.

Indeed, the fragile parts do exist, but they are still eventually swallowed by the black mass of guitar, bass and drum. So, whereas Mist tend to bewitch, Haunted literally smother in their murk; filling one’s ears with shadows of dread and claustrophobic horror, giving way to the feeling that this combo is fuelled by dredging and drudgery. Thank the lords then for the two instrumental snippets in the form of ‘Communion’ and ‘No Connection With Dust’, which act as mere tea-breaks from the immense, slug-like movements of closer ‘Lunar Grave’ or any of the other behemoths stored within the bulbous rolls of this unhurried spectre.

Dayburner offers no light and when the hour is done, even you shall become one with the darkness.

Neil Arnold

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