HAUNTER - Discarnate Ails

Artist:  Haunter
Album:  Discarnate Ails
Year:  2022
Genre:  Black Metal / Death Metal

Holy freaking god!  This album is a crusher and made my top 6 picks of 2022!  3 songs in just over 31 minutes of surprisingly original sounding death metal influenced black metal.  The album certainly has a short runtime, but it leaves zero room for messing around and makes you want more by the end of it.  I personally like a band that gets going, pummels you and gets our before you know it.  With my attention span these days, I’d rather have a half hour of pure quality than 50 minutes of a band trying to come up with material to make a 50 minute record. 

Few bands play music like Haunter.  The songs are pushed to excesses sonically and technically, and, although, that doesn’t sound that foreign for extreme metal, this band is a different beast.  Discarnate Ails is a challenging and overbearing record and not all metal fans are built for a band like Haunter, who barely lets you breathe from the riffs they are throwing down.  If bands like Deathspell Omega or Blut Aus Nord make you shake your head in confusion or in negativity, then Haunter will most likely do the same.  What these bands do is deliver severely harsh, swirling sounds with complex songs that often don’t repeat parts.  It’s both genius and madness and definitely not built for a conventional audience.  If you are a listener that enjoys traveling through a thorny, unforgiving brush, Haunter delivers in droves and will have you spinning this record over and over to discover new things not heard in previous plays.

Listen to "Overgrown With The Moss" here.