Haunted Dayburner

Dayburner is the sophomore full length album from Italy's Haunted. Born in October 2015 alongside the career of thrash veterans Schizo, Haunted fulfill the specific need to explore the doom metal influences and the gothic imaginary of five musicians who are not satisfied with the results obtained so far. Starting from the inevitable ascendancy of Black Sabbath, Haunted fit into the modern vein of female-fronted occult metal, evolving through the enhancement of gigantic rhythms and a new discovery of the warmth provided by vintage instruments and equipment. Despite only having been around for three years, they have already released two albums, and also they are one of the few doom metal bands with a front woman. Cristina Chimirri is without a doubt the attention getter of the band. Not only does she look very attractive, but she also has a very charismatic voice with a conjuring and hypnotic quality that will instantly mesmerize the listener. The four musicians of course also add a lot to the recipe.

This starts right away with the church organ intro of the opener Mourning Sun which manages to convince with its lava-like sluggishness. Even on the slightly faster Waterdawn, for which the band made a very watchable video clip, the musicians favor their low tuned instruments so that a dark sound is still guaranteed. Apart from two shorter instrumental tracks, the remaining six songs are all between six and thirteen minutes long. Even though repetition is a part of the game, the songs are still sparkling with ideas and tension. Occult and martial breaks help to increase the variety of the music. Dayburner has turned out to be a strong doom metal statement. Haunted’s music sounds very mature, probably because the band does not solely rely on typical doom metal riffs, but adds enough occult influences. This makes Dayburner a powerful epic which probably sounds most appropriate in a gloomy, room filled fill the smell of fragrant incense.

1. Mourning Sun
2. Waterdawn
3. Dayburner
4. Communion
5. Orphic
6. Vespertine
7. No Connection with Dust
8. Lunar Grave