The Other release their eighth album 'Haunted' on 12 June 2020
From Germany, The Other are back, with their eighth and most bone chilling album to date, Haunted which is released on 12 June 2020 on Drakkar Entertainment. Rod Usher (Vocals), Ben Crowe (Guitars), Pat Laveau (Guitars), Aaron Torn (Bass), Dr. Caligari (Drums) have taken a different approach to the latest album. As with all Horror punk bands, they have drawn their influences from nightmares, weird laboratories, ghosts & ghouls, shock and terror, and The Other are right up there with the best around, such as the Misfits, NimVind, Calabrese and Samhain.
Indeed Europe has produced some of the best horror punk and psychobilly bands around, with the likes of The Other, Mad Sin and Nekromantix leading the charge, and these are genres we love here at LiveWire Music.
With this new album, The Other take an even darker turn, influenced heavily by Edgar Alan Poe "The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world”.
Make no mistake, this is still horror rock at its purest. It just doesn’t need plastic skeletons and theatrical blood anymore. Not less scary, only less stereotype, think more The Damned or The Cult and less The Misfits. This is another era for the band that also becomes apparent in the latest band pictures: Horror redefined, less gesture and more content. Much like Lovecraft who indeed managed to squeeze unspeakable dread in-between his lines. Or indeed much like our world right now, where a simple look out of the window equals binge-watching an entire collection of horror movies.
So, what’s Haunted like ? Well, following on from 2017’s Casket Case, and with bassist Aaron Thorn back in the line up, the guys really have unleashed their most chilling effort yet.
The opening track ‘Mark of the Devil’ reminded me very much of their earlier 2006 album We Are Who We Eat. A great opening track, with pounding drums underpinning it and a great rock vibe and power chorus. With ‘We’re All Dead’ we get hints of the Misfits, with excellent guitar sections, which carry on into the next track ‘Turn it Louder’ which has an anthemic feel to it and a great shout it loud kinda chorus.
Next up we have ‘Dead to You, Dead to Me’ which slows the pace. The vocals here are brilliant, setting the tone for the track perfectly. A tale of relationship breakdown, and resolution, delivered in a fantastic horror punk twist in the accompanying video. Well worth a watch.
The pace changes again and ramps up for ‘Was uns zerstoert’ (What Destroys Us) sung in German. Again excellent guitar work underpins the vocals effectively. Although I can’t understand the lyrics, it’s a great example of how wonderfully playable a song can be that you don’t understand !
With ‘On My Skin’ there is a different style again, which works so well. It felt a bit different, influenced by something like the Cult. Next up we have the strangely titled ‘1408 217’ I did wonder if this was some kind of reference to horror author Stephen King, who stayed at the Stanley Hotel, Estes Park in room 217 in the 1970’s and was the influence for a short story called 1408, which in turn became the Shining ?….. Maybe me, would be cool to find out if I’m right !
‘Vampire Girl’ is next up, and wow, what a great track. Old school Misfits with this one (ironically the Misfits had a track called ‘Vampire Girl’ but nothing like this one). I could just imagine the swirling smoke and skeleton stage props and fake fangs. That’s not to say its kitch or awful, a great track, fast and furious and well constructed.
This leads into ‘Absolution’ another excellent German language track, before we have ‘Fading Away’. For me, if it wasn’t for the horror punk lyrics, I’d think it was 80’s rock. A wonderfully different track which fits well in it’s surroundings.
Normal service is resumed with ‘Creepy Crawling’. One of my favourite tracks, with heavy guitar riffs and fast paced, with that rock anthem chorus you have to shout out to - Wonderful.
The penultimate track is ‘To Hell & Back’ , and is perhaps my favourite track although I do love Dead to You, Dead to me as well… It seems to pull the album together and combine all the different elements from the album in one track (if you see what I mean?). Wonderful deep vocals, swirling guitar riffs, rock, anthem….. all in one.
‘The Silence After the First Snow’ ends this particular horror story journey. Well placed at the end, it’s got an up tempo, almost joyous feel to it which sits so opposed to the dark lyrics. It has you rocking in your seat this one, and a great crescendo to end on.
But, does it work ? If you like horror punk, this is a little different, a change of direction and it works really well. It’s an evolution and it works well. If you’ve not heard horror punk, then I think this, with it’s rock undertones and elements akin to bands like the Cult will help you get into the genre.
For me, I loved the theme running through it, and the new direction. Forget it’s horror punk, ignore the makeup and clothes, just sit back and listen, and you’ll find some excellent tracks on here. If this is what we can expect from The Other moving forward, I think they could open up a whole new audience.
A great album with several highlight tracks. Well worth a listen and a score of 9 from LiveWire Music.
