It takes some serious balls to dink around and get all experimental with your tried and true sound, a sound that is beloved by so many fans from all over thrash's good green earth. From the opening notes of the first At The Gates album to The Haunted's 2004 comeback special, rEVOLVEr, they've created and raised to the highest level their form of permafrost thrash.

It's a sound that has created an atmosphere where melodic death could flourish, spawning such notable and fellow Swedish bands Dark Tranquility, In Flames, and Soilwork. Injecting some other forms of metal is high risk/high reward deal, and that is what true metal is all about, taking a chance. Does it pay off with this release? I have mix feelings.

The album begins as normal; "The Flood" and "The Medication" deviate from thrash very little. Two really good tunes and quite frankly, what I expected to hear. Most of the time, when I pick up an album from a thrash band, I take it for granted I am only going to hear what they have always put out, whether or not it is good. But, with the bass fuzz landscaping the background, the tribal drumming and breakdowns of "The Crowning," my ears perked up. I was listening to a stoner tune.

That was completely unexpected, and a nice surprise considering it looked as if they were not finished with good thrash ideas. A fantastic tune, especially the vocal arrangement, although it does have clean vocals along side the usual hoarse screaming of Peter Dolvig, a method that while overused in today's metal does have appropriate uses. Considering that stoner rock/metal is normally one of those forms dominated by clean vocals, it may be a turn around that the thrash screams add something to the former genre not normally heard.

Following that up, "The Reflection" tends to tilt toward a progressive Tool sound, though I believe it's not unintentional, it's a good song, just not original. From this point on, the album takes a turn for the worse, sounding less thrash and more metalcore, a year too late trendiness, and unfortunately ordinary. But like I mentioned earlier, they do try new things, such as the synth fuzz of "The Fallout," and the blues beats employed on the "The Medusa." Changing the tempos and times is admirable, but not many work for me.

One example, "The Shifter," sounds vocally forced. It becomes a scream fest over guitar work that doesn't keep up, effectively erasing any groove that might have driven the song through to the end. I get the impression there wasn't one single focus for the band here, like they threw a bunch of ideas on the wall to see what stuck.

RATING: 5/10 - Overall, with all the experimental wrangling, I believe, even though those employed are new to The Haunted, they are not new to the world of metal, nor is it, what they created. The best music here is the trash we all know they can play, which may be the exact opposite of what they were striving for on this album. Again, changing things up is what music is all about. Redefining yourself is certainly a metal trait, but I say this one fell flat. Unless they plan on changing the world of stoner metal, which was one experiment that did work, I say it is back to the drawing board for The Haunted.