Warheads, Wreckage, and Redemption: The Haunted’s Nuclear Reawakening

It starts with a warhead and ends with a letter from the abyss. Somewhere between those two poles, Sweden's modern thrash godfathers The Haunted have unleashed their bloodiest campaign in over two decades. Songs of Last Resort is not just a return to form—it’s an explosive reclamation of the chaos throne. And god help whoever stands in the blast radius.

It’s been eight long years since Strength in Numbers found The Haunted reasserting their status as top-tier thrashers. That record had moves, for sure, but it stumbled over its own indecision—oscillating between punishing riffs and awkward death metal detours. There was promise. There was rage. But the sharpened focus required by a sound of this magnitude was inconsistent, if not frustrating. It was like watching a prizefighter shadowbox in a padded room.

Songs of Last Resort is none of that. It is locked in. It is lethal. And it does not blink.

This time around, the stakes are existential. This band is twenty-seven years deep, forged in the post-At the Gates crucible, with enough lineup shifts to make a corpse twitch. With this record, The Haunted aren’t just fighting for legacy—they’re reminding us that legacy means fuck-all if your next punch doesn’t land. You don’t get to be “vital” because you once were. You earn it. Again. And again. And again.

Songs of Last Resort is an incendiary riot of peak-era thrash fury, seasoned with the precision of modern production and powered by one of the most dangerous rhythm sections in the game. You can practically smell the studio sweat on this thing. It’s raw without being ragged. It’s clean without losing its rot.

“Warhead” kicks the door in with boots and bile, a hammering riff that snarls with the ghost of Made Me Do It, but with a meaner sneer. Marco Aro sounds like he’s been drinking battery acid and reading war poetry—his guttural bellows surgically threaded with phrasing that’s less bark and more bomb detonation. This isn’t just a good vocal performance. It’s the best he’s ever done. Period.

Jensen and Ola Englund’s guitars are a case study in controlled demolition. They’re not reinventing the wheel; they’re lighting it on fire and rolling it down a hill full of fascists. Songs like “In Fire Reborn” and “Hell is Wasted on the Dead” are pure thrash adrenaline—livewire riffs laced with melodic veins, unafraid to stop on a dime and drop into slow-motion neck-snappers that practically spit sawdust.

And then there’s “Letters of Last Resort”—a cinematic, slow-burn dirge that expands the sonic palette without betraying the core. Think Dead Eye’s atmosphere, but welded to the emotional maturity of a band no longer trying to prove they’re “different,” just deeper. It’s a fitting closer: not a curtain call, but a grim nod toward a nuclear horizon.

This is not a political record. This is a record about the psychology of annihilation. Inspired by the U.K.’s actual “letters of last resort”—those secret nuclear war orders left behind for a post-doomsday navy—this album probes the mental and moral erosion beneath the war machine. And it does it without a drop of sloganeering.

You can feel Jensen’s rage, but it’s not posturing—it’s weary. It’s been earned. We are a species that straps bombs to submarines and calls it “deterrence.” This album is that paradox: tightly wound, loaded, coldly rational—and inches from vaporizing everything.

The Haunted don’t just want to remind us who they are. They want to remind themselves. That’s what’s so unnerving about this album—it sounds desperate, but not weak. Urgent, but not frantic. They didn’t try to mimic the chaos of 1998; they became the chaos of 2025.

This record could have failed easily. Eight years gone. A genre no longer in the heart of metal’s bloodstream. A legacy dense with lineup drama and stylistic zigzags. But Songs of Last Resort is The Haunted staking their flag in scorched earth. Not waving it. Driving it down.

Absolutely. Here’s a revised closing that still hits like a nailbomb to the chest, using a different quote—one just as brutal, existential, and drenched in dread:

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” Songs of Last Resort is the sound of The Haunted rejecting that fate with both fists clenched. This isn’t weakness—it’s resistance. These aren’t death throes—they’re battle cries.

The Haunted didn’t stumble out of the ruins—they charged back in, dragging the wreckage behind them like a trophy. They didn’t just survive the war. They’re the reason it still burns.

🔥 Score: 9.5/10
💀 Essential Tracks: “Warhead,” “In Fire Reborn,” “Hell is Wasted on the Dead,” “Letters of Last Resort”
📻 File Under: Thrash resurrection, End times soundtrack, Veteran savagery