The Haunted have crafted a tale of destruction that imagines an existential nightmare come to life.

Words by Paulina Subia | 27 May, 2025

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The Haunted have found themselves in some sort of a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Foreseeing an unknown prophecy, the Swedish death rockers have composed a warning battle cry on their newest album, Songs Of Last Resort. The resulting twelve tracks bleed with increasing adrenaline, as though the listener is being chased through a warzone. You can hear the destruction surrounding them, the greying sky and crumbling walls, and certainly, the anguish that vocalist Marco Aro amplifies. The Haunted are contemplating a fictional war, but one not too fantastical to completely separate it from reality. 

The album was inspired by the “letters of last resort”: identical and handwritten letters by the UK Prime Minister, sent to the four commanding officers of Britain’s nuclear-powered submarines, to instruct what actions are to be taken if Britain has been obliterated by nuclear attack. Guitarist Patrik Jensen came across a British newspaper that detailed the story of the letters and imagined a world where this traumatic event came true. He has said that he sees Songs Of Last Resort as “an anti-war album”, and thus, the listening experience becomes one not just with thrash-fueled rage, but one that fights against darkness, trying to find a glimpse of optimism.

The opening track– and lead single – ‘Warhead’ hears a crackling radio announcement: a woman warning to “seek shelter immediately, avoid fallout”, and points to a “predetermined target… assigned”. With the damage already done, The Haunted are forced to reckon with the bodies left in its wake, the streets-turned-battlefields and the “scars upon the Earth”. As the layered drum blasts and riffs mimic weapons firing, we are cautioned into the battle waged in the band’s mind.

Tracks like ‘Death to the Crown’ sustain the straightforward tension that persists across the album, while beckoning a slight chance of optimism that may exist amidst the turmoil: “The world keeps turning and we march on… You thought you could silence / You thought you could bind / But the spirit of freedom is never confined.” To Bleed Out, though, is an underlying warning, delivered with a bitter growl: “Was there anything to begin with?… Nothing is left in the end.”

Songs Of Last Resort is plagued by images of annihilation, each of its tracks functioning as a sort of manifesto of its lasting effects. ‘Through the Fire’ paints a picture of a city, destroyed, as  “bombs rain down, the city shakes, shattered earth, the sky that breaks”. The threat of judgement day looms over ‘Hell is Wasted on the Dead’. An ode to the casualties of war and the lack of justification is penned on ‘Collateral Carnage’. The brutal instrumentation and graphic imagery become more than the customary symbols equated with the thrash genre; instead, they are nightmarish sequences of what could be lurking around the corner. As the guitars fade and the noise quiets on Letters of Last Resort, we are left to listen to the same woman’s voice from the beginning of ‘Warhead’. The album lingers with you, as her voice does, a testament to The Haunted’s uncanny world-building that sets a new precedent for metal acts to follow.

Verdict: 💀💀💀💀

For Fans Of: Gojira, Slayer, Exodus

Songs Of Last Resort is released on 30 May via Century Media