There are things I’ll never understand. Why do people argue over politics? Who do people listen to Kid Rock? Why do people take advantage of others? Why did Metallica play with a symphony?

While not nearly as important as some of those items listed above, I’ll never understand what the Haunted were thinking when making their seventh album “Unseen.” The album should be called “Unheard,”  which, if we lived in a just society, would describe this platter’s fate. It is an abomination. It’s one of the worst metal albums I’ve ever heard. Yes, I know there was that onslaught of nu-metal in the ’90s and early ’00s. But those bands didn’t have anything to offer and had zero substance, so really, how could one hold them up to high standards ? But the Haunted? They’ve made some good albums. Not necessarily recently, but they’re not idiots. The Björler brothers were in At the Gates, one of the most legendary, respected death metal bands of all time! And now they’ve got this on their resumes.

I also don’t think frontman Peter Dolving is an idiot. I interviewed the guy before, and while’s he’s a little weird to the point you wonder if it’s a gimmick, he’s intelligent and well spoken. He’s a good performer. He undoes a lot of that on this record. Easily, this is his worst lyrical and vocal performance ever. He sounds lazy, like he’s mailing it in, and that’s something I never expect from him. He sings like he’s aiming to play opener to some X-fest alt-metal garbage summer shed package, sandwiched between bands who wear guyliner and those pants you get at Hot Topic. The ones with the zippers and straps and shit. His vocals sound like they were recorded by Dolving as a corpse. No lifeline at all.

When I’m assigned to write about a record, I give it multiple listens. You almost have to because it’s really difficult to fully absorb a piece of work from just one visit. That was a struggle with “Unseen.” I only sat and listened the whole way through once because to do it more than that would be punishment.  It had to be broken up into manageable pieces, and even that was tough to handle. Most of what’s on this disc sounds like lightweight, thoughtless Tool, and haven’t we just about had enough of bands trying to go that route? And the Haunted are better than that. There are songs on here that sound like they’re trying to be pop-punk fodder, such as the putrid “Motionless” or the title track, that’s damn-near a ballad vying for time on a “NOW That’s What I call Music Vol. Death of a Career.”  “The Skill” sounds like it’s trying to be a pop song. That, in itself, is not a crime, but when you do it this badly, it speaks volume for all of those teen sensations who hire writers for them because they can’t do it themselves. This ends in whistling, but the way. No, your eyes don’t deceive you. Whistling.

“All Ends Well” (itself a lie) tries to swagger like a glam metal song, and at one point Dolving insists, “I don’t care what people say.” Doth protest too much? Then don’t say it. Just put out this shit bucket and don’t pretend like you’re waiting for the long list of negative comments on your My Space page or wherever.

So are any of the songs any good, you may be wondering? I don’t know, actually. “The City” and “Them” are at least listenable, but if they were sandwiched into the middle of a good Haunted record, they might stand out as the bad songs on an otherwise decent collection. They didn’t exactly light my world on fire. Instead, they reinforced the notion that the Haunted could hammer out something relatively listenable if they wanted to, but it didn’t sound like they cared about that. This whole thing sounds like they didn’t give a shit at all, but they knew they had the power to fail so epically for a chuckle.

In an interview with muchmoremetal.com, Dolving described “Unseen” this way:  “Epic. Danceable. Groovy. And very, very, arty farty metal. With this next record we are going to be taking a piss in the general direction of all the crappy 99.9 percent of generic contemporary Mr. Goatse jerks out there.”

But Mr. Dolving, this record MAKES you guys part of that 99.9 percent. This is generic and lame as shit. This is a legacy-damaging album. And I’d argue that legacy has been on the downswing for quite some time, but it’s never been in the critical stage it is now. “Unseen” is a bloated carcass of a horrible idea. It’s a total waste of your and Century Media’s money. And the sad thing is, because the Haunted have a fanbase, people will buy this without thinking because it’s the Haunted. You owe those people an apology. You owe ME an apology for feeling the need to write this about a record I’d ordinarily delete from my iPod, never bothering to visit ever again. From the time I hit “publish” on this entry, I will choose to pretend “Unseen” never existed. I don’t do it to maintain faith in the Haunted, because I don’t have any. I do it because I’m a relatively good person and don’t need this album to continuously torture me.

“Unseen” gets a gigantic F.