The Haunted Youth

About

" A new treasure on the Belgian rock scene "

‘Haunted’ is the perfect adjective to describe the music made by this Belgian band with foggy guitars, cathedral-like echoes, shoegaze-worthy distortion and ethereal vocals singing tortured lyrics. Quite fittingly, their first album is being released on November 4, just a few days after the spookiest day of the year, Halloween, but you get the sense we will still be listening to its marvels when summer comes back, just like we enjoy playing The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive, DIIV and Cigarettes After Sex in the sunshine. The Haunted Youth do not try to hide their influences: they simply claim belonging amid this extended family of amazing artists.

If you look closely at the credits on their debut album, ‘Dawn of the Freak’, you cannot fail to notice that one name is ubiquitous. Even though The Haunted Youth is not officially his solo project, Joachim Liebens wrote, recorded, arranged, mixed and produced all the songs on this fantastic record. This promising young man from the Flemish city of Hasselt is also the lead singer. He played all synths and guitars, and most of the drums and bass parts (four musicians took care of the remaining songs). ‘Dawn of the Freak’ includes several songs that were unveiled since the band started their career in 2021 (for instance ‘Teen Rebel’, ‘Coming Home’, ‘Gone’ and ‘Broken’), some of which gave The Haunted Youth their breakthrough by gathering acclaim in the international press (NME, Consequence…) and several major radio stations (KEXP, KCRW…). With the long-awaited return of live music, this is just the very beginning of their rise to power.