The Haunted Youth

Beauty from misery. That’s the motto of Joachim Liebens. This native of Limburg makes beautiful music out of the sorrow of his teenage years. While studying at the PXL Music rock college in Hasselt he listened to his records from that time and watched old horror films. His debut ‘Dawn of the Freak’ (2022) is a testament to his childhood. The dreamy pop of The Haunted Youth is in the psychedelic slipstream of The Cure, MGMT and The War On Drugs, bearing one excellent single after another. The album was presented in a sold-out AB and was picked up by alternative US radio stations. “The Haunted Youth captures the essence of being young, hungry and hopeful,” wrote the online magazine Consequence of Sound. In the Netherlands, they are talking about the most impressive Belgian band since Balthazar.