‘Boys Cry Too,’ the second album from The Haunted Youth, is out now via Play It Again Sam, and it’s a deliberate, fully committed break from everything that came before.
Joachim Liebens built his debut ‘Dawn Of The Freak’ on fragile bedroom-pop innocence, a record that earned genuine cult status. This time, he’s kicked the door open. Live drums and guitars push to the front, distortion and aggression run through the DNA, and the emotional stakes are considerably higher across every track.
Liebens describes the shift without flinching: “I was a kid on ‘Dawn Of The Freak.’ It sounds almost like nursery rhymes to me, everything is so fragile and childlike, like a cry for attention. And now I’m angsty and kicking in doors.” That energy is all over ‘Boys Cry Too,’ from the towering 8-minute opener “in my head” to the closing track “ghost girl.”
Lead single “deathwish” features Orlando-based singer-songwriter Max Fry, and it arrives as a strong early indicator of where the album lives. The record moves through goth grunge thrash on “murder me,” icy morning-after regret on “wake up,” New Order-influenced propulsion on “i hear voices,” and the ground-leveling instrumental “falling to pieces.” The shadowy “castlevania” Liebens describes as “the perfect triangle of Nirvana, Alice In Chains and My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless.” That’s a bold claim. The track earns it.
The album’s emotional architecture is deliberate and considered. “The first half of the record is basically how everyone sees a boy when he’s heartbroken: he puts his walls up, he’s paranoid, he’s angry, he’s aggressive,” Liebens explains. “But then the second half is this whole other story, it’s vulnerable. I want to show the vulnerable part of men and boys and celebrate it instead of making it this whole stigma that’s been going on for so long.”
Hip hop was a surprising but crucial influence during the writing process, with emo-rap outlier Lil Peep cited as a key reference point. Liebens took specific note of how hip hop lyrics resist resolution. “It’s so much more powerful to have these lines that people just instantly engage with,” he says. That instinct runs through ‘Boys Cry Too’ from start to finish.
The record was born from Liebens’ own pain, but he’s written it wide open, leaving room for listeners to bring their own experience into the songs. That generosity of spirit is what makes ‘Boys Cry Too’ land the way it does.
The Haunted Youth have festival dates ahead this summer.
2026 Festival Dates:
July 12th – Cactusfestival, Brugge
July 24th – Rock Olmen, Olmen