HAKEN

'Premonition' is the instrumental colossus used to raise the curtain and succeeds in establishing the mood to follow.

But Jennings really steals the spotlight with some vocal acrobatics for the ages, like on the momentous 13 minute + 'Nocturnal Conspiracy', a perfect blend of grandiose, ponderous, sublime and razor-sharpness that will seduce even the coldest prog mother. He sings with utter passion, defined rage, bruising confidence and forlorn despair, a thoroughly epic track that deserves maximum applause. Wooo! Keyboardist Diego Tejeida infused some ivory sound design into the composition, really lifting into the heavens, certainly a track for the ages!

'Insomnia' just wishes to perpetuate the bulldozing buzz, another fine example how bruising heavy rockers can do the jazz thing, thumping along on bassist Thomas Maclean's burping instrument as drummer Raymond Hearne keeps a tight furrow. Jennings delivers a high octave, high octane vocal that will stun the disbelievers, while in the blue corner, Tejeida dishes out some bubbly synths and axemen Henshall and Griffiths crisscross with deadly phrasings. Supremely good stuff!

'The Mind's Eye' offers howling synth torrents to the groove, crystalline picking and a low end rumble, a cool power ballad that soars to heavenly heights, a lavish vocal and another winning track that will stick in your mind (sic).

'Portals' things get slightly more complex and the band dishes out some taut sonic acrobatics, showing considerable skills (bicycle guitar motifs a la Robert Fripp) and blasts the listener into dizzying pools of hypnosis. Fast, hard and painful!

Unrelenting, 'Shapeshifter' kicks the mood into overdrive, flickering molten riffs, effect-laden voicings, and squirming synths, all conspire to exalt the listener into submission, doing the contrast thing to perfection, a rockin' roller coaster that sears, scours and shades with conviction. Lyrically these lads are no slouches, interesting words expressed with distinction. Rapid, rigid and resolute!

The breathtaking 'Deathless' is a shattering success, the crowning jewel of an obviously brilliant album, a scorching ballad that has 'classic' branded all over it, a tune so perfect, one could listen to this forever and never be bored. Deepest piano melancholia and a vocal for the ages, within a style similar to classic Landberk, a mixture of hot and icy, Jennings' lament convincing to the hilt. The chorus is to expire over, the verse bittersweet and profound. Talk about reverie!

To conclude with a whopping title track that clocks in at 22 minutes +, I mean, really? What balls! That is the hallmark of a group of younger musicians who have thought out their craft well, honed it to their view of perfection and then unleashed it to an unsuspecting audience. A heavy prog band unafraid of bringing in a string quartet? Come on! Throw in some brief narration, huge symphonics, torrential synthesizers, dense atmospherics layered thick with complicated rhythms that defy gravity, you have it all on glittering display! In a way, Haken has condense in one single arrangement their entire musical philosophy, their intentions clear and concise and a definite new kid on the prog block.

I have caught myself shaking my head quite a few times, as I flicked the repeat button over and over, bewildered by the sheer quality of the music proposed, charmed by the boldness of it all. The songs are brilliant, the performances tantalizing and the vocals impeccable. What more can you possibly ask for? More please!

5 checkmark mirages

Big improvement! Haken's second album "Visions", whilst seeing the band often continuing to be the bad kind of silly, is vastly superior to their debut, "Aquarius". The 'wow, look at how zany we are!' moments are fewer and better done (actually pulled off well in the title track even!). The horrendously executed death growls are mercifully absent, and the songwriting has matured. Even the concept is interesting: a child having premonitions of his own death, as opposed to the uninteresting story of some moistened bint (mermaid).

I'll talk about what I liked first. In terms of the actual songs, we have (mostly) shorter songs (compared to "Aquarius"), followed by a decent epic. Shorter in this case meaning feels less like a cobbled together combination of musical pieces stretched out for too long. It stops the songs getting too meandering and directionless. I particularly like "Visions", the title track, which is actually pretty good. There are some really enjoyable musical moments in it (especially the epic start), even if Haken still haven't quite got the hang of transitioning naturally between them. It manages to be epic and quirky, which is what I think Haken have been striving for a lot of the time. Jennings also experiments successfully with the timbre of his voice a bit, which I wish he would do more often.

The keyboards seem like they've got more inventive too, which is nice. It's important too, given that a lot of Haken's sound is driven by the creativity of the use of keyboards. There are also some pretty good guitar melodies in some of the songs, and nice interplay of instruments. The sections of music that sound like they are straight out of a (maybe slightly less technical) Dream Theater song are still present, but they are handled competently, and I generally think they are okay. Certainly not worthy of all of the criticism they have attracted. There are far worse bands to rip off, and it's not like it's the entirety of Haken's sound. I'm impressed with the band's musical skill, as I always was, but I now think they are putting it to better use. As an album, "Visions" is a bit more symphonic than "Aquarius", and feels like a purposeful work, rather than just a patchwork of musical bits and pieces.

I'll try not to go too in depth with what I didn't like, as it's mostly mistakes repeated from "Aquarius", albeit usually not so bad ("Nocturnal Conspiracy" in particular can drift into the same kind of boring plodding territory at times). What I most of all want to emphasise again though, is that Ross Jennings is still a bit cliché and lifeless by comparison to other singers. Although he has improved since "Aquarius", Jennings still doesn't quite deliver enough with his performance, and it is difficult not to notice how the vocals struggle to match up to the bombastic instrumental side of what the band is doing. I mean, just listen to the chorus from "Insomnia", it's really quite dull and repetitive. Actually, that's a criticism I could level at a lot of the choruses, they are often just a series of medium pitch, medium length notes sung in a slightly off accent.

These are all non-trivial flaws, but I will say that all the songs have at least something decent in them. All apart from one track, which I feel deserves to be singled out for special criticism. "Deathless", which is a truly feeble ballad if ever I heard one, is easily the weakest song Haken has ever produced. I really can't think of anything good to say about it. Cutting this song from the album would have made "Visions" more consistent and a more appropriate length. This would help with the flow of the album too, as some of the songs can get a little samey over the course of the over seventy minutes of music. It's definitely not enough to ruin the album though.

With "Visions" Haken lost a bit of their original sound, but in this case that's a good thing. It feels like something new is emerging, even if a lot of "Visions" is just a rehash of "Aquarius", so I am still not giving up hope. A lot of great prog bands started out not so impressively, and I get the feeling that this is going to be the case with Haken. Maybe I'm just being naïve though. Only time will tell. I'll round this up to 3 stars since I rounded down for their first album.

I'm going to continue keeping an eye on Haken. It will be interesting to see where they go with their next album. Personally I'm hoping they try something new next time, as opposed to just remaking the same album again. "Visions" is good, but I still don't think we've seen what Haken are truly capable of as a band.

I spent so much time and effort trying to like this one, and at the end of it all I can only conclude that it was all wasted. Prog songwriting should always be the means to the end of good music, and not simply the end in itself, otherwise what is the point, other than to show off or fit yourself into some category? The music will grow stale very fast (if it isn't already from the start). "Aquarius" is guilty in this respect, along with the often unintentionally cheesy lyrics revolving around the grand concept of a mermaid child.

The bombast and technicality are all flashy and I guess impressive. The heavier parts are clearly straight out of the Dream Theater textbook, but it all gets put into directionless songs that I just keep failing to find any interest in. If this was an action movie, it would be directed by Michael Bay. Probably Transformers 2. There's a lot of explosions going on, but you just don't care. That's not to say I hate action movies, or Dream Theater style prog metal (in fact I like both, when done well), but this just sounds incredibly forced at times, often to the point of dullness.

There are certainly a lot of changes of style in this album, and a few shoehorned in 'wacky' segments, but I don't think they have been combined very well. The songs tend to lurch a bit from style to style. I don't mean in the energetic and fun way that, say, the Cardiacs would have done it either, it's far more haphazard and jarring than that. Some parts feel like they might as well have been put in anywhere - they have no specific use to any song. A lot of the proggier aspects of this album, whilst admirable, feel kind of forced. Sure it seems full of 'epicness', but that 'epicness' feels hollow and contrived, and so doesn't hold my attention at all.

Within the first two songs there is some pretty awful growling. Actually, the vocals were especially underwhelming. They just weren't really big enough to work with the instrumental side of things, as well as being essentially generic (and often not helping with the cheese-factor).

Another problem I had with this album slowly became apparent the first time I listened to it. I was excited about the reviews it was getting and ready for the mindblowingly awesome experience I had been promised, but eventually found myself playing solitaire on my computer half way through to deal with the boredom. This album does not do enough to justify its lengthy duration, and seriously drags in the middle. Any given part could be interesting, but it doesn't hold together well, and as a 70+ minute piece it just ends up feeling tiresome. In this case the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

It's frustrating, because the risks they took were very 'all or nothing', and I know how they could have paid off. Gentle Giant can pull this kind of weirdness off. Haken may still do so, and I think it is possibly within their capabilities. "Celestial Elixir" is about the closest Haken come to pulling off the sound they are (I think) going for, and some songs have some cool moments in them ("The Point Of No Return", "Celestial Elixir", "Aquarium"). Sadly the better moments of this album are sandwiched in with a lot of incoherent mess. A few, like "Sun", have meandering and outright boring sections throughout, and these really test my patience.

Lastly, and to make one thing clear, I do not 'hate' this album. My primary feeling is just disappointment. If you like this album, fine. I can sort of see why people do. Hopefully you believe I have explained myself in a valid manner, and are not too angry that I wasn't able to enjoy "Aquarius".

Honestly, I really tried to like this. A lot of reviewers I respect a lot and usually find myself in agreement with have raved about how incredible this release is, but I just can't buy into it, despite the numerous attempts I have made. What I will say is that despite my low rating, I am still interested in the band. There is clearly a lot of raw talent here, and if they found a way to harness it, work out the flaws, and direct it towards a coherent goal (whilst trimming some of the fat), I'm sure the end result would be good.

I have to be honest---on my first listen to this album, I was a little taken aback by the quirky parts of the album (especially the maniacal parts in the 20+ epic, Visions), but since then I have not been able to go a day without listening to this amazing album! I am no musical expert (though I am extremely passionate about progressive music), so I cannot tell you all the technical aspects of why this album sounds so good and strikes so deeply within me. All I can tell you in that this album's smooth, epic, psychedelic sound is soothing and exciting at the same time. I get the urge to brood and head-bang at the same time. Also, this album's story about visions, death, and insanity (?) are so compelling that I will be listening again and again till I figure out the very depths of this story.

This album was one of the best of 2011, and I am certainly glad that I gave it a chance. The complexity inherent in this band's music makes me excited for what they will offer us in the future.

The album opens with the short 'Premonition' which acts as the instrumental introduction.

'Nocturnal Conspiracy' is based on a simple and catchy riff that gives it a rather ominous mood. This is short lived as the more metal parts enter along with Jenning's unique vocals. There is also a symphonic sound to this song that was also present in their last album. Of course, a longer Haken song is not complete without an epic instrumental section that occurs around five minutes.

'Insomnia' opens with a riff in 6/4, along with some good vocals over some harmonized bass and piano parts. The instrumental portion of this song is of course complex and chaotic.

'The Mind's Eye' is a slower, almost ballad-like song with some more powerful vocal moments spaced between.

'Portals' is the fully instrumental track of the album similar to Dance of Eternity on Scenes (though not nearly as complex), but is more melodic, especially the fantastic guitar solo at the end.

'Shapeshifter' is based on a crushing riff in 4/4 with the other sections being down-tempo and vocal dominated with a few symphonic moments in the chorus.

'Deathless' is a down-tempo ballad in the first half of the song, but picks up a bit of energy in the second half.

The title track is the epic 'Visions,' which goes through a myriad of twists and turns in its 22-minute duration. There is the beginning symphonic section with a few mixed in riffs and dramatic vocals, which is followed by the first instrumental section, some more riffage, a short acoustic section, a tasteful guitar solo, a very unique and interesting sounding vocal melody harmonized with guitar, and finally the dramatic reprise.

Some may argue Visions is pretty derivative, and while I can't argue that, I will say that the music is so good it hardly matters to me.

9/10

The opening song is 'The Point of No Return,' for which the first half is filled with some strong, dramatic, but unique vocals, with the second half being a crazy instrumental section with a combination of metal and jazz and some circus sounding antics.

'Streams' opens with a fantastic piano melody a la 'Firth of Fifth.' The overall tone is pretty upbeat and happy in the verses, dramatic in the chorus, and intense and energetic in the instrumental parts. Unfortunately there are some death growls (which are out of place and rather poorly done) which hurt the flow of what would be a perfect song.

'Aquarium' opens in a pretty symphonic manner, but has some more ballad-like parts intertwined with the more metal instrumentals. The instrumental part beginning at around 5:30 is one the most amusing to listen to, and is one of their best.

'Eternal Rain' is a shorter song with some fun, upbeat melodies that shift between 4/4 and 7/8.

'Drowning In the Flood' shows off their more metal side with some brutally heavy riffs along with some intense vocals. But they also go into a more atmospheric, symphonic section midway through.

'Sun' is perhaps the only "weak" song on the album, but is still an enjoyable listen.

The final song is the 17-minute epic 'Celestial Elixer.' This is pretty similar to the other songs on the album; it has a combination of ballad-like moments, symphonic sections with gliding keyboards, and downright high energy metal riff-based instrumental breaks.

Overall, Aquarium is a very strong debut album, but also a great start to the second decade of the 21st century.

9/10

Haken has divided this "Visions" masterpiece in a 8-tracks album, chained one track after another as one single story. Yo can enjoy listening to a single track, but you will be surprised if you listen to the whole album.

Knowing how to increase or decrease the speed, and handling stress moments withd calms and different parts of the songs and in different parts of the album, their music and technique is very oriented to modern Prog Metal style, nearly Symphonic I would add. Their Piano parts and high production keyboards parts reminds me to the LOTR soundtracks in many parts of the album. These is something that many users has criticize because they fill the album with a huge production of different sounds. Anyway, If you adore dark and pretty atmospheres, with real progmetal beautifull guitar solos, all embedded in one story, then you will adore this album.

Musicians are very well combined and it seems that the idea of compositions is very defined. I see in Haken a good and different mix in this style that has helped them to become unique: A prog metal music with a kind of beautifull Grunge Voice.

If I have something to criticize about ProgMetal gods (like Dream Theater) is that their idea changes a lot in different band life moments (half decades?). However, Haken has defined and emphasized even more their compositions in their second album. I love the way that a band continues beeing the same band in terms of melodies and compositions manners, but surprisingly they achieve to get you like best. It´s like "If you want to convince me with your music, respect what you are doing because I love it :) and continue in the same style and form, don´t change please"

Let´s see if they continue surprising.