AFFINITY

Haken's latest, 'Affinity' offers something very different compared to 'The Mountain'. The band decided to go to a different direction, which is certainly a good thing for a prog band. While Haken's songwriting has always been rather mediocre, they make up by superb instrumental proficiency and interesting progression within each song. In this record Haken decided to use a lot of choruses, and I mean a lot, and It get's boring quickly. While at the first listen it may seem exiting, you want to skip these parts at your third listen.

However; this record contains wonderful songs and they do put a smile on your face. 'Earthrise' and '1985' are must songs for every progfan to listen this year. The proggy instrumental section at the end of 'Earthrise' is Haken at their best. 'The Architect' offers some nice heavy pounding with some kind of 80's-90's Sci-fi movie soundtrack feeling. Rest of the songs have left me quite underwhelmed unfortunately and I won't be spending too much time with this record anymore.

As said earlier, the production is too much. It fees like every instrument is edited to grid and this record is played by midi sequencers which was not the case for earlier Haken records.

Summary: + Earthrise, 1985, The Architect - Bound by Gravity, Initiate

3,5 stars.

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