VISIONS

It's a grower. It's one of these effing growers - which means, for those unfamiliar with our Progster's specialized terms, it means album which, at first, sounds & looks like average one, or even sounds bad for your ears, you don't feel well listening, but if you give it a chance, listen it few times, it will literary grow on you (not like on your body, but in your brain - fortunately) and you will start to like it. That's quite a hollywood ending, right fellas ? But it often works like that. Seen that myself with my own eyes.

However, this case with Haken's second is a bit different. Because at first, the album sounded great. At ......, third listen, it started to be one of the best albums I've ever heard. It's my 5th listen (I presume) and even it didn't beat their debut (speaking about growers, their Aquarius took me about 10 seconds to fall in love with, or simply as long as first few chords played), it is closing fast. Who knows, but it doesn't hurt to know and like (love) two masterpieces of modern Prog Metal.

Because this album combines together skillfully three basic elements which will please Marty at any time of the day - Melody, Originality and Complexity. Not as strong on pompous (bombastic, grandiose?), even not as strong here means something little different than you are probably used to. First album was one of the most pompous albums I've ever heard, this second is far more pomp. than your usual album is. It's like comparing MIG21 to F-15 - F-15 is faster a bit (1/5), but compared to Wright Flier, it's completely different world.

This album simply got it all. Yet, it's worse than Aquarius for me.