Haken
Affinity

New album by Haken, an album showing affinity for the eighties it is said in the press sheet. Their previous album called The Mountain was very good and maybe inspired by the seventies progressive music, and it had a better-looking cover artwork than this one. Three years have passed since that album and fans would be forgiven for having great expectations about this new album as well. It is of course said that the band are looking for new ways to express themselves while still retaining their trademark sounds, kind of like is always said in description of progressive bands. They have also enlisted the help of Einar Solberg of Leprous who guest sings on the track called The Architect, a very accomplished vocalist.

Progressive rock music, very reminiscent of the three bands that we have listed as similar so if you know those band you will know this. Not really that different from what we heard on their earlier album, rather typical progressive rock. It is very melodic, varied in many ways, long tracks, great vocals, excellent production, a really solid effort that offers us everything we can expect from a band in this genre. They offer no real surprises, which can be seen as something of a weakness for a progressive band but then again it is rather common that bands play it safe in terms of style and production. It is a very solid production that fans will recognise as a very solid Haken production.

And it is a very good album, the sound is excellent and the songs are very good. The only niggle I have is that the album is a bit predictable which might not really be the best thing for a progressive rock band to be. The fans will probably see this predictable notion as something positive as it strengthens their view of the band and it sounds familiar to them. They do what they do very well, I like this album but as a critic I find it a little bit difficult to muster up too much enthusiasm for an album that sounds very similar to what I reviewed a few years ago. I like the Norwegian touches they have in the very long track called The Architect where we also hear an excellent cameo from excellent vocalist Einar Solberg.

As I have already alluded to, it is a very good album and the fans will probably adore it and fans of the similar bands will probably find it quite interesting as well. I think though that if all the tracks would have been as impressive as the one called The Architect I would have been really impressed with this album but as a critic I find it difficult to see myself standing on top of the mountain screaming out my enthusiasm for this new Haken album – but maybe from the top of a rock or something.

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