HAKEN — Aquarius (review)

Album · 2010 · Progressive Metal

5/5 · 2011-01-02
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Aquarius is the debut album from UK Progressive Metal band Haken, following a 2008 demo from which no songs appear on this album. It is a concept album, but not one which must always be taken as a single listen, each of the seven songs may be listened individually and still sound masterful to the ear.

Musically Haken drift between being rooted in progressive metal, sometimes with more of a progressive rock feel, and they are unafraid to shift in other influences whenever they feel like it. I’ve found sections of Aquarius that come across as jazzy, symphonic, funky and there’s some real classic rock type moments. Of course, being progressive music the songs of Aquarius are typically long, with times ranging from 6:42 to 16:56, so it’s not an album to take on lightly, it still requires a dedicated listener, but may appeal to people who like this sort of music but generally steer clear of concept albums because of their occasional nature to not really work in any other way but from start to finish. Aquarius however should appeal no matter how its taken.

The album begins with three songs in a row which are all over ten minutes long, then gives another three which are under ten minutes before rounding off with the longest, Celestial Elixir. The Point of No Return is up first and it’s a great way to start the album. It feels atmospheric with the use of keyboards in its intro. At first though I struggled with it and the rest of the album because I needed some time to let the band’s vocalist, Ross Jennings, to grow on me. For the most part he sings very cleanly, but so say that the whole album uses this vocal style would be grossly incorrect. In fact, Ross Jennings is a very versatile vocalist, shifting between three styles throughout the album; the regular clean singing (which once it has time to grow on you is actually really epic), some stronger, more metal style vocals, which at time would fit well in a groove metal band, particularly in the song Drowning in the Flood, and very occasionally he also employs a death growl, which can be heard mainly in the song Streams. To be honest the growl is probably the weakest of his vocal styles but is by no means bad, and it is used to effect pretty well regarding the album concept.

The music is excellent, though not the heaviest around for a metal band, hence why I tagged them as progressive metal/rock. There can be quite long sections of it that don’t have metal in them. That is by no means a bad thing, as it makes Aquarius extremely varied. If I was to compare them to any other more well known band it would have to be Dream Theater. There are some very Dream Theater moments in the album, especially when the keyboards take on a sound that would fit in a circus which is very Jordan Rudess. They are all very talented musicians, and they have put out a very strong debut album of the sort of quality that other bands have difficultly to touch. It is an album that seems to get better with every listen, with my personal favourite songs being The Point of No Return, Streams, Aquarium and Celestial Elixir. One of 2010's best debuts and indeed, albums overall.

(Review originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)

more than 2 years ago
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Andyman1125 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I had the same thoughts about the album. One of my only dislikes about the album was Jennings' lyrics on Drowning in the Flood-- they were so strained it made it hard to listen to.