Haken – ‘Virus’ (InsideOut Music)

By Jason Walker

I’m going to preface this one with the fact that I bloody love Haken; they’re a band that can do no wrong and I see them as a band that’s as close to a modern-day Pink Floyd as we can get. Now, I’m not sure if they’re clairvoyant or whether the album name was a tongue-in-cheek revision given what’s currently happening worldwide at the time of writing this review, but this is a direct follow-up to their pretty fantastic ‘Vector’ album.

The album comprises of 11 tracks, but it is worth noting that six through to ten are five parts of the 17 minute long epic ‘Messiah Complex’ – fans of prog are definitely familiar with this sort of thing and Haken are not afraid of lengthy songs and ‘Virus’ is no different in that regard. What I will say as a quick summary of this album is that it sounds angry – don’t get me wrong, Haken have done heavy songs before and they often have an artistic way of mixing in heavy songs with lighter numbers but ‘Virus’ seems to err a lot on the side of heavy and technical when compared with their previous releases.

The first two tracks, ‘Prosthetic’ and ‘Invasion’ really get into this without any hesitation, an almost relentless sonic assault of face-melting technical riffs that they’re well known for. Ross’s gentle vocals juxtaposed against a tapestry of the band behind him effortlessly weaving time signature phrasing with consistently shifting melodies.

The first “lengthy” song of the album (I mean barring the last track, they’re all lengthy let’s face it), ‘Carousel’ continues the trend of aggressive playing but this time Ross’s vocals start adding into the overall tone, the album continues to build towards it’s crescendo. ‘Carousel’ again showcases Haken’s knack for mixing light and shade in an exceptionally tasteful manner. Dropping back into ambient parts before launching you head-first into the midst of another facemelting passage and then off it goes into an extended instrumental guitar solo laden part while the rhythm section shows off their ability to take an odd time signature and use it to add stress to the sound and then back again.

As a bass player myself I always end up homing in on Conner’s playing, it’s rarely ever not moving in some way, intricate fills that add colour to the music but knowing when to absolutely slam those chugs for the heavy bits – seriously watch his bass playthroughs on YouTube, you’ll see what I mean (Especially the video for ‘Initiate’).

‘The Strain’ and ‘Canary Yellow’ give you a bit of a breather before the upcoming epic of ‘Messiah Complex’. It’s something to note that Haken’s often long song length rarely feels like it’s being forced to be that long, they’re arranged in a way that no part feels like it’s overly repetitive, and that it serves a purpose and plays a part in constructing part of the story of the album. ‘Canary Yellow’ is a bit more of a lighter song in contrast with the album so far, but it definitely gets you ready for the ‘final’ part of the album.

I could talk for a long time about ‘Messiah Complex’, it’s a long song with many passages and unique parts and honestly you’ll need to listen to it for yourself so i’ll just give you a quick bit of info on what this song is about – fans of Haken will love to know that this references their eponymous album, ‘The Mountain’ and if that doesn’t get your interest going that a band such as Haken cares about their prior material in such a way, I don’t know what will.

A soft play out of ‘Only Stars’ – serves as the quiet, somber outro for ‘Virus’, and honestly as I write this, I truly hope that one day I get to see a show from them along the lines of ‘An Evening With Haken’ where they play through the entirety of ‘Vector’ and ‘Virus’ in one show – I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an evening.

FFO: Leprous, Agent Fresco, The Ocean, Port Noir, Devin Townsend, Caligula’s Horse

‘Virus’ is released on 5 June. You can get your copy HERE.

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