Modern/New Prog - Album Reviews

After “Strain”, the lighter “Canary Yellow” enters with drums and soft guitar. At about one and a half minutes through it becomes heavier, until it breaks down completely, and slowly starts building up again. And then it explodes. I suppose it’s a bit of a personal favourite for me, it’s very well done, and not too long or heavy. But that’s the end of what I like to refer to as... PART ONE. 

PART TWO, therefore, opens with “Messiah Complex I: Ivory Tower” (the first part of the Messiah Complex sequence). It begins with a muted guitar riff that soon develops into a loud, heavy riff. From there I won’t describe it, but it basically acts like the prelude to the whole sequence: dark, mysterious, almost warning of what’s ahead. 

The next part, “Messiah Complex II: A Glutton for Punishment”, flows effortlessly from “Ivory Tower” with a much faster, bombastic riff. The vocals are shouted over this throughout (though there are several changes made from the original riff – variations, if you know what I mean. It’s probably the loudest track on the album – in a good way, though. 

“Messiah Complex III: Marigold” opens a lot quieter than “A Glutton for Punishment”, but does not stay that way (Haken are prog metal, after all) - at about fifty-five seconds in a killer of a riff comes in that in my mind literally says anarchy. At about one minute thirty it slows down to a stomp and the distorted lyrics come in. In fact, I’ll take back what I said about just the riff saying anarchy. It’s the whole song. It’s completely crazy. But anyway...  

The sequence continues with “Messiah Complex IV: The Sect, opening with the same riff, which then stops and some weird harmonised vocals start. It’s probably the most techy, advanced track on the album – there are some especially weird synths and... a saxophone solo? That’s what it sounds like. It soon ends, however, into... 

“Messiah Complex V: Ectobius Rex”. The deadly ender. It begins with a fateful guitar riff, which builds up into a slow rhythmed song featuring some reprises from “Ivory Tower”, “Prosthetic” and “Carousel”. It has every quality of a finale – especially the crescendo at the end. It isn’t, though... 

“Only Stars” is. It starts with a dark piano ostinato accompanied by vocals, and stays like that until the end when it fades out. It is very quiet; like a rest from the loud, powerful Messiah Complex. Certainly a chilling outro – and the end of PART TWO, as I personally like to say. 

And so, I reach my conclusion. The question is, is it five stars or not five stars? To aid me in this decision, I present my personal requirements for a five star album, that I like to add to very one of my reviews to make it look all fancy and official: 

1. 1. The songs must all be excellent.  

2. 2. It must work brilliantly as an album. 

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and in the end, both requirements are met. Every song is excellent (the Messiah Complex sequence in particular) and they couldn’t work better together. I really can’t fault this album. So it’s a strong five stars. 

[End of Review]

So, their debut opens with the instrumental "The Reverie". It begins very quietly, just some soft guitar chords and synths. It gets a bit louder when the drums come in, but really it doesn't change much; just a very relaxing, calm piece of music. Only towards the end are you reminded this is a metal band at work: harsh, loud guitar and heavy drums end the track. Other than that, you wouldn't guess.

"The Reverie" flows seamlessly into "Heliopause", opening with similar heavy guitar/drums. The lyrics are screamed unintelligibly over the noise, almost confirming they are a thumping metal band rather than ambient rock. It's like this the whole way through, until it ends, and the next track succeeds it.

The next track being another instrumental - "Relancer". It is more similar to "The Reverie" in that the music is soft and relaxing, it steadily builds up, and there is very little change until five minutes through. Then it breaks down and a different riff is pursued, which also builds up, but much faster. Then it breaks down all over again, and the next song, "Kobe", continues the album.

"Kobe" is not much different in structure, relaxing up to about four minutes through when the drums start banging and the singer starts screaming. Hard to describe this song, but it's pretty fun, and the finale makes it my second favourite track on the album.

After the banging and crashing of "Kobe", "Atom Smasher" promises to continue the trend. Odd time signatures, experimental riffing, unpredictable stops/starts, growled vocals... you guessed, my number one favourite on the album.

"Atom Smasher" bangs on for a full eight minutes. The next track, "Nadir", is predictably quiet, opening with some lovely piano chords. No vocals, just a calm piano dominated ostinato. Drums come in at the end, but it is still not loud, calm to the end.

With "Nadir" ending, "The Reverie II" opens with a drum machine, soon followed up by soft guitar. It becomes much heavier at about two minutes through, and continues to build up until the end, containing a loud, uproarious finale.

For my conclusion, I present my personal two le grande requirements for a five star album:

1. The songs must all be excellent.

2. It must work brilliantly as an album.

Both of them are nearly met, yet both have imperfections. Not all the songs are excellent, some only mediocre, and this is because little change occurs in some of the songs, which makes it a bit boring. For requirement two, the album works in that all the songs flow into each other perfectly. It's just what I noted before - it's a bit boring after a while, and it might you fall asleep. The combined effect of this takes two stars off for me, otherwise it's a good album - very good, since I gave it an average rating and I'm not even a post metal fan.

So it's three stars. End of another review.

[End of Review]