HAYDENSPARK

Finnish prog band OVERHEAD was founded in 1999 and they are till going strong, which is an achievement in today's music business. In the beginning their sound was a bit more melodic and closer to Neo Prog, and there were some longer pieces on the first two albums Zumanthum (2002) and Metaepitome (2005) that I still tend to enjoy more than what has come ever since. As an anti-metal minded listener, I always feel rather frustrated when a prog band increases metallic flavour in their musical expression. That has happened with bands such as Arena and Overhead. But in the end one cannot say this band would have changed their style dramatically over the years, and at least hints of the harder edge have been there right from the start, for example in the vocals of Alex Keskitalo. In fact this new release shows that they're definitely still more about prog than [prog-]metal.

Whereas Overhead's other albums have been released via central European prog labels, this fifth album was released independently late last year. The other change concerns the line-up: keyboard player Tarmo Simonen has left the group (but he is involved on 'Last Generation' that he co-wrote with Keskitalo). Now the guitarist and the main composer Jaakko Kettunen plays most of the keyboards -- that still belong to the overall sound although in a more background role than guitar.

My first listening of Haydenspark was coloured by the forementioned frustration dealing with metal-ish nuances. I had to listen to their earlier albums to realize that the differences, especially in the singing style, weren't as huge as I had imagined. I must admit that this one began to sound better after I won my personal prejudices. If the preceding album Of Sun and Moon (2012) felt very cold -- I actually never really tried to get to know it well --, Haydenspark has a good chance to be a grower. The playing is energetic and the songs have more in them that meets the ear in the first round. The production by Jaakko Kettunen is very confident.

Tracks are mostly around 4-5 minutes long and they use the time pretty effectively. However, the two longer ones stick out as highlights. The 9-minute title track operates between bombastic and atmospheric, and the Keskitalo's flute brings nice connotations to Jethro Tull or Tabula Rasa's debut. 'The Fall' features just an acoustic guitar and soft keyboard layers at first to accompany Keskitalo's passionate vocals. This is a very strong sad song emotionally. The final piece 'Gone Too Far' is the other extended track and has bigger sonic similarities to Metaepitome. All in all, Haydenspark has a positive vibe that turns its harder edges into strengths (especially if you're not as allergic to metal as I am) instead of becoming too self-poignantly metallic.