Haken - Restoration

The latest from the standard bearers of modern progressive music is a testament to their improved songwriting abilities - tasteful, yet restrained  

The newest release from progressive rock's saviors, Restoration is an EP intended to slake our thirst for new Haken songs while they write their next album (which will be awesome). Wait, did I say new? Because they aren't really new - they're based off of songs from their original demo CD Enter The 5th Dimension from way back in 2008. I was kinda bummed when I heard that these songs wouldn't be  100% new, original compositions, but after hearing how it turned out I wanted to put out a little review of it. There are 3 songs here, all of which are based on songs off Enter... to varying degrees:

"Darkest Light" - A rock solid opener with a killer lead, "Darkest Light" and it's 2008 ancestor "Blind" have always been favorites of mine. The guys have done a good amount of fat-trimming on Restoration, but the missing parts from "Blind" are the bits I miss the most - the carnival music was cute and I'm always a fan of random samples, but I don't really miss the instrumental stretch.

"Earthlings" - Now this is more like it: a track that sucked originally is redone into something listenable. I'm not a huge fan of either this or "Black Seed", but this version is definitely more interesting. The harmony/Gentle Giant vocals help give this track some legs to stand on, but it's still kinda forgettable.

"Crystallised" - The "epic" piece of the EP clocking in at around 22 minutes, and easily the best song - in fact, this song is one of their best in general. It apes "Snow" pretty closely but probably contains the most actually "new" music to be found here - plus, apparently Mike Portnoy plays a gong at the end? I dunno. Anyway, it's amazing, and they  do the Gentle Giant harmony thing again here, and it's incredible - definitely one of their most emotional tracks.

As for the actual sound of it? It's pretty good. Enter... sounded like it was recorded on an Xbox Live headset (especially Ross' vocals, yuck), so just the increased production value alone makes these songs worth hearing. If you liked Enter... then you'll probably like Restoration, and if you didn't like Enter... then you'll like this even more, as the songwriting is much better on this release.