Line #65 Music/Haken


1	[[quoteright:374:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5a4f90bf5fb6710284d5589defcf9439.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:374: Top Row: Charlie Griffiths, Diego Tejeida, Raymond Hearne; Middle Row: Conner Green and Richard Henshall; Bottom Row: Ross Jennings]]
3	[floatboxright:
4	Influenced by:
5	+ Music/DreamTheater, Music/{{Tool}}, Music/{{Opeth}}, Music/GentleGiant, Music/{{Yes}}, Music/JethroTull, Music/PinkFloyd, Music/PainOfSalvation, Music/BillEvans, Esbjörn Svensson, Music/PatMetheny, Music/ClaudeDebussy, Music/JohannSebastianBach, Music/LudwigVanBeethoven, Music/AlexandreDesplat, Music/JohnWilliams, Creator/DannyElfman
6	]
7
8	Haken is a British ProgressiveRock/[[ProgressiveMetal Metal]] band formed in London in 2007 by To-Mera guitarist and keyboardist Richard Henshall and two of his school friends, Ross Jennings and Matthew Marshall. The band's albums have been met with critical acclaim, and they've achieved a high level of popularity within the Prog community.
9
10	A lot of their songs feature an intense level of instrumental and vocal virtuosity, philosophical lyrics, longer song lengths, and a generally quirky attitude. They gathered some attention to themselves with the help of their video for "Cockroach King", which features a muppet-themed parody of [[Music/{{Queen}} Bohemian Rhapsody]]'s famous music video. They've garnered the respect of a few of the larger names in the Prog community, including [[Music/DreamTheater Jordan Rudess]] and Mike Portnoy, who have both praised their music. The orchestral tribute group Symphonic Theater of Dreams is also currently making a symphonic tribute album to the band.
11
12	In 2014, the band released an EP titled ''Restoration'' containing updates of a select few songs from their demo, ''Enter the Fifth Dimension''. Their seventh studio album, ''Fauna'', was released on March 3rd, 2023.
13
14
15	----
16	!!Discography:
17	* ''Enter the 5th Dimension'' (2008 - Demo)
18	* ''Aquarius'' (2010)
19	* ''Visions'' (2011)
20	* ''The Mountain'' (2013)
21	* ''Restoration'' (2014 - EP)
22	* ''Affinity'' (2016)
23	* ''Vector'' (2018)
24	* ''Virus'' (2020)
25	* ''Fauna'' (2023)
26
27	----
28	!!Current Members:
29	* Ross Jennings - lead vocals (2007-)
30	* Richard Henshall - guitars and keyboards (2007-)
31	* Charles Griffiths - guitars (2008-)
32	* Peter Jones - keyboards (2007-2008, 2022-)
33	* Raymond Hearne - drums, tuba (2007-)
34	* Conner Green - bass (2014-)
35
36	!!Former Members:
37	* Thomas [=MacLean=] - bass (2007-2013)
38	* Matthew Marshall - guitar (2007-2008)
39	* Diego Tejeida - keyboards (2008-2021)
40
41	----
42	!! Haken provides examples of the following tropes:
43
44	* ACappella: Used in parts of "Cockroach King", the opening of "Because It's There", and the half-way point of "Crystallised".
45	* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: The bridge of "Somebody" loops the nine-syllable "I wish I could have been somebody" through a ten-note melody, leading to the phrase becoming more displaced as it goes on ("'''I''' wish I could have '''been''' somebody[=/=]I '''wish''' I could have been '''some'''body"), and the high points of the melody start falling in odd places after the first couple iterations.
46	* AlbumTitleDrop: Done once in every album but ''Restoration''.
47	** ''Aquarius'' is mentioned in "Aquarium".
48	** ''Visions'' appears in, well, "Visions".
49	** ''The Mountain'' is a line from "Falling Back to Earth".
50	** ''Affinity'' appears in the lyrics to "The Architect" in several places, as well as the title of the opening instrumental "affinity.exe".
51	** ''Vector'' appears on a line from "A Cell Divides".
52	** ''Virus'' has its title dropped in "Carousel".
53	* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:''Aquarius'' has a variation of a Type 4. It ends with the world being flooded and presumably all land-based-life dying out, but humanity living on as mermaids.]]
54	* BilingualBonus: "Ectobius Rex", the last part of the "Messiah Complex" suite from ''Virus''. ''Ectobius'' is a genus of cockroaches, and "rex" is Latin for "king". Thus, "Ectobius Rex" translates to "Cockroach King" - which is appropriate, given that it (and the ''Vector''[=/=]''Virus'' duology as a whole) features prominent {{Call Back}}s to that song.
55	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:''Aquarius'' ends with the world being flooded and the mermaid dying to provide the solution, but humanity manages to live on as mermaids, with the implication being that the original mermaid was reincarnated.]]
56	* BohemianParody: "Cockroach King"'s video is shot to closely resemble that of "Bohemian Rhapsody"... done by {{Muppet}} versions of Haken.
57	* BookEnds: [[spoiler:''Visions'' ends with the main character discovering that the person who killed him and has been haunting him his entire life is himself from the past. Which occurred in the second track, "Nocturnal Conspiracy".]]
58	* ChronologicalAlbumTitle: As noted in [[https://www.loudersound.com/features/we-never-thought-we-would-be-releasing-virus-during-a-pandemic-haken-revisit-the-cockroach-king-on-their-boldest-album-yet this interview]], ''V''ector and ''Vi''rus (the group's fifth and sixth albums respectively) are a stealthy example of this.
59	* ConceptAlbum: ''Aquarius'' and ''Visions'' (as detailed under RockOpera below), as well as the duology of ''Vector'' and ''Virus'' (forming an origin story for the Cockroach King). ''The Mountain'' and ''Fauna'' have been described by the band as built around specific themes, but they do not appear to have an overarching narrative.
60	* ContinuityNod:
61	** The melody from "The Path" is repeated throughout ''The Mountain''.
62	** "Messiah Complex" contains many nods to previous songs on ''Virus'' and ''Vector'', as well as to "Cockroach King" (off ''The Mountain'').
63	* DarkerAndEdgier: After their metal elements were toned down for ''The Mountain'' and ''Affinity'', ''Vector'' and ''Virus'' brought them back in force.
64	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:''Visions''.]]
65	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Ross occasionally makes use of death growls on the demo and ''Aquarius''. All of their subsequent studio releases have Ross doing exclusively clean vocals - when the growls briefly returned for a verse of "The Architect", they were done by guest vocalist Einar Solberg (Leprous), although Ross still does them live.
66	* EpicInstrumentalOpener: Used VERY frequently, especially in their longer songs.
67	* EpicRocking: Every album has at least one song that passes the 10-minute mark:
68	** ''Enter the 5th Dimension'' has "Blind" (11:40), "Sleeping Through the Wake" (12:07), and "Snow" (13:11).
69	** ''Aquarius'' has "The Point of No Return" (11:27), "Streams" (10:14), "Aquarium" (10:40), and "Celestial Elixir" (17:01).
70	** ''Visions'' has "Nocturnal Conspiracy" (13:08) and "Visions" (22:25).
71	** ''The Mountain'' has "Falling Back to Earth"" (11:51) and "Pareidolia" (10:51).
72	** ''Restoration'' has "Crystallised" (19:22)
73	** ''Affinity'' only has "The Architect" (15:40) above ten minutes, but "1985" (9:09) and "Bound By Gravity" (9:29) come close.
74	** ''Vector'' has "Veil" (12:35).
75	** ''Virus'' has "Carousel" (10:29) and the 5 part "Messiah Complex" suite, which clocks in at 17 minutes total (even though the longest individual part runs just shy of five minutes).
76	** ''Fauna'' has the 11:07 "Elephants Never Forget".
77	** There's also the 22-minute "Aquamedley" on their live album, which combines parts of 6 of the seven songs on their debut album into one epic track.
78	* FadingIntoTheNextSong: ''Aquarius'' and ''Visions'', naturally, being [[RockOpera Rock Operas]]. ''The Mountain'' also has "The Path" fading into "Atlas Stone", and ''Virus'' also has "The Strain" into "Canary Yellow".
79	* GenreMashup: They've incorporated elements of ProgressiveMetal, ProgressiveRock, Folk, Jazz, Film Scores, ACappella, and Glitch Hop in their music. Sometimes within one song.
80	* IcarusAllusion: "Falling Back to Earth".
81	* {{Instrumentals}}: "Premonition", "Portals", "Nil by Mouth", and the bonus track "The Path Unbeaten".
82	* LighterAndSofter: ''The Mountain'' is a subdued version of this. It still has quite a few heavy songs, but as a whole the album is lighter than the last two.
83	* LonelyPianoPiece: "As Death Embraces".
84	* MindScrew: ''Visions''.
85	* MurderBallad: "Nocturnal Conspiracy" and "Visions" have shades of this.
86	* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: The mermaid in ''Aquarius'' is a mutant.
87	* ProgressiveMetal[=/=]ProgressiveRock: Depending on the release. ''Aquarius'', ''Visions'', ''Vector'', and ''Virus'' are their more metal releases, while ''The Mountain'', ''Restoration'', ''Affinity'', and ''Fauna'' lean [[LighterAndSofter a little more toward]] ProgressiveRock (although they are not without their share of heavy songs).
88	* RearrangeTheSong: ''Restoration'' contains heavily reworked versions of songs from their demo, ''Enter the 5th Dimension''. Guitarist Charlie Griffiths stated in an interview that merely rerecording the old tracks would feel dishonest, as half of the lineup at the time (including him) did not play on the originals[[note]]original keyboardist Peter Jones, who did play on the demos, has since rejoined the band[[/note]], and that the ''Restoration'' versions are now the definitive ones in the band's eyes.
89	* RockOpera: The band has two to this date:
90	** ''Aquarius'' is about a fisherman who discovers a mermaid, sells it to the local carnival, and eventually discovers that [[spoiler:her blood is the only thing that can save them from a global flood.]]
91	** ''Visions'' is about a young boy who has a vision of his own death, and spends the rest of his life trying to avoid his death and kill the man responsible for it.
92	* SelfBackingVocalist: Ross does most of his backing vocals in the studio. Live, the rest of the band will fill in.
93	* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:''Visions'' reveals that the boy's killer is himself from the past.]]
94	* ShoutOut: "Island in the Clouds", off of ''Fauna'', makes several references to ''Film/JurassicPark1993'', with even its title being a (slightly rough) translation of Isla Nublar (the island where the titular park is located).
95	* SopranoAndGravel: Ross Jennings provides a one-man version of this on ''Aquarius'' and the demo ''Enter the 5th Dimension'', going from his usual tenor to death growls at the drop of a hat.
96	* SpokenWordInMusic: Used at the beginning of the song "Visions".
97	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Diego has a few lines of lead vocals on "Pareidolia". In a downplayed example, the entire band performs backing vocals when playing live that Ross does alone in the studio.
98	* SurprisinglyGentleSong: "As Death Embraces" and "The Path", which are mostly just piano and vocals.
99	* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:The protagonist of ''Visions'' turns out to be the killer that haunted his entire life.]]
100	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: ''Aquarius'' is set sometime towards the end of the 22nd century.

Context Music / Haken