Review: Haken, Fleece

All species of prog are on offer at the Fleece on the first night of this big-value, lengthy package tour. First up are Norway’s Arkentype, representing the aggressive prog-metal that purists find so off-putting. For no apparent reason, the singer and bassist are clad in white robes, rather like an anti-Sunn O))), which they may have cause to regret when these wind up looking rather grubby a few gigs in. What’s more, hoods are not especially conducive to headbanging. Maybe first-night glitches are to blame, but the sound is pretty horrible, with the guitarist’s percussive riffage more-or-lass inaudible at first. The mix of clean and growled vocals is effectively done, but their over-reliance on heavily amplified backing tapes leaves one wondering how much music is actually being played on stage.

Budapest’s Special Providence trade in instrumental jazz-prog-fusion and prove quite a revelation. Despite boasting more than a smidgen of metal in their accomplished mix of styles, this lot could slot in easily on more adventurous jazz bills. But they seem to prefer to play to prog audiences, which is very much our gain. Ferociously virtuosic but never pointlessly flashy at the expense of melody, the quartet threaten to give much-maligned jazz-fusion a good name. Extraordinary guitarist Marton Kertesz is mesmerising to watch when he lets rip during the likes of Gas Giants, the overall effect being rather like Joe Satriani playing the latterday Soft Machine songbook. Mercifully, they’re not po-faced about it. Drummer Adam Marko, who does all the introductions, describes the atypically bouncy Lazy Boy as their “disco-pop hit”. This begins to make sense when they get to the middle section, which takes a sudden unexpected diversion to become a ravey-davey bangin’ dancefloor choon.

“What year is it?” demands Haken frontman Ross Jennings. The correct answer is, of course, 1985 – not the Bowling for Soup song but the third track from Haken’s new concept album, Affinity, whose retro ’80s MS-DOS cover art signals their revisiting of the era’s second wave of prog for musical inspiration. Previously, one might have been tempted to reply 1973, since Haken have been known to worship at the altar of the great Gentle Giant with as much enthusiasm as US proggers Spock’s Beard. These guys are actually too young to have experienced either period at first hand, which perhaps explains why they succeed in forging something fresh and distinctive from familiar musical building blocks rather than getting lost in the nostalgia swamps like all those Genesis soundalikes.

There’s no shortage of potential pitfalls tonight. Firstly, they’re playing a huge chunk of Affinity live for the first time, just weeks after its release. Secondly, this is the first night of the tour, so cock-ups are practically inevitable. And finally, there’s the danger of a jarring discontinuity between Haken’s older material and their recent foray into ’80s sounds. Fortunately, the beardy sextet who somehow manage to cram themselves onto the Fleece’s stage prove more than equal to the challenge, being exceptionally well-rehearsed and feeding off a partisan, enthusiastic crowd. Audience favourite Cockroach King remains perhaps their finest, most instantly recognisable achievement, blending complex contemporary prog-metal with GG-style multi-part a cappella vocals led by the versatile, note-perfect Jennings. But they follow this boldly with The Architect, the full-on 15 minute epic from Affinity, which sits perfectly in the set despite testing the outer limits of prog bloat. Diego Tejeida, who’s responsible for much of the band’s rich variety of sounds, is rewarded with a brief, inventive keyboard solo intro to the lovely Deathless, which comes across like a dreamy pop song wrapped around a grand prog workout, before they return to Affinity with The Endless Knot. There’s just the one encore but, hey, it’s another epic: Crystallised, leavened with more of those splendid trademark multi-part vocals. Something of a triumph all told, then.