I went on Amazon.com on Friday afternoon and bought the MP3 version - it was only available in the deluxe version (all songs with and without vocals) if you wanted MP3 but that was fine, it was $3.00 more than a regular album but I'm cool with that. $3.00 for an instrumental version of the album -which I will listen to- is more than fair in my mind. And a good way for them to make a little extra scratch, which I'm also OK with.
So, anyway, this is a band that I've really wanted to love but just never could seem to figure out what all of the hype was about. Now, don't get me wrong here. There is no doubt that this is an extremely talented group of musicians. My biggest beef with them has been that I always felt like that quirky/complexity thing was being milked a little too much and the result was the albums are very, very dense and take a very long time to sink in. Plus, for me at least, I need a little more emphasis on melody rather than complexity in order to connect with a piece of music on an emotional level. I found that while I very much enjoyed listening to Aquarius, Visions, The Mountain and the Restoration EP, I never really connected with any of the songs and I am still hard pressed to name any tracks on any of those albums. I rarely reach for them.
Despite all of this, I still admire their skill and talent and enjoy their music enough that spending a few bucks on a download version of their album is the least I can do to support a good band that's putting out this kind of music. And to my pleasant surprise, after two spins I've gotta say that this one is definitely going to be my favorite of the bunch. The vocalist has improved with each release, and that's good because I've generally considered the vocals to be the weakest element with this band. But with this new album I think they did a much better job of keeping the vocals more interesting, more melodic and less....I don't know...angular? The melodies are smoother and they built some nice harmonies in a lot of places that I've really not heard a lot of on previous albums.
To me, the mark of a good musician is one who can play their instrument and not get distracted or upset by criticism. The mark of a great musician is one who takes criticism as assistance and uses it to propel themselves forward. I'd put Haken -and particularly Ross Jennings in the latter category.
It's far too soon for me to rate it, but if my gut is right - and it usually is - this one's going to be my favorite of theirs.