Haken see album format as 'musical journey'

Haken’s Charlie Griffiths says the band will never move away the album format because they see it as a “musical journey.”

The prog rockers recently finished recording fourth album, the full-length follow-up to 2013’s The Mountain.

They also issued EP Restoration in 2014, which contained three reworked tracks from their 2008 demo.

Guitarist Griffiths told prog docu-series Into The Machine: “I love albums and I don’t see that ever changing. I listen to it front to back. That’s how the artist wanted it to be.

“It’s like reading one page of a novel – you won’t get the full picture without listening to the whole thing. I won’t ever let go of the album format.”

He adds: “With the new album we’re writing, it is a complete piece. That’s how I approach writing. We have themes that you’re going to hear, like a rhythm in the first song which will pop up again in the fifth song, or a melody line in the second song which you hear again in the 10th song.

“It’s a complete musical journey.”

The Into The Machine prog series, which appears on FreqsTV’s YouTube channel, has previously featured Leprous, Between The Buried And Me and Opeth.

Meanwhile, Haken have also confirmed they will be playing at The Garage in London’s Highbury on May 26.

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.