Progressive RockMetal
InsideOut Music · 17 July 2026
The EP runs twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds, unevenly divided on purpose. “in a fever dream” (7:12) and “lotus” (7:22) take fourteen and a half of them between the two, and what is left in the middle are “delirium” (4:04), “eclipsed by you” (3:24) and “bleeding sky” (4:18), three short pieces, a scale that has always been the exception on a Haken record. The titles are lower-case throughout the digital release. In a band that built its name writing long, the two large pieces are the way in and the way out, and the body of the record is taken up by the part that least resembles what the band used to do.
They arrive with the line-up dismantled. Since November 2021 they have lost keyboardist Diego Tejeida, bassist Conner Green and guitarist Charlie Griffiths, and the 5 January 2026 statement announcing the last two called them “irreplaceable”. Four are left: Ross Jennings on vocals, Richard Henshall as sole guitarist, Raymond Hearne on drums and Pete Jones on keyboards. There is no bassist of their own, and the credits say so without disguising it: Bryan Beller, of The Aristocrats, plays on the title track and on “lotus”, and Adam Getgood, formerly of Periphery, on “delirium” and “bleeding sky”; no bass is credited on “eclipsed by you”. The band and George Lever produce, Lever also mixes, and Mike Kalajian masters. The label presents the result as progressive and alternative metal.
What the EP does not have is the two-guitar interplay Haken built their name on: Henshall is credited as the only guitarist. But what the credits let slip is worse: the three short pieces at the centre arrive with nobody from the band on bass — Getgood plays “delirium” and “bleeding sky”, and “eclipsed by you” has no bassist credited at all — and that is exactly the stretch where the EP had to show what it wants to be from here.
The release has come out in pieces over half a year. The title track appeared as a single on 21 May, the full EP on 17 July, September brought a deluxe edition with all five tracks in instrumental form (“return to the fever dream from a whole new perspective”, as the band put it); the CD and the vinyl, the latter in three colours, both came out on 18 September. Five days later they opened a seventeen-date European tour at Razzmatazz 2 in Barcelona, with IHLO supporting on every night.
Rating: 7.5/10
Text by Guillem Cardós