Black Aces Hellbound (ep) (2014)

Progressive rock/metal, despite having its roots planted in an ideology encouraging the forward-thinking (hence the name, genius), is occasionally brought to stagnation by groups believing it to be a Dream Theater imitation contest. It’s one of the many reasons why Haken, a band of tremendous skill and creativity, has outshined the greater part of the casuals. The nineteen-minute colossus concluding “Restoration” ends with Ross Jennings serenading, “Escaping the past by embracing the future,” which epitomizes the foundation of the band’s first EP. “Restoration” contains three cuts based on Haken’s primordial demo, reworked and updated to fit the group’s progression; not a mere rerelease or rerecording. It’s kind of like knowing a dude who shows up one day completely jacked and huge - these tracks have done their deadlifts.

Rïah Sahïltaahk is listed by most sources as a new studio album by Magma but it is in fact simply a re-recording of the first track of the same name from their second album. Apparently, Magma’s leader, Christian Vander, was never satisfied with the original 21-minute arrangement of Rïah Sahïltaahk that appeared on 1971’s "1001 Degrees Centigrades". Thus, over 40 years later, he has set out to rectify the situation. And the result? There are plenty of familiar passages throughout this 24-minute version. However, Vander has broken up the original single-track piece into seven separately-named tracks. Also gone are the horns of the 1971 recording, notably the distinctive bass clarinet of Yochk’o Seffer. In the place of the brass and woodwinds, we get guitar, vibraphone, and female vocals. All in all, not a bad tradeoff. Also, due to modern technology, this EP has a cleaner, clearer mix than the original.