Well, it's all happening this evening at the student’s union. In the main Academy, the regions punk pensioners are on day release from their respective nursing homes in order to witness the umpteenth miraculous resurrection of Stiff Little Fingers. Upstairs in the pokey Academy Three, Indie upstarts The Rolling People are repackaging Britpop for the next generation and downstairs in the club Academy…. Well to be honest I'm not sure what the fuck is happening downstairs, but it has attracted a gaggle of younglings young enough to be my grandkids, in various states of undress and off their tits on Ketamine. It's a rare beast when the metal crowd is the normal bunch, but those of us winding our way up to the old debating hall for a Haken and Between the Buried and Me double-header seem positively conservative in our attire compared to some of the revellers cavorting around the building.

New Yorkers Cryptodira are shoved on stage almost as soon as the doors open, which means that they have the dubious pleasure of serenading the rapidly assembling throng. As you would expect from the company they are keeping on this jaunt around Europe they are resolutely prog metal, however they still manage to sound distinctly different from their tour mates. They don't go down the intensity route favoured by Between the Buried and Me, nor do they take the accessibility avenues occupied by Haken.They utilise a third way which seems to involve accelerating and then decelerating in pace in an intermittent pattern. There are passages where they are ponderously introspective, but then they flip on a dime, and everything becomes snarly and rigorously corrosive. 

Scott Acquavella, Jeremy Lewis and Mike Monaco all take turns on vocals and trade lines with each other in distinct vocal styles. The mix of gruff death metal style grunts and squealing black metal goblin cries sound like Corpsegrinder from Cannibal Corpse and Attila Csihar of Mayhem having an argument. Overall, it can be summarised that, whilst it is quite difficult to actually stand out from the crowd in progressive metal, Cryptodira achieve the feat by making the decision not to emulate any one facet of the genre. It's quite rare to find a band in this space that doesn't sound like another more well-known act, but fascinatingly this is very much the case with Cryptodira. In a distinct and decidedly crowded market, they manage to sound consummately unique.

Talking of uniqueness, there is really nobody else that sounds or feels like Between the Buried and Me. I've used the similia before but as I haven’t got anything better to say so I will use it again. They are not actually a heavy metal band at all. They are a jazz troupe that just so happens to have decided to flirt with death metal and various others from our plentiful set of subgenres. What they do is simply extraordinary. They balance on top of each other layer upon layer of bludgeoning sound until it becomes a lattice of interlinking sonic opulence. Theirs is a complex hive of ever-changing time signatures and frequencies that just so happens to blend together to create a startlingly rich and evocative wall of sound. What is so enthralling about them as a live proposition is that even though we know the recorded versions of their songs well, their onstage counterparts still feel bewilderingly unfamiliar. I may well know that a particular track is going in a particular direction, however when it happens it still feels intoxicatingly evocative and enthralling.

Their co-headliner status means that whilst they do get a generous chunk of time, they still have to make sacrifices in terms of the material aired. We don't go back any further than 2012's “Parallax II” and the vast majority of the set comes from 2021's “Colors II”. There is very little opportunity to take stock or catch breath with Between the Buried and Me, in many cases the tracks flow into each other like some continuous suite of music. Even when they move from one era to another there still seems to be a seamless transition as the songs blur into one ongoing cacophony of ever-fluctuating sound. 

‘Voice of Trespass’ brings the show to a crescendo and we are off in another completely alien direction, this time 1930’s swing. It is that ability to assimilate completely unrelated genres and styles into the extreme metal mothership that makes Between The Buried And Me such a unique proposition. As I said there is as much free-form jazz (bongos and all) here as there is primal metal, but it all unifies to create something utterly unique but utterly invigorating. There is something reassuring constant in the fact that the band is always this good. The quality and passion never wanes. We are watching a band at the absolute peak of its powers and it’s just incredible.

Last time Haken played in this grand complex of venues it was upstairs in the tiny room currently swaying to The Rolling People's faithful interpretations of indie classics. They left the stage with the heartfelt plea "can we play the big room next” and their rock 'n' roll dreams have come true as they are indeed in larger confines and they have absolutely filled the place. Visually they seem to have got a job lot of floral print safari shirts and to be absolutely honest I'm not sure whether this eBay bargain was influenced by the new record cover or vice versa. This tour is not just about the new album, due to the clusterfuck that was covid they have not just one but two collections of virgin material to bring to our attention, and 2020’s dark and complex masterpiece “Virus” is actually given more airtime than its younger sibling “Fauna”.

The fascinating thing about watching Haken is realising how far they have come and how much they have evolved over the last nineteen years (I think we are odds-on due a 20th-anniversary tour next year). From a slightly nervous niche act, they have become an incredibly competent and slick machine that manages to ooze charisma and professionalism. They make the intricate complexity of the material seem remarkably simple. With Between the Buried and Me you feel you are watching something un-earthly and unreplicable, but with Haken there's a real feeling of grounded reality. Yes, the songs have multiple passages, but they feel accessible and at times even commercial.

Part of this is due to the affability and humility of Ross Jennings. When they were giving out rockstar egos he was in the loo, as he seems completely devoid of any of the highfalutin trappings that you associate with frontmen. He may well lord it over a rampant and reverent crowd, but he does so with a distinctly unassuming nature. He also possesses the most astonishing set of pipes. His voice is rich and luxurious and gives their pulsating brand of prog a real feel of emotional resonation. During ‘Falling Back to Earth’ (the most vintage song aired by a long while) the entire band joins in on bewitching harmonies creating an aura of sumptuous musicality. The only other “classic” track aired is ‘The Endless Knot’ which summons a highly impressive circle pit that engulfs a good proportion of the venue. Ross uses the aforementioned track to introduce the return of original member Peter Jones on keys.

You know we are in prog territory when the last track is introduced a good 20 minutes before curfew. Actually, ‘Messiah Complex’ is more a movement than a song, comprising of five individual sections. It is a sprawling but precise piece of music that moves from euphoric highs to dense insular lows. It very much sets out the stall for the modern incarnation of Haken and shows that they have moved far beyond being a generic prog metal outfit and are now leading lights and innovators within the genre.  Tonight, it felt like they stepped up another gear and that they are now on a trajectory that could well lead them toward headline status at the main Academy and beyond. There is such a warmth and commercial tinge to what they are doing that the sky's is the limit and mainstream recognition is probably now a case of when rather than if.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Haken, Between The Buried and Me, Cryptodira