The Mountain
Cockroach King gives The Mountain an unmistakable personality. Its close vocal patterns, uneasy humour and sharply changing instrumental parts make Haken sound delighted by the possibility of being strange. The song is elaborate, yet the pleasure it offers is direct: every turn has another memorable idea waiting inside it.
That balance runs through the record. Atlas Stone provides a more expansive melodic welcome, allowing Ross Jennings' voice to carry an uplifting feeling while the instruments remain active beneath him. The band can make a complicated passage feel like a song rather than a test of attention. Their technical skill matters because it gives the melodies more room to move, and the vocal arrangements add an identity that belongs to the whole ensemble.
Falling Back to Earth is one of the strongest larger designs. Its heavier patterns create genuine pressure, and the changes in mood give that force a direction beyond the next difficult riff. Pareidolia offers another substantial instrumental journey, with enough contrast to make the heavier passages register as events. The musicians often seem to challenge one another, but they remain attentive to the shape the song needs.
The smaller pieces are essential to the album's effect. Because It's There finds a more immediately graceful route through its ideas, and As Death Embraces reduces the setting to piano and voice. The latter's vulnerability is persuasive because the record has already shown how much noise it could make instead. Jennings can occasionally sound more theatrical than the feeling requires, but his melodic assurance keeps the music connected to a human concern.
Somebody brings the main sequence toward a more direct conclusion. It leaves an impression of a band willing to let an emotional statement have the final word after so much instrumental activity. The Mountain rewards both sides of that ambition. Its unusual passages are imaginative enough to invite close attention, while its strongest tunes make the album welcoming even before the details have fully settled. Cockroach King is the most conspicuous attraction, but the surrounding songs give its eccentricity a convincing place to belong.
