Haken has released the details for their seventh studio album, Fauna. The album is set to release through InsideOutMusic on March 03rd. Along with the news, the first single from the album, “The Alphabet Of Me” was released with a video, which can be found below.
Ross Jennings, the band’s vocalist offered:
“When composing and presenting initial song sketches, we very much had an “anything goes” mentality, and whilst sounding atypically Haken, it was a piece that was all exciting us to explore and integrate into our song canon.
Where the lyrics are concerned, I leant heavily on one of my favourite writers Philip K Dick, for inspiration. Keeping our loose concept of spirit animals in mind, I re-read ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep?’ (Which would later be adapted into the 1982 film ’Blade Runner’) knowing symbolically that animals played a key role in the story.
This, along with revisiting both movies from the Blade Runner franchise, opened up some deeper philosophical topics about the nature of identity which have served as a backbone for the lyrical content.”
He continued:
“The premise of the album when we started writing it was that every song would have an animal assigned to it. They all have something related to the animal kingdom that we could write about, but they also connect to the human world. Each track has layers, and some of them are more obvious than others.”
Richard Henshall, the band’s guitarist, added:
“It reminds me of ‘The Mountain‘. There, we had the idea of not really a narrative-based album, but more the concept of climbing a mountain and overcoming the obstacles along the way. Then we took that and thought about how it could relate to our everyday lives. All of Fauna’s animals relate to us, personally.”
The band welcomed their keyboardist Pete Jones back into the band this past January. Jennings offered the following on Jones‘ effect on the direction of the album:
“What Pete’s brought sonically to the band has played a massive role in why we do have a lot of new sounds on this record. It’s always a new dynamic when there’s a change in personnel, and this is a fresh and reviving one. It’s certainly helped proximity-wise, with Pete being in the country: Pete and Ray [Hearne, Haken’s drummer] would be at Rich’s place and they’d just start jamming. That’s really key to how the songs start.”
Fauna track listing:
01 – “Taurus”
02 – “Nightingale”
03 – “The Alphabet Of Me”
04 – “Sempiternal Beings”
05 – “Beneath The White Rainbow”
06 – “Island In The Clouds”
07 – “Lovebite”
08 – “Elephants Never Forget”
09 – “Eyes Of Ebony”
The band will be co-headlining a tour around Europe and the UK with Between The Buried And Me with Cyrptodira providing support. Those dates are:
02/21 Hamburg, GER – Gruenspan
02/22 Leipzig, GER – Werk 2
02/23 Berlin, GER – Heimathafen
02/24 Warsaw, POL – Proxima
02/25 Prague, CZE – Palac Akropolis
02/26 Vienna, AUT – Simm City
02/28 Budapest, HUN – Durer Kert
03/01 Munich, GER – Freiheitshalle
03/02 Karlsruhe, GER – Stadtmitte
03/03 Aarau, SWI – Kiff Saal
03/04 Roncade-Treviso, ITA – New AGE
03/05 Milan, ITA – Alcatraz
03/06 Lyon, FRA – Ninkasi Kao
03/08 Barcelona, SPA – Razzmatazz 2
03/09 Madrid, SPA – Mon
03/10 Murcia, SPA – Garaje
03/11 Seville, SPA – Custom
03/12 Lisbon, POR – Lisboa ao Vivo
03/13 Porto, POR – Hard Club
03/15 Toulouse, FRA – Connexion Live
03/16 Nantes, FRA – Ferrailleur
03/17 Paris, FRA – Alhambra
03/19 Esch-sur-Alzette, LUX – Rockhal
03/20 Cologne, GER – Burgerhaus Stollwerck
03/21 Antwerp, BEL – Trix Club
03/22 Tilburg, NET – 013
03/23 Bristol, UK – SWX
03/24 Manchester, UK – Academy 2
03/25 Glasgow, UK – Garage
03/26 London, UK – Shepherds Bush Empire
03/28 Aarhus, DEN – Voxhall
03/29 Oslo, NOR – Rockefeller
03/30 Copenhagen, DEN – Pumpehuset Kransal
03/31 Stockholm, SWE – Fryshuset Klubben
04/02 Tampere, FIN – Olympia-Kortelli
04/03 Helsinki, FIN – Vanha Ylioppilastalo
04/05 Gothenburg, SWE – Pustervik
