HAVEN – Shut Up and Listen review

 HAVEN – Shut Up and Listen

Rock Of Angels Records

http://www.havensweden.com/

Sweden is a country that from the late 90’s up to now has played a major role in heavy metal music. It is a fact that it is the country that has set the trends both in the extreme metal sound (with the melodic death metal genre) and in the traditional metal sound (with all these retro metal bands). This is logical since the bands over there are technically skilled and most of the times very talented. So, HAVEN come from this musical background and their new effort is the full length album entitled “Shut Up and Listen”.

Now that I have listened to it, I think I can speak my mind about it. HAVEN musically move in the melodic power metal genre and they also have a certain dose of hard rock and power metal elements. On the other hand the band doesn’t show the symptoms of the bands that come from their country lately. I mean they don’t have any retro metal references. On the contrary the band tries to combine the traditional with the modern metal elements under a dynamic production (which for me is a bit plastic, I would rather prefer a more natural sound).

Major part in the sound of HAVEN or more properly the instrument that gives something extra to their sound is the keyboards, which at times sounds melodic and other times gives an epic – pompous feeling. Also in the rhythm section you will find a lot of grooves which also creates a canvas upon which the lead guitars and keyboards can create the character of each song.

“Shut up and Listen” for me was a nice album to listen to. It was very pleasant if you prefer this style, but it lacks of songs that can stand out and make me listen to it again and again. There is though an exception to this rule and these are the songs “Living Our Dream” and “Warlord Warrior”. HAVEN is a very talented band and in the future I will expect even more from them. For now check out the album and make your own decision about it.

Nick “Verkaim” Parastatidis