The Great Collection Rediscovery

I often see this one praised as the band's best too, but like you, I'm not seeing it.

Album: Aquarius

Old Rating: 5/5

Verdict: Finally getting some Haken in this project and what better place to start with than their debut album. I actually have the CD-R of their demo that I got by contacting the band which I do count as part of my collection, but I heard and had this first and it's still the record I look back most fondly on. A great prog debut. 

New Rating: No Change. 

Album: Salt

Old Rating: 4.5/5

Verdict: Salt is Wuthering Height's still most recent album even after ten years, which is a shame because this was one of the best power metal bands of the time going into the last decade, with five strong albums under their belt. They easily could have been the power metal band of the 2010s. While I have always held the most preference to their middle album Far From the Madding Crowd (yeah, these guys really have a thing about 1800's novels), I'm very fond of Salt as well, though never quite manage to give it five stars. Not this time either.

New Rating: No Change. 

Album: Concealed

Old Rating: 5/5

Verdict: My favourite death metal album. Few death metal albums even come close to being able to touch this. It's aggressive and technical, never one dimensional, and most importantly, is unusual. The closest I've come to hearing another death metal album that sounds anything close to this in the sixteen year time since its release is Empire de Mu's 2020 debut and they feature an ex-Augury member from this album. Even Augury's own following albums don't really compare. 

New Rating: No Change (phantom sixth star).

Album: Fragmentary Evidence

Old Rating: 4.5/5

Verdict: I remember how stoked I was to pick this album up brand new for a low price. I believe I actually had it before Concealed, which was harder to get. I have historically said that Fragmentary Evidence is a step down from the debut because I wasn't ever really into its opening song and I still think that song is a weak cut next to everything else on the album. Thing is I've got to jump the rating on this one up to a full five as the rest of the album makes this one of the few death metal records that even stands a chance against their own debut for me, which means despite one weaker song its still one of the best DM albums I've heard. 

New Rating: 5/5

Album: Affinity

Old Rating: 4.5/5

Verdict: This is still the most recent Haken album I've purchased. I've heard both Vector and Virus and always meant to pick up the former but it keeps getting put on the back burner. I wasn't immediately impressed by Virus and haven't given that a second stream yet. Affinity though is still pretty good, but easily ranked fourth of my four Haken albums. 1985 is probably my favourite track from it. 

New Rating: No Change. 

Album:  The Female of the Species

Old Rating: 4.5/5

Verdict: This is one of those albums I originally gave a fair but not completely glowing review to that's against expectations become a release that I keep going back to. Nachtlieder (a German name but a Swedish artist) is a solo female black metal act that plays fairly by the book, perhaps the thing most off from the cold, necro template being the growling vocal style forgoing anything really shrill. I genuinely thought this would be an album I would forget about after a while, but it never happened. I even bought it and it's enjoyed a fair bit of rotation since then, this being, according to Last.fm, my 15th spin. It just hits the spot every time. I currently rate her next album Lynx higher but we'll see how that goes as well before I fiddle with the ratings for these. It really isn't fair off being worth the fill five stars even now.

New Rating: No Change, not just yet anyway. 

Album: Lynx

Old Rating: 5/5

Verdict: A bit more aggressively delivered than the previous album which does hit a certain spot, I'm still really torn over which of these two Nachtlieder albums is actually better. Historically Lynx has had stronger first impressions hence it's higher rating from me but it's still too new to really know if its standing the test of time as well as The Female of the Species. 

New Rating: No Change. 

Album: Lost in the New Real

Old Rating: 5/5

Verdict: I haven't quite finished the current listen to this since it's been going as a chunk at a time in various car trips for several days, but I've played Lost in the New Real so much that it's unlikely anything will change how I view the album. I actually have more logged Last.fm scrobbles of it than I do for all but two Ayreon albums (and one of those is The Theory of Everything which seems destined to become my top Last.fm album by virtue of the amount of tracks). It's an album that is very much in two parts, the first disc being the concept album and what I've played the most of the album (over twenty times for the first disc) and the second disc being deleted scenes and covers, which I haven't played as often but still contains some excellent material. Not as metal as Lucassen's main body of work (though it has its moments including a metal cover of Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine), instead drawing on practically everything that has ever defined him as a musician, this has stood the test of time since it's 2012 release and become one of my favourite Arjen Lucassen albums. 

New Rating: No Change. 

Yes agree, that's a great album. Have it on vinyl.