Following the release of Haken's album, The Mountain, last year, plus plenty of touring and even three nominations at this year's Progressive Music Awards, the London-based progressive metallers have announced the release of the digital-only Restoration EP in North America on November 11th.

The official music video for "Darkest Light" can be seen below. Says the band: ""Darkest Light" was our first chance to work creatively with our new bass player Conner Green. It was a natural fit right from the start as not only did he bring with him some insanely cool bass playing, but also a great positive energy that made the whole Restoration EP incredibly fun to make."

Ray adds: ""Darkest Light" is based on "Blind", one of our favourite tracks from the original 07/08 demo. We've managed to chop the old song in half, cut away all the excess fat and produce a 6-minute rowdy riff roller-coaster that will surely find a home in the heavier side of our live show."

Restoration is comprised of three reworked and updated songs which originally appeared on their 2007/08 self-produced demo, and the release has been mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios.

Vocalist Ross Jennings explains: "Redoing a few of our favourite tracks from the demo is something we've talked about doing for ages and the fans have been asking for it constantly. We were also excited about working creatively with our new bassist Conner Green, so this seemed like the perfect way to welcome him aboard."

Guitarist Charlie Griffiths continues: "Merely re-recording the demo songs would have felt musically redundant and dishonest, since three of us didn't play on the original recordings. The band's sound has evolved considerably in the last few years so we used the demo tracks as a starting point and gave ourselves free reign to reimagine them and make them relevant to who we are today. These are now the definitive versions and we couldn't be happier with how they turned out."

Tracklisting:

 

"Darkest Light"
"Earthlings"
"Crystallised"

The final track is a no holds barred epic including guest cameo appearances by Pete Rinaldi (Headspace) and Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic / Flying Colors).

The band also recently announced a run of UK and Irish dates with label-mates Leprous and Maschine for later this year. This will be the band's biggest run of dates in their own country yet.

 

 

Haken, Leprous and Maschine tour dates:

October

2 - London, England - The Garage
24 - Leamington Spa, England - Assembly
26 - Bristol, England - The Fleece
27 - Wolverhampton, England - Robin 2
29 - Dublin, Ireland - The Village
30 - Liverpool, England - O2 Academy 2
31 - Manchester, England - Club Academy

November

1 - Edinburgh, Scotland - The Liquid Room
2 - York, England - The Duchess