Haken 'Vector' Breakdown

Updated: Dec 26, 2019

A breakdown of Haken’s album ‘Vector’ - released on October 26th 2018

Haken’s new album Vector has been described by Charlie Griffiths as the most ‘riff-driven’ the band has ever been, and I don’t think anyone could argue otherwise. Vector is actually my favourite Haken album. While it only holds one song in my top 5, Vector earns its place because of the album as a whole; the artwork, the narrative, the riffs, the dark tone, and the fact that the whole thing is a step forward for Haken, while remaining true to their style. It also seems to be a hunting ground for easter eggs and story progression throughout the entire Haken discography.

Vector actually led way to the first album 6 speculation I’ve seen (yes, the day album 5 was released, people were talking about album 6!). The speculation was about album titles, and how the first three studio albums were Aquarius, Visions and The Mountain, then if we put the EP ‘Restoration’ to one side, we had Affinity, then Vector, and so naturally album 6 may have ‘M’ in the beginning of its title. I like this theory, it doesn’t amount to much but I think that it’s quite cool. I would have also liked to have heard maybe a few ‘Enter the 5th Dimension’ references in Vector, with it being their 5th studio album, although we have had Restoration and the references may have been out of place in Vector, so I’m just as glad that they didn’t do it.

The opening track ‘Clear’ is one of the best opening tracks I’ve heard yet; the short instrumental of 1.57 is a perfect introduction to the rest of the album, it has a very dark tone, repetitive droning, and an amazing build up to a great transition into The Good Doctor, really ‘clear’ (no pun intended) Halloween vibes, considering this album dropped very close to Halloween time. Clear also oddly reminds me of ‘Affinity.exe’ from the previous ‘Affinity’ album, both are instrumentals, and both have a great and incredibly tense build up to the next song, on top of this, they both really set the tone for the rest of the album. More than anything, they get you excited for what’s to come. In the grand scheme of Vector, ‘Clear’ doesn’t get enough attention, I mean as soon as I heard the first note in ‘Clear’ I knew it was a step in the right direction for Haken. Not only that, but there really are grounds for speculation on what Clear means to the entire album. Pointed out by a user in one of the Haken groups on Facebook, ‘Clear’ is what is shouted before you try and shock someone back to life. I can’t believe this went unnoticed for so long. The same person went on to explain how this might feed into the overall theory surrounding Vector, and that possibly it was the boy from ‘Visions’ after being shot, with paramedics possibly trying to resuscitate him, and this memory perhaps was one he retained. Pointed out by another user was an idea that perhaps Visions basically didn’t at all happen, and that a boy woke up after seeing a premonition of his own death, went his whole life trying to find the killer and stop him before he could kill him but in doing this, he ended up killing a random kid, who he thought was a younger him, along the way of the whole Visions, the boy/man has went almost psychotic and of course, after killing a random kid and saying that you were trying to stop a killer from killing a younger version of yourself, you would be taken to a mental institution, somewhere like Mountview Institution?

The Good Doctor is the next track, initially released as a single prior to the full album release. I actually avoided EVERYTHING to do with Vector before the full release, teaser videos, promotional posts, I went on a Haken hiatus, because I wanted to listen to the full drop all in one, I wanted everything to be a surprise, and it was totally worth the wait; especially ‘The Good Doctor’ which took a long time for me to get out of my head. The Good Doctor fulfills on the darkness that was promised with ‘Clear’ but also has a really memorable ‘catchy’ element to it (and I hate using the word catchy because it seems upbeat, and The Good Doctor is...not). The chorus/bridge in The Good Doctor is amazing, it’s really gritty, and not ‘dark’ but really puts you right there in Mountview Institution. The vocals for it are also amazing, Ross has a great voice for it and really sounds melancholy. The song is from the perspective of (the ‘antagonist’?) Dr. Rex. The good Dr. Rex seems to have an unhealthy obsession with one patient in particular: patient 21 (as I will refer to him). As described in the song, while 20 inmates are screaming in their cells, one is silent (patient 21). It goes on to describe him as an ‘unusual case’ and goes from ‘psychotic’ to ‘catatonic’. The Good Doctor then looks him up and down and tells him that it’s ‘time for a game’. This line leads into the chorus pretty well, it’s really ominous and that’s what makes me think Rex is actually an ‘antagonist’ in this. Some other lyrics that stand out in this song and start the theories of patient 21 turning into a cockroach are: ‘Bring an empire to its knees’ (obviously referencing Cockroach King) and another line that hints at a ‘Visions’ tie-in: ‘Vague memories of a caved-in broken life’ Obviously the boy/man in Visions has fractured memories because of the dream travel and killing himself/not himself- well the whole thing’s a mess really, and his life does seem pretty caved-in and broken. Ultimately, ‘The Good Doctor’ felt like an instant classic to me.

Puzzle Box is the third song, and this is where

a) Ray’s drumming goes next level (just the beginning for the rest of the album)

b) We clearly switch perspective

The perspective goes from Dr. Rex to patient 21 (or the man from Visions as I and others believe him to be). Puzzle Box kicks in straight away with a distressed riff, which shows the changed perspective, as The Good Doctor was a lot more crazed and violent, puzzle box is more distressed, and depressed, as opposed to the morbid excitement in The Good Doctor. Puzzle Box overall is another very catchy one, I found myself hearing it as I fell asleep sometimes, it really gets into your head, and again grabs your imagination right into Mountview. The song delivers on the disturbed vibe of the previous songs, and the lyrics seem to get a lot darker, and a lot more easter eggs are to be found. The song opens with the lyrics: ‘No escape, I navigate through my cave, Beneath the skin, they keep us in night and day’ this is clearly a reference to the album Visions, specifically the song Mind’s Eye with the lyrics: ‘I’m planning my escape through corners of your mind, where people seem to drop like flies’ obviously the ‘cave under the skin’ is his brain, and he has no escape, similar to how the boy feels in Visions’ Insomnia. The reason I added in the flies reference is because Vector as a whole seems to have an insect theme (particular Cockroaches, a reference to the Mountain, and wider Haken lore). ‘Parasite, leech upon the guilt from all my wrongs Lead me on the pathway to the core’ are the next lyrics, and they again reference Cockroach King and just insects in general, but the fact that he wants something to take away his guilt and wrongs shows that this person has done something awful, like killed himself as a child. The whole song Puzzle Box shows how depressed he is, he knows he has done a terrible thing, and he’s despairing because ultimately, he can’t undo what he has done (queue album 6: Memories, the album that has patient 21/visions boy time travel through his memories to FINALLY stop himself from killing himself? You saw it here first!) The next notable lyrics are: ‘The answer lies beyond the fourth wall My future days are etched into my skull Hanging ever by a tethered body, mind and soul’. As explained by google: ‘The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience’ This could be another line massively referencing Visions, after all, the boy in Visions goes crazy and gets hallucinations, becomes paranoid like people are watching him, like an audience behind the fourth wall. This could be hinting that patient 21 believes he needs to go back into his dream worlds like he did in Visions and find answers that way (queue album 6: Memor- you know what? I’ll leave that there) The line ‘my future days are etched into my skull’ is again a possible reference to Visions (by having his future days etched on his skull, he means he can see the future, much like the boy in Visions), and also brings back the cave imagery we got before of the mind being a cave. ‘Hanging ever by a tethered body’ is another clue in the Visions mystery, as it seems far to similar to the line in Nocturnal Conspiracy: ‘I hang by a thread as the voice in my head takes control’. The song goes on and the next line with some lore behind it is (I think) ‘reflections in the amber to be found’ as the song ‘Nocturnal Conspiracy’ has the line : ‘My ghost in the reflection just witnessed the resurrection’ now this seems small and really a big stretch just now, but it will make sense, but for now, just notice the parallel between the reflections, the resurrection will make sense later I promise. There are then some more easter eggs that tie in The Mountain and actually Crystalised (so I guess I did kind of get some Enter the 5th Dimension reference after all): ‘The path beyond the mountain led me here The answer crystallised in history’ Obviously ‘the path’ referencing the song ‘The Path’ and in the same line referencing the album that features the song ‘The Path’: ‘The Mountain’. And ‘Crystallised’ is the ‘epic’ within the Restoration demo.

*deep breath*

Let’s go again.

‘But now the cracks of time begin to show’ again may reference Visions and the dream/time travel. We’re then given probably one of the best lines in Vector: ‘We lift the veil on what the future holds’ this is so ironic! It doesn’t just indicate more premonitions, further linking it to Visions, but ‘Veil’ is a song that is yet to come on the album, so they’re literally saying, we lift the Veil on what the future holds, and what does the future hold? Veil.. ‘A beast inside of me awakening Alas the consequences of my sins’ The beast that is indicated could be a Cockroach (King?), and the sin in question could be that of Visions. The next meaningful line we get is ‘Paralyzed my golden wings’ - a reference to Cockroach King (‘golden wings’ also features in that song) and honestly it would have been better if instead of ‘Paralyzed’ it said ‘tantalized’, just to give more of an easter egg. The song then goes on to finish, with patient 21 giving in to his mind, and staying trapped with guilt, questioning how time is supposed to heal him when his ‘days are running out’ (possible Insomnia ‘my days are numbered’ reference).

Veil is the ‘epic’ of the album, and it is beautiful. From what I can tell, the story seems to get a bit weird from here. There are two ways to perceive this though, metaphorically or literally. The doctor seems to take the patient to a graveyard, and digs through the dirt to reveal a giant carcass (of a cockroach), meanwhile, the patient is truly depressed but not only blames himself for his own crimes, but blames the doctor for the torture he practices on the patients (21 in particular). The grave is open, the carcass is revealed, and a reference is made, which is what leads me to believe that the cockroach transformation is possibly physical: ‘A tainted ancient auras grave’. ‘Tainted’ is a callback to the chant in the beginning of the Cockroach King. This reference is also made in greater depth later in the song: ‘Keep our tainted kingdom flawless’. ‘Kingdom’ is also a reference to the Cockroach King: ‘Trapped in your kingdom built on greed and guile’. It then seems that the patient is taken under the wings of the doctor (wings again perhaps referencing Cockroach King), as he needs someone to heal him. Then the most obvious reference to Cockroach King here (in my opinion) is the lyric: ‘Teach me how to use those compound eyes’ - compound eyes being what Cockroaches have. This sort of hints at a physical transformation as well. Ultimately Veil is a turning point for the story, and where opinions become divided, as many people refuse to believe in the physical transformation.

Nil by Mouth is the next song and is THE BEST NAME FOR AN INSTRUMENTAL EVER. Mike Portnoy had really high praise for this song and to be honest, at first I didn’t really get it at all. The sound design was pretty good (reminiscent of Visions’ ‘pacman’ style) but it didn’t hit me. Then I listened to it a couple more times and it became one of my favourite instrumentals ever, it is so dark, I began to love it more with every listen. In terms of the storyline I think that Nil by Mouth shows the insanity of both Doctor and patient intensifying, and possibly is the setting for Dr. Rex’s experiment. Overall, Nil by Mouth is a great song.

Host is next, and is a beautiful song that I think gets overlooked too much in Vector. Host begins with the patient being peaceful, feeling cleansed. It seems that the patient may be in the ground, where Dr. Rex dug the grave perhaps: ‘The worms caress my head’. There is then a possible reference to the demo: Enter the 5th Dimension: ‘take me to the 5th sun’. The patient seems to know he is dying, and accepts that. He also knows that he is turning into something new, bringing something new into the world. The patient is now fearless, and is waiting for ‘the earth to be my host’. It is painful, but he no longer feels guilt.

A Cell Divides is another AMAZING song, I can barely fault any song on the album to be honest. It kicks off straight away with the line: ‘The insect comes alive, the amber falls away’ this is what I was talking about before with Puzzle Box and the amber/resurrection. In ‘Nocturnal Conspiracy’ the line: ‘My ghost in the reflection just witnessed the resurrection’ parallels with the line in Puzzle Box: ‘reflections in the amber to be found’. The parallel between these lines could be describing that he is watching himself being reborn (resurrected) as a cockroach. The chorus shows Dr. Rex sees the beauty in what he has created (weather it is literally a Cockroach hybrid, or metaphorically). The lyric: ‘the beauty in the flaw’ could be related back to Visions with the song Mind’s Eye: ‘The beauty of it all, makes no sense to me’. This could mean that the patient doesn’t understand why Dr. Rex is pleased with his work, he doesn’t understand what he has become. Dr. Rex seems to feel a bond with this ‘alien impostor’ and want to keep him ‘safe for now’. Overall, A Cell Divides shows the final transformation between Patient 21 and the cockroach (be it metaphorical or literal). A few other interesting things to point out is ‘Rex’ actually means ‘King’ in Latin. This maybe could be the first and final reference to the Cockroach King we get in Vector. It’s also worth noting that in promotional material for the album and merchandise, there are a tonne of references to other albums. For instance, in the Puzzle Box teasers pre-release, the word ‘V.I.S.I.O.N.S.’ can be seen at the end. I’ll go into a physical breakdown of the vinyl and mediabook in a minute, but there are a few more things I’d like to mention. There have been a few more interesting theories that link it to other albums, like Dr. Rex could previously have created the mermaid from Aquarius, or perhaps the hospital is to protect from the disease that some people think Affinity is about. Lastly, before I break down the physical copies, the instrumental version of A Cell Divides has a secret ending bit which has a melodical call back to Cockroach King.

Physical Breakdown:

The vinyl and the mediabook all have the same content, and it is all very interesting. There are images of notes by companies called ‘V.I.S.I.O.N.S FOUNDATION.’ and ‘ELIXIR PHARMACEUTICALS’. There is also a note somewhere that says: ‘Toxicity levels high -trial affinity study’. The famous crescent fish also appears on the verbal summator test tape. Most of the notes/lyrics appear on paper that have the ‘Mountview Institution’ logo on. In the layout of the institute, you can see two wings: the ‘Crystal Wing’ and the ‘Midas Wing’ - Crystal brings a link to ‘Crystalised’ and Midas a link to ‘Cockroach King’. It’s also worth noting that there are two ‘AO12’ rooms on the map, showing the cells have divided..

I hope you enjoyed the breakdown, I enjoyed studying Vector in more depth, but honestly, take the narrative how you think it should be. I will point out that, ultimately, Haken have said that Vector is open to how the listener interprets it, despite it being possibly the most narrative driven album yet. A lot of the theories are a stretch, but I only put in stuff I thought was worth it. If you have any other ideas/theories that I missed, please do tell me! Thanks for reading, let me know what YOU think!

-James Carstairs

Track Listing: