Review: Hesken – Architect of Chaos

Style: Progressive metal, melodic metalcore, death-ish metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Trivium, Opeth, Bullet for My Valentine (?), Tool (??)
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: 5 April 2024

See, when it comes to music from my own country, and more specifically, progressive metal from my own country, I am 100% a hater. Ever since seemingly every band we’ve ever given a negative score banded together under Tom de Wit’s post about my critical Dreamwalkers Inc review, I vowed to myself to cut the pretense and become the pettiest, most villainous hater out there. IT WAS ME BARRY, I WENT BACK IN TIME TO MAKE YOU MISS THAT BASEBALL CATCH, I KILLED YOUR MOTHER, I JACKED YOU OFF AT SUPERSPEED SO YOU CAME INSTANTLY WHEN YOUR CRUSH TOUCHED YOUR LEG IN HIGH SCHOOL. Is it deserved? Not really. Is it funny? Hell yeah. My latest victim? A poor band called Hesken who had nothing to do with any of it.

Unfortunately, I can recognize the potential this group has. Their riff game is very strong (something especially notable on “Fearful Leaders”), the guitar solos are well crafted, and they show some genuinely awesome songwriting ideas—see for example the build up two minutes into “The Seeker,” the phrygian scale riffs and bouncy rhythms of “Conspiracy,” or the furious thrash riffs of “Desolation.” But the problem is, Hesken don’t come any further than good ideas. The compositions as a whole fall flat. Hesken for the life of them cannot seem to settle on a style to embrace. One moment they’re playing rhythmic tech prog, then they’re playing thrashy 00s melodic metalcore, then we’ve fallen into Tool worship with a mediocre Maynard impersonation (see: “Conspiracy”), and every damn song seems obligated to include at least one section of Opeth worship whether it makes sense or not (looking at you, “Fearful Leaders”). A good band will use their influences to accentuate their sound, but Hesken merely throws shit at the wall and hope it sticks. If you’re an acclaimed porn author disguised under the pretense of high brow literature like Jan Wolkers, you can get away with that (he once made a painting with cow feces as a joke that is still displayed in a museum), but Hesken, you aren’t there yet.

Take “Fearful Leaders” for example, which at first seems like a cool—albeit loosely connected—riff salad, but then halfway through it loses the plot with a weird broken up breakdown riff and then…nothing? Oh, we’re doing Opeth, I guess. The way they transition out of it is cool but it might as well have been a different song because it doesn’t  build on earlier motifs at all. “Desolation” is also a mess of a song, going on a Dream Theater-esque instrumental tangent three minutes in with a multitude of great ideas, but again, unconnected to earlier song motifs, so the result is essentially a jam session. It’s a good jam session—the post-rock build up being especially well done—but good songwriting it is not. Opener “The Seeker” and poorly capitalized “Dawn of the new age” are the most cohesive songs on Architect of Chaos, but overall, the songwriting resembles the album title a little too closely for my liking, and not in a good way.

And I’m not done hating yet, NO. Whenever you think Hesken are onto something and string cool riffs together in a way that makes sense, their vocalist will be sure to ruin it. His singing is too coarse to pass as melodic and too weak to pass as visceral, so he ends up sounding like a “worst of both worlds” dollar store (of voor de Nederlanders onder ons, Dirk huismerk) version of Chester Bennington with a touch of bad 00s emo/post-hardcore. The lines he sings are good, and the melodies well constructed, he just needs more vocal practice to make it work. His harsher, hardcore shouts on the other hand are pretty decent BUT YOU DIDN’T HEAR THAT FROM ME WE’RE ONLY HATING HERE OKAY?! And the vocals aren’t the only thing that’s coarse because the production is thoroughly mediocre, doing little more than the bare minimum of making each instrument audible. 

Beneath the rubble, I fear that there is actually a great band lying dormant here. If Hesken can convert their influences into a cohesive sound of their own, great things could very well be on the horizon. However, if they don’t, I will be there on the sidelines saying “told you so.” WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN. Don’t let The Netherlands be great again.

Recommended tracks: The Seeker, Conspiracy
You may also like: Obsidian Tide, Pressure Points
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Hesken is:
– Harmen Verheij (vocals, guitars)
– Sven Evertse (guitars)
– Marijn Van Vilsteren (bass)
– Richard Pol (drums)