LIAM’S LISTENING ROOM – 25/3/25

Back again with another listening room episode! As always I’m going to be covering my favourite metal album from this past week, as well as my general listening habits, including some picks that are outside the metal genre! So let’s get into it.

Tiktaalika – Gods of Pangaea

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My pick of the week was pretty easy this time round. The new Warbringer was the only album that really came close to topping it but I’ve gravitated back to this album so much more often. I’ve been a fan of this side project from Haken guitarist Charlie Griffiths since the debut album was released back in 2022. That album blew me away and I have come back to it regularly since, it was an absolutely epic journey where the songs flowed perfectly into one another and encompassed everything I love about progressive metal, its influences reaching from Megadeth to Devin Townsend, Dream Theater, and it kept a few traces of Haken’s sound in it too. This album is a much less ambitious effort when it comes to scale, and that is not meant as a negative. It is instead focusing on just being an album full of absolutely amazing riffs and a strong willingness to just have a good time. The Megadeth influence really comes out to the forefront this time round, and with a few lead lines, especially in the title track, I definitely picked up some nods to modern Iron Maiden aswell, along with obviously some of the prog metal sensibilities that Charlie is known for. Charlie’s guitar playing is predictably phenomenal, and the vocal performances from Daniel De Jongh, Vladimir Lalic and Tommy Giles (vocalist of Between the Buried and Me, another prog outfit that I absolutely love) are all killer. While I’m not sure if I like this album as much as the debut, this is still a stellar effort and one that is definitely going to keep me returning, in terms of a rating it scores a 4/5, potentially leaning towards a 4.5/5.

My general listening habits

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In terms of where I’ve been at with my general consumption of music, I’ve been really leaning into the more moody side of things. I recently bought a ticket to see Katatonia in December, and was really sad to hear of the departure of Anders Nystrom from the band. I hope he gets back soon with a new project and that him and Jonas will be continuing with Bloodbath, because it would be sad to lose that band as a result of this. Since that announcement I have been coming back to two Katatonia albums in particular, and those albums are “Dead End Kings”, and their newest album “Sky Void of Stars”. The former has become my favourite Katatonia album since I got into them, and I always come back to it when I’m in the mood to feel a bit miserable for an hour. The latter was extremely high on my year end list for 2023 and I think only missed out on the top 2 thanks to Cattle Decapitation and Haken, and I have been coming back to it regularly since its release. I love Jonas Renske’s vocal delivery across their whole discography, as well as his really interesting approach when it comes to vocal cadences, with patterns that are sometimes a bit outside the box in a conventional sense, but they work absolutely perfectly with the mood of the song and the riffs. I love Katatonia and I cannot wait to see them in December, and I hope that things are OK between Anders and Jonas and both are able to thrive in their respective projects.

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My non-metal listening habits have involved me going through my favourites from Depeche Mode, not necessarily focusing on any particular album, but especially going through my favourite era of the band, which would be the 11 year period from “Black Celebration” to “Ultra”. Depeche Mode have been in my life since I was very young, with my dad introducing me to them. As the years went by I started loving them more and more and since I was a teenager they have become one of my favourite bands of all time. I love most of their discography, but this is the era I find myself returning to the most. 

My album pick for this week is another Haken-related project, this time being the solo album from vocalist Ross Jennings, “A Shadow of my Future Self”. 

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This album holds a very special place in my heart and I played it to death in the first year that it came out, the CD was literally in my car for over a year before I finally took it back inside! I’m not sure what the pandemic did to Ross but it resulted in 2 straight years of absolutely smashing it out of the park with his songwriting, with every single track on here being a perfect example of how to craft great, memorable, meaningful and emotionally cathartic pop-rock and acoustic rock, and also with his subsequent albums from his other side project with Nick D’Virgillio and Neal Morse featuring some of his best songwriting, and with Haken’s newest effort “Fauna” being an absolute powerhouse in modern progressive metal. Every song on “A Shadow of my Future Self” is absolutely incredible, but my favourite tracks on this album include “Feelings”, “Rocket Science”, “Grounded” and his cover of Dua Lipa’s “Be the One”, which I actually prefer to the original track and I think goes to show how the song was probably written before being shoved through the radio-pop filter. I was fortunate to see Ross perform a few of these tracks in 2022 as part of an acoustic set at Cambridge Junction, when he supported Devin Townsend on an acoustic mini-tour just after his headlining shows at the Royal Albert Hall the previous week (one of which I also attended), and I also got to meet him at the merch stand, where I bought  a shirt and the debut album from D’Virgillio, Morse and Jennings. I’ve met him outside Haken shows a couple of times since then and he’s been an absolutely top guy both times. I don’t know what his plans are in regard to another solo album, but if he’s working on one then I can’t wait to hear it! If he’s able to find some time between all his other projects, then another solo show would be pretty cool to see too. 

And that is it for this week, I tried to make it a bit shorter this time round as I’m conscious of keeping the rambling down to a minimum. I have no idea if I’ve succeeded in that or not! As always, I would love to hear some recommendations from anyone who reads this, and I’ll be back again next week!