Restoration

Restoration is the first studio EP by British progressive metal band Haken. It was released on 27 October 2014. It is the first Haken release to feature Conner Green as bassist, following the departure of Thomas MacLean the previous year.

Despite not officially being a single, the track "Darkest Light" was released with a music video on 24 September 2014, over a month before the release of the EP.

Basis

The EP contains three re-worked tracks from the band's 2008 demo, Enter the 5th Dimension. On the matter, Charlie Griffiths stated that it would have felt "musically redundant and dishonest" to simply re-record the tracks, as himself, Diego Tejeida and Conner Green were not present on the 2008 demo. To him, simply using the demo tracks as a base gave the band free reign to re-imagine them and make them relevent to the band's contemporary sound.

Production

According to the band, a remake or re-issue of Enter the 5th Dimension was a common fan request, so the main concept of re-working tracks from the 2008 demo had been on the table for some time. Restoration as we know it began production shortly after Conner Green was brought into the band and was originally devised as an experiment to see how Conner would mesh musically and sonically with the rest of the band.

The promotional track, "Darkest Light" is based on Blind, the opening track to the 2008 demo. As well as this, "Earthlings" is based on the song "Black Seed" and "Crystallised" is based on "Snow," the closing track and 'epic' of the 2008 demo.

For a bit of fun, former Dream Theater dummer Mike Portnoy was invited to make a cameo on the EP. The band would go on to start a contest, giving away band merchandise for whoever could guess Portnoy's role on the album. The eventual winner was Fredrik Martinsen, who guessed Portnoy's role, playing the gong on the EP's final track, "Crystallised," correctly.

Tracklist

Pos.	Song Title	Length
	Total Length:	33:59
1.	"Darkest Light"	6:43
2.	"Earthlings"	7:51
3.	"Crystallised"	19:22

Personnel

Haken

Ross Jennings - vocals
Richard Henshall - guitars
Charlie Griffiths - guitars, keyboards
Diego Tejeida - keyboards, sound design
Conner Green - bass
Raymond Hearne - drums

Additional Personnel

Pete Rinaldi - acoustic guitar on "Crystallised"
Mike Portnoy - gong on "Crystallised"

Production and Design

Jerry Guidroz - recording (gong)
Anthony Leung - recording (drums)
Jens Bogren - mixing, mastering
Blacklake - artwork, design

Quotes from the Band

"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."

-Ross Jennings

"Mike Portnoy has been very generous with his support for the band since we released The Mountain last year. As if the man wasn't busy enough, we thought it would be nice to feature a little cameo performance from him (just for a bit of fun really) and it's flattering to now be at the stage where a musician of Mike's calibre is so willing to get involved with six guys who have always been great admirers of his music."

-Ray Hearne

"I'm terribly excited to have played bass on 'Restoration'. The rest of the guys in the band are absolutely mental musicians, and I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from them"

-Conner Green

Trivia

Restoration is the shortest EP and shortest release by the band, being 11 minutes shorter than their shortest album, Vector and 14 minutes shorter than their live EP, L+1VE.
The seven birds on the album's back cover represent the band's recent line-up change, with one bird flying away from the tree and another flying towards. The tree present on the back cover also pays homage to the album cover of Enter the 5th Dimension.
The ResTOURation 2014 tour was the first to use wordplay based on the word "tour" in its' name, continuing with the AffiniTOUR in 2017 and Summer VecTOUR in 2019.
Due to its length, the UK's Official Charts Company officially classes Restoration as an album, not an EP.