HAKEN have announced their seventh studio album ‘Fauna’, their most genre-busting and conceptually fascinating album to date, due out on March 3rd, 2023. Now, the band are thrilled to announce tour dates for their North American Fauna Expedition for 2023. The tour will begin on May 3rd in Nashville, TN and conclude on June 3rd in Chicago, IL. Arch Echo will be joining the run as support.
The band have this message for fans: “We had such a great time in North America earlier this year, and can’t wait to return for a headline tour with our new album – Fauna!”
“Fauna Expedition” Tour Dates:
Wed, May 3 – Nashville – TBA
Thu, May 4 – Cleveland – House of Blues
Fri, May 5 – Toronto – Opera House
Sat, May 6 – Montreal – Corona Theater
Sun, May 7 – Quebec City – Imperial Bell
Tue, May 9 – Boston – Paradise
Wed, May 10 – Philadelphia – TLA
Thu, May 11 – NYC – Le Poisson Rouge
Fri, May 12 – DC – The Black Cat
Sat, May 13 – Charlotte – Underground
Mon, May 15 – Fort Lauderdale – Culture Room
Tue, May 16 – Orlando – The Beacham
Wed, May 17 – Atlanta – Terminal West
Fri, May 19 – Dallas – Granada Theater
Sat, May 20 – Austin – Come and Take it Live
Sun, May 21 – El Paso – Lowbrow Palace
Mon, May 22 – Phoenix – The Nile
Tue, May 23 – San Diego – Brick by Brick
Wed, May 24 – LA – Regent Theater
Thu, May 25 – San Francisco – August Hall
Fri, May 26 – Portland – Hawthorne Theater
Sat, May 27 – Seattle – Neptune Theater
Sun, May 28 – Vancouver – Rickshaw Theater
Tue, May 30 – SLC – Commonwealth Room
Wed, May 31 – Denver – Gothic Theater
Thu, June 1 – Lawrence – Granada Theater
Fri, June 2 – Minneapolis – Fine Line
Sat, June 3 – Chicago – Concord Music Hall
The announcement of the new album was accompanied with the new single “The Alphabet of Me”, the second track taken from the record. Watch the music video, directed by Crystal Spotlight, below.
Vocalist Ross Jennings comments: “When composing and presenting initial song sketches, we very much had an “anything goes” mentality, and whilst sounding atypically Haken, it was a piece that was all exciting us to explore and integrate into our song canon. Where the lyrics are concerned, I lent heavily on one of my favorite writers Philip K Dick, for inspiration. Keeping our loose concept of spirit animals in mind, I re-read ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep?’ (Which would later be adapted into the 1982 film ’Blade Runner’) knowing symbolically that animals played a key role in the story. This, along with revisiting both movies from the Blade Runner franchise, opened up some deeper philosophical topics about the nature of identity which have served as a backbone for the lyrical content”
“Fauna” sees the band exploring new ideas conceptually as Ross continues. “The premise of the album when we started writing it was that every song would have an animal assigned to it. They all have something related to the animal kingdom that we could write about, but they also connect to the human world. Each track has layers, and some of them are more obvious than others.”
“It reminds me of ‘The Mountain’,” adds guitarist and fellow founder Richard Henshall. “There, we had the idea of not really a narrative-based album, but more the concept of climbing a mountain and overcoming the obstacles along the way. Then we took that and thought about how it could relate to our everyday lives. All of Fauna’s animals relate to us, personally.”
“Fauna” also marks the return of keyboard player Peter Jones, whose sounds can be heard permeating the entire album. “What Pete’s brought sonically to the band has played a massive role in why we do have a lot of new sounds on this record,” says Ross. “It’s always a new dynamic when there’s a change in personnel, and this is a fresh and reviving one. It’s certainly helped proximity-wise, with Pete being in the country: Pete and Ray [Hearne, Haken’s drummer] would be at Rich’s place and they’d just start jamming. That’s really key to how the songs start.”
“Fauna” will be available on several formats, including Ltd 2CD (incl. instrumentals), Standard CD, Gatefold 2LP & as Digital Album. The albums stunningly detailed artwork was created by Dan Goldsworthy (Charlie Griffiths, Sylosis).
“Fauna” Album Artwork
Pre-order now HERE.
“Fauna” track-listing:
1. Taurus 04:49
2. Nightingale 07:24
3. The Alphabet of Me 05:33
4. Sempiternal Beings 08:23
5. Beneath The White Rainbow 06:45
6. Island In The Clouds 05:45
7. Lovebite 03:49
8. Elephants Never Forget 11:07
9. Eyes Of Ebony 08:32
