One day I will start keeping better notes, but until then I will continue at times to come across a CD which I am reviewing that I have no recollection of where it came from. It is particularly annoying these days as I get sent so few physical discs. Oh well, even though their site strangely doesn’t appear to be listed on the disc, I managed to track down their website and was immediately confused as they describe themselves as a prog metal act, and that isn’t how I would describe them at all. A quick check into the forums in ProgArchives and it appears the illustrious members of the Prog Metal Team concur, as they have rejected them for inclusion twice.

What Hekz are actually performing, whether they will admit it or not (based on this, their third album), is melodic hard rock with some progressive tendencies here and there. The songs are full of harmony vocals and hooks and are all incredibly polished without losing the edge. One thing I found incredibly annoying, rather like a blackboard being scratched, as there are instances (clear examples being on “The Light Fantastic”) where singer/bassist Matt Young goes for long drawn-out notes and doesn’t quite hit them. He is close, very close, but he’s not quite true. If this was a live gig then he could be forgiven I guess, but he is in a studio so why wasn’t this corrected at the time? To me it really puts the dampeners on what is actually a very fine album indeed – the songs are strong, everyone knows what they are doing and link in well together with some superb interplayed passages, but I can’t get past some of the lead vocals, so doubt I will play this again.

Rating: 4/10

Links:
https://www.hekztheband.com/