Table of contents for Issue 110 in Prog

The pandemic lockdown has afforded me time to revisit my accumulation of Prog magazines: my collection is by no means complete, but is nevertheless a treasure trove of wisdom on this eternally fascinating musical genre. It is wonderful to be reminded of some of the lesser-known bands of Prog’s heyday – Fruupp, Nucleus or Kayak, for example. Continuing on the same theme, it would be great to see articles on bands like Carmen, Gnidrolog or Fusion Orchestra in future issues. But the expertise of the contributors to your magazine often goes unremarked. The writers are witty and engaging, as well as being well-schooled in the music’s history and development. The art directors are spoilt for choice with a plethora of stunning images with which to illustrate the articles. And the…

Drummer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Nick D’Virgilio releases Invisible, his second solo album, via English Electric on June 26. The storyline came about when D’Virgilio (Big Big Train, Spock’s Beard, Genesis, Tears for Fears) worked for Cirque du Soleil. “I was feeling invisible when I started, but that didn’t last long,” he explained. “It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me – but at the beginning, that’s where my brain was at.” Special guests include Jordan Rudess, Paul Gilbert, Tony Levin, Jonas Reingold and Jem Godfrey. Recording was split between D’Virgilio’s hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and London’s Abbey Road Studios – “another dream come true.” He adds: “It has its proggy moments, but I think it is more of a straight rock record.…

British alt-proggers Frost* have announced the launch of Others, a six-track EP that sees keyboardist Jem Godfrey dusting down previously unreleased songs from the band’s Falling Satellites sessions. It’s available to stream now, with a physical release to be included in their 13 Winters box set via InsideOut. A new studio album is also due in September. Godfrey describes the EP’s material as “typical Frost* in that it isn’t typical Frost*.” He explains: “There are some very bombastic, lairy songs on there, but there’s also a simplistic sea shanty set in the 17th century, so we might surprise a few people with these songs. We wanted to get something out there before our fourth album and Others makes a good stepping stone between the two albums. “If we’re going to…

Coronavirus and its associated restrictions continue to affect the plans of a number of prog artists. Steven Wilson had intended to release new album The Future Bites in June, but has delayed the launch until January 2021, citing “unprecedented challenges” rooted in the “grander scale” he was working to. Them Moose Rush’s Dancing Maze album launch has also been moved to June 19. This year’s Ramblin’ Man Fair, ArcTanGent and Winter’s End festivals have all been postponed until 2021 while Radar Fest has moved to October 16-17, 2020. Yes have rescheduled this year’s tour plans to the following year, while Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets and Pendragon have both announced that new dates would replace their original schedule for this year. Big Big Train have cancelled their European tour and…

IN HIS BAND Tribulation, guitarist Jonathan Hultén hurls himself around the stage with manic abandon, more creature than person. But on his debut solo album, Chants From Another Place, he’s embracing the warm tones of choral and folk music while singing about being human. It’s a world away from his day job. “It’s really different,” he admits. “Musically, this is so much about stillness, and in another way, it’s about vocal precision. Whereas in Tribulation, it’s mostly about letting yourself expand, explode, working yourself into ecstasy. It’s like going temporarily insane and really expressing yourself as much as you can physically, until you don’t even know you’re yourself – you’re just one with the music.” Chants From Another Place is all about Jonathan Hultén being himself. A desire to write…

WITH A RICH blend of emotional and industrial tones, Seil Lien conjures a unique sound. It’s one that travels beyond traditional genres to a dream-like, experimental, and progressive musical space. After several years of recording, the band finally released their debut album back in April. Shatter comprises eight songs that beautifully combine different musical sounds with raw human emotion. One of the tracks, A Little While More, was even used in a Boots ad. “The sound is emotional, truthful, and quite independent,” singer and songwriter Marie-Claire Lee explains. “It goes from being quite vulnerable to quite in your face and is a real reflection of how I felt. It’s quite a truthful album and I think that comes across.” Although Lee didn’t start her musical career with regular vocal training,…

IF CANTERBURY HAD prog and the Bronx had hip-hop, then Düsseldorf had electronica. Neu!, Kraftwerk, La Düsseldorf and DAF all emerged from the city at various points during the 70s, leaving a legacy that’s impossible to devalue. The latest band to mine this rich heritage is Mood Taeg, whose scintillating debut, Exophora, fashions bold new shapes from classic motorik grooves. Rather than being a direct product of their environment, however, Mood Taeg is an international trio. “Myself and K’ko, who’s classically trained, are based in Düsseldorf, while Lowell Freeman is in Shanghai,” explains TDK, who originates from a small town near Dundee. “Lowell is also Scottish and we both played in a band, many years ago, called Voigt Kampff. We had a record out in 1998 [Used] on Kingsize Records,…

From the early days of Anderson Rabin Wakeman, the trio mooted making a studio album together. “I’d done all my piano albums and enjoyed that, but I wanted to write for a band again,” explains Wakeman. “It was exciting playing music with ARW that I hadn’t done for such a long time and great fun playing with Jon and Trevor again. With Lee Pomeroy and [drummer] Lou Molino we had one hell of a band, musos playing at their best and all smiling. The response from audiences was tremendous.” With successive tours proving highly successful, the decision was taken to make a new album with the intention, according to Wakeman, of including some epic tracks. However circumstances conspired against them. Significant demand to see ARW play live meant considerable time…

“We felt like The Beatles!” Kansas guitarist Zak Rizvi is very nearly speechless as he recalls the band performing at Comic-Con back in 2017. “There were these 5,000 kids screaming and going mental for us. Just shows you what being associated with a big TV show can do for you.” For those wondering what Rizvi is talking about, Kansas got the opportunity to play at the mega entertainment convention because their 1977 single Carry On Wayward Son has become a staple part of the soundtrack for hit fantasy TV series Supernatural. The show follows two brothers as they fight demons, angels and the Devil himself against a classic rock soundtrack. And it’s given Kansas a major boost. “I assume that someone within the Supernatural production team is a Kansas fan,…

At the very beginning of 2017, Roger Manning Jr had an attack of nostalgia. The multi-instrumentalist and singer who co-founded cult power pop deities Jellyfish just over three decades earlier was listening to Demolition, the 1997 debut album from former Jellyfish bassist Tim Smith’s band Umajets, when the past suddenly hit him like a wave. “Eric [Dover, ex-Jellyfish touring guitarist] and I played on it briefly, and I was getting teary-eyed for that very brief window of collaboration,” says Manning Jr. “Like, ‘Goddammit, 20 years just went by and we never did anything else together.’” Three years later, Manning Jr has finally rectified that situation. He, Smith and Dover are about to release Threesome, Vol 1, the nudge-nudge-wink-winkingly titled debut EP from their new band The Lickerish Quartet. It’s the…

“I suggested swords and sorcery, and everyone was like, ‘Ooh, that’s very cliché!’ and I said, ‘Fine, let’s do it, let’s embrace the clichés and just run with it!’” If this year has proved anything, it’s that making plans is an absolute mug’s game. That’s been particularly true for musicians all over the planet, most of whose touring and promotional escapades have been abruptly curtailed. You have to feel for Glass Hammer, in particular. The Tennessee prog veterans have been enjoying a strong run of creative form in recent times and these DIY underdogs are more popular than ever, so the release of new album Dreaming City should have been a walk in the progressive park, followed by a noisily attended lap of honour. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas.…

“Think how much we rely on technology, think how much social media and that play a role [in our lives].”Max Parr When they started working out how to follow their electrifying debut LP, Where It All Began, UK progressive post-rockers Coldbones were faced with a difficult task. Cutting through the potential indecision, drummer Max Parr brought an idea to the rest of the band. “A couple of years ago, in the summer of 2018, I approached the guys and said, ‘Look, I think we should do a concept about the world ending as we know it.’ I wanted to stay away from that post-apocalypse [as seen in other fiction], and just go for a whole new cataclysmic event that shapes the world in an entirely different way. We used past…

A Day At The Beach KARISMA Evocative soundscapes meets emotional songwriting. Airbag have long been one of Norway’s greatest modern art rock ensembles. Thankfully, that status won’t change with A Day At The Beach, the group’s debut re-emergence as a trio following the departure of bassist Anders Hovdan after 2016’s Disconnected. With Wobbler’s Kristian Hultgren filling that void here, the remaining members – drummer Henrik Fossum, guitarist/keyboardist Bjørn Riis, and vocalist Asle Tostrup – continue to craft intense yet poignant tales of the human experience. They’ve thankfully lost none of their introspective beauty. The band describe Disconnected as “a story of us and them, told by a husband, father and brother leaving his family behind into an unknown future. It’s the juxtaposition between the desperate individual struggling to survive and…

Baikal SELF-RELEASED Ambient-metal Londoners go in for the krill. Apparently formed from the ashes of a jazz fusion project and a black metal band, the laudablynamed Asian Death Crustacean were destined to plough their own furrow. Baikal comprises one continuous, 44-minute piece of music, divided into six parts. Hewn from cosmic post-rock, thunderous sludge metal and unsettling ambience, it begins anonymously with some familiar post-metal tropes, but steadily builds toward a remorseless succession of hair-raising crescendos and fearless descents into near-silence. Part II is where the action truly begins as they navigate multiple atmospheres and tempos, from graceful and downbeat to furious and explosive. The giant riffs that erupt during Part V indicate an intuitive grasp of metal’s power, but even those more bombastic moments are executed with finesse and…

Still SARGASSO Moving ambient soundscapes from Camel man. This is a deceptive album. One listen can lead you to mistake it for a collection of ambient compositions which are easy on the ear, yet never destined to make lasting ripples in your memory. But that would be doing Still a major injustice. The combination of Camel bassist Colin Bass and minimalist jazz rock musician Daniel Biro proves inspired. The sparse construction of these songs allow both men to explore the depths in the material here in a manner that evokes Brian Eno’s collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto. There’s a strong synergy between the two musicians, who never upstage one another. Moreover, when it’s required, one takes the lead, with the other complementing in the background. So Biro is at the helm…

The Long Dream 1 WILD THING Elegant prog metal from Down Under. Ebonivory’s The Long Dream 1 is the first installment in a two part concept album. And once the listener has heard what it is that the Aussie fivepiece do, there’s a definite enthusiasm for finding out what’s in store next time The nebulous storyline is about visiting your own past through the lens of subsequent experience. How you perceive your younger self from the vantage point of where you are now. That might sound a little pretentious but musically it’s impressive. Ebonivory spent four years working on the follow up to 2015’s debut album The Only Constant, and it’s been worth such effort. Drawing from Dream Theater, Cynic and Rush, they construct intricate compositions without losing themselves in…

Out In The World SPINNING TOP Garden of psych-pop delights from the extended Tame Impala family. As Tame Impala have steadily moved nearer to pop’s mainstream, it’s been left to the band’s touring members to explore the wilder fringes of postpsychedelia. Guitarist Nick Allbrook occupies a realm between pop art and space rock with Pond, while drummer Jay Watson continues to forge onward with GUM. Out In The World is his fifth album in six years, suggesting that Watson’s creative well is far from dry. Fans of his previous work will find much to shout about here: Watson has a knack for a gilded melody, but delivered at thoughtful, unexpected angles. Weightless In LA arrives suspended on clouds of synths, Watson sounding as if he’s drifting in and out of…

The Earth Years MAGIC BUS Time to let the sunshine in. It may be mere serendipity rather than the result of cunning plans, but the fourth album from Devon’s Magic Bus has arrived just when it’s most needed. The Earth Years is the most uplifting, sunny release yet from the group, drenched in warm organ tones and filled with positive messages. ‘Summer’s coming, hope is coming,’ sings frontman Paul Evans on We Are One. Inca Trail sees the band borrowing Ringo’s Come Together drum sound, while Barleycorn brings the guitar to the forefront with a tougher sonic edge and a syncopated, staccato beat in the vein of 70s Rush. Evans doesn’t have a particularly imposing vocal style, but he’s not required to compete with Marshall stacks and Tube Screamers, and…

The Weight Of The Sun FIRE Scottish-based “kosmische chorale” group graduate to greatness. Regardless of genre – and they’re so fluid one can’t nail that down – Modern Studies are one of those bands whose warmth and happy/sad sense of romance feels irresistible. They might be akin to contemporary folk, but Pete Harvey’s frisky disco basslines and cameos from peculiar instruments lend them a guile which, like the emotions they engender, can be vintage or neoteric. Their third album builds on the bubbling brew of 2018’s wonderful Welcome Strangers. The Glasgow-Lancashire quartet position the twinned voices of Emily Scott and Rob St John atop a bed of rhythms which shift between krautrock, light funk and chamber pop. There’s a dash of Big Big Train in the melancholy they achieve, but…

The Clockwork Fable PLANE GROOVY Epic, three-hour 2016 concept album reissued as five-LP set. Prog has famously never cared much for economy of expression, but the sixth studio album from Gandalf’s Fist really took the biscuit. In fact, it proudly strode into the biscuit aisle of Sainsburys and shamelessly shovelled the entire section into its oversized trolley. Three hours. And the rest. That was the total length of this triple-CD affair, and they then followed it with 2019’s twohour “Expansion Pack” prequel, The Clockwork Prologue. Doubtless at some point they will put the whole 300-odd minutes together, just in time for the next global pandemic that locks us away with an inordinate amount of time on our hands. But for now, there is this repackaged vinyl box set of the…

It took Steve Howe several years to work out how his song Love Is A River needed to work – and once he’d done that, his new solo album, Love Is, quickly took shape around it. The 10-track follow-up to 2011’s Time (not counting two more records in his Homebrew series of demos and rearrangements) contains five instrumentals and five songs, and features Yes bandmate Jon Davison on backing vocals and bass, plus son Dylan Howe on drums. “It covers a reflective three or four years where a lot of things happened – a lot of highs and a few lows,” Howe Senior says. “I let it mature like a good cheese; I wanted it to reflect some strength, some colour and some experience. I’m very happy to spend many…

After a six-year absence, former Sound Of Contact multi-instrumentalist Simon Collins is set to release his fourth solo album, Becoming Human, through Frontiers in the autumn. It will be preceded by the launch of the title track as a digital single in late July. The LP was finished last year and originally scheduled for release in May, but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. His principal collaborator is guitarist/keyboardist Robin Boult, best known to progressive music audiences for his work with Fish – and it transpires that the pair originally met at a Howard Jones songwriting session 20 years ago, before re-connecting in 2016. “Robin is an amazing songwriter, musician and producer,” Collins explains from his base in southern Ireland. “I needed someone to help to inspire me and to…

Lonely Robot’s fourth album Feelings Are Good arrives on July 17 via InsideOut. But fans of the preceding Astronaut Trilogy are warned they shouldn’t expect more of the same musically. Mastermind John Mitchell (Kino, Frost*, Arena, It Bites) stresses that the album represents an entirely new chapter after he was persuaded to revisit to the Lonely Robot brand following completion of the first three records. “This is a very personal album, and whereas the other ones were quite esoteric and rather otherworldly, this one is about particular people in my life,” he explains. “It’s been quite a cathartic album for me as it has unleashed a lot of demons. I’m quite pleased I did it. Feelings – especially the peaks and troughs and the juxtaposition of them – are the…

THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII (A&M, 1973) Wakeman’s second solo release (his first being 1971’s disowned Piano Vibrations). His record company A&M initially dismissed it as ‘unsellable’. The reviews, as Wakeman recalled, were ‘stinking’. And yet The Six Wives Of Henry VIII – a grandiose instrumental concept album fusing progressive rock, classical and jazz, and based on English royal history – would become a multi-million-selling hit. And over time, it has come to be regarded by fans, and by Wakeman himself, as one of his defining works. An extraordinary piece – dazzling in its breadth and complexity, rich in melodic finesse, audacious and unashamedly pompous. And in May 2009 came a final, fitting postscript, when Wakeman performed the whole album – plus, fittingly, Defender Of The Faith – at…

At a time when the world is in turmoil, optimism feels like an act of defiance, yet with Rise Radiant, Caligula’s Horse celebrate the resilience of the human spirit and mankind’s capacity for picking itself up and getting back on its feet in the face of adversity. The new record is the Australian band’s most ambitious and diverse thus far and, in a break from its 2017 predecessor, In Contact it’s not a concept album. That was a deliberate choice explains lead guitarist and producer Sam Vallen, who founded the group with singer Jim Grey in Brisbane, Australia back in 2011. Always eager to keep moving forwards, they were determined not to repeat what they’d made in the past, and so as they began pre-production the quintet met up to…

There are those musical collaborations that are solely driven by financial necessities of the artist or the devious scheming of a record label, cynically manipulating fans of the individual musicians in a supergroup. Mercifully, Three Colours Dark fall into neither of those categories. Consisting of Panic Room’s Jonathan Edwards and former Reasoning vocalist Rachel Cohen, the pair (both also previous members of Karnataka) have reunited simply for the love of music. The original version of Karnataka dissolved in 2004, so had there always been an expectation that the two would work together at some point? “If I’m perfectly honest it wasn’t something I thought would ever happen,” admits keyboard player Edwards. “The last time that we played together was in Karnataka, and to be honest, after The Reasoning split up,…

The feelgood British summer of 1970 may have been one of hot, sunny days, with Mungo Jerry’s ubiquitous In The Summertime the defining song of its soundtrack, but it was also a year in which, along with the good vibes and warm zephyrs, some particularly chill winds blew through the rock music scene. More than half a million revellers had smoked, toked, tripped and generally let it all hang out at the sunkissed Isle of Wight Festival with a stellar line-up that featured The Doors, Free, The Who and Jimi Hendrix. But no matter how strong the IoW’s Yang, it was crushed by the Yin of events that included The Beatles breaking up and, on September 18, the bombshell that was Hendrix’s death. On the upside in 1970, the 747…

Within weeks of enjoying the renewed communal experience of a Fairport Convention gig on their winter tour, the very idea of such a gathering seemed as steeped in time as some of the band’s influences. Folk music is, by its very name, of the people and for the people, and like many of life’s pleasures, it’s rather less fun in isolation. Thankfully, before the social drawbridge was pulled up, there was still the opportunity for a post-tour face-to-face in London with one of Fairport’s co-founding originals. Simon Nicol was one of those who was there before the beginning, so to speak, forming an early liaison with Ashley Hutchings that led to the group’s birth, with Richard Thompson and fleeting early drummer Shaun Frater, in 1967. A mere 69 years old,…

Adjuster SING HUM Hard-edged post-rock from the heart of the Outback Throw a rock in Alice Springs and you’ll be hard pushed to hit anyone. What else then might three young men in this arid part of Australia’s Northern Territory do but hunker down in their rehearsal room and conjure up an album of vibrant, hardedged, instrumental post-rock that wouldn’t have sounded out of place ringing around Manhattan in the early 90s. Imagine Helmet with syncopated rhythms and stuttering time signatures with a truly prog bent and that’s capturing only one aspect of their sound. The dark ambience of Tool also raises its woolly head, which in turn acquiesces to a batch of songs that you’d imagine surfacing on a lost Smashing Pumpkins record. And while they might wear their…

Attraktors VIVOD Electro-rock from the East Midlands via 1970s Germany. Attraktors are a trio operating out of Nottingham, described as “like Kraftwerk raised on tea and cricket”. It’s not inaccurate, but given the pedigree of the members’ previous bands – including Six By Seven – there’s more going on than just an English homage to Düsseldorf’s finest. In particular, a definite post-punk vibe pervades this debut, sometimes recalling the broken-down futurism of BEAK>. Future Systems is a fantastic opening track, twinkling keys giving way to a machine-driven electronic anthem, while Math Redux is like crazed early 80s synth pop in an unholy alliance with neo-prog. The vocals are deliberately blank and affectless, delivering a meaningful if oblique message on Maximum Minimum. Another plus point is the live bass that underpins…

Invisible ENGLISH ELECTRIC Big Big Train man serves up an unusual kind of “drummer record”. On Invisible, drummer extraordinaire Nick D’Virgilio is surrounded by some heavyweight friends including bassists Tony Levin and Flower Kings’ Jonas Reingold, Paul Gilbert from Mr Big/Racer X and Cheap Trick’s Rick Neilsen on guitars. Jem Godfrey from Frost* and Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater also feature on keyboards. The drummer, multi-instrumentalist and singer’s second solo album in 19 years is released on Big Big Train’s label and latterly D’Virgilio has made compositional contributions to that most English of groups. But as this line-up would suggest, Invisible is coming from a very different area. Invisible comes from a very different area to Big Big Train. The album’s underlying concept coalesced around D’Virgilio’s observations of the marginal,…

Western Skies GRAVITY DREAM Galahad man goes down the instrumental route. Lee Abraham has been an extremely busy lad over the past few years, releasing solo records as well as recording and touring Seas Of Change with Galahad, who he rejoined in 2017. Here, the bassist-turnedguitarist has opted for an entirely different tactic: using an alternative name and keeping things considerably simpler. Spurning the special guest singers that graced his most recent solo work, Western Skies is a four-song instrumental EP. Chunky opener Swagger does what it says on the tin, offering plenty of melody and, until Abraham blows off the doors at the threeminute mark, avoids showboating. The best thing here is Freedom: slower and more evocative, it conjures divine mental images of cold pints supped slowly outside a…

Aura SELF-RELEASED A new spin from West Midlands’ symphonic prog mainstays. Birmingham symphonic proggers IO Earth have long applied an independent mantra to their output that yields strong results. This is said, not to patronise the group, who are led by the creative partnership of Dave Cureton (guitars, vocals) and Adam Gough (keys, vocals), but more to highlight the quality of their accomplishments. Their fifth LP, Aura doesn’t sound like a DIY album. It’s a spacious, breathy collection: tightly executed, yet with enough room in the mix to feel the bass drum thump. Their last release, 2018’s Solitude, was a sometimes claustrophobic listen inspired by mental health conditions. On Aura, the likes of Breathe nod to that history, but the songs here sound like they’ve spent a lot more time…

Proto Tekno ROCKET Dystopian racket salad of Greek origin. Now on their third album, this Greek psychedelic collective formed by Johnny Tercu with members of Casual Nun and Echo Canyon invokes a gloriously reckless racket unrestricted by discernible genres that straddles a frenzied gamut of avant-rock styles. Forged over 10 days in an Athens hothouse, the band’s ace-in-the-hole is the electronic sophistication that gives their unfettered onslaughts depth and surprise jolts like the West Coast vocal harmonies that imbue the squalling electronic chaos of Kamehameha. Benzoberry’s sheet-metal wall of overloading guitars and barely-audible vocal railing invokes a collision between early PiL and My Bloody Valentine, while Cemento Mori hoists lashes gothic basslines and bizarre carnival steel drums that disintegrate into shuddering aftershock. Ritual chanting penetrates the electrosequence pulses of Fair…

The Absence Of Presence INSIDEOUT The enduring US pomp rockers have still got what it takes. There can be few more unlikely success stories than that of Kansas, and yet 2020 marks 49 years in the business for a band who dressed like farmhands and adopted the violin as a de facto lead instrument. With notable exceptions, the songs of Kerry Livgren were what made Kansas great. Following the guitarist’s third and seemingly final departure in 2000, the Livgren-less configuration took 16 years to construct new music. They have once again done their illustrious legacy proud. Their comeback album, The Prelude Implicit, proved a far better reconstitution of the classic Kansas sound than many had dared to hope. Four years later, they have once again done their own illustrious legacy…

Valor APOLLON 80s-skewed third album from Norwegian collective. Marcel Proust famously said, “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” The pop vocabulary of the 80s is something that clearly resonates with White Willow’s Jacob Holm-Lupo. The third album from his side project The Opium Cartel brims with icy strings, pitch-bending synths, cavernous drums, and the omnipresent twinkling of Yamaha DX-7 fairy dust. Yet this knowingly retro tribute, comes with a fresh 21st century perspective. Featuring a collective of top-flight Nordic players, Valor offers unapologetically upbeat and mostly uptempo numbers. Like all good pop songs, these consistently strong tracks have a habit of getting under the skin thanks to an almost embarrassing number of great hooks and incisive committed performances. It’s not a total…

Forever Blue BELLA UNION London singer-songwriter makes impressive, depressive debut. It’s easy to see why AA Williams has called her debut album Forever Blue. It’s a melancholic set of songs, building on the vulnerable mood of last year’s self-titled EP, and would feel relentless in its assault of misery if it wasn’t for her languid vocal style and nuanced dynamics. Singing from the same soulful hymn sheet as the likes of Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle, the London-based singer-songwriter cuts open her heart, and it’s filled with darkness. Williams cuts open her heart, and it’s filled with darkness. Opening track All I Asked For (Was To End It All) is utterly destructive; there’s a weariness in her voice that you feel is coming from her very bones. You envisage…

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Where’s home? Clapton in Hackney, London. I’ve been here 20 years – lately it’s become trendy, and so has the rent! Earliest prog memory? I can trace a line between what I do now to hymns and TV themes. The descant part at the end of O Come All Ye Faithful is so proggy, and there’s a real monosynth vibe to [70s detective show] The Rockford Files. First prog album you bought? Neil’s Heavy Concept Album, by Neil [Nigel Planer] from The Young Ones. The comedy is a bit dated but it was lovingly done – produced by Dave Stewart from Hatfield And The North, with covers of Pink Floyd’s The Gnome, Incredible String Band’s The Amoeba Song, Golf Girl by Caravan. It was a gateway album into that Canterbury…

DEVIN TOWNSEND @dvntownsend Looks like we raised 45k for the Vancouver Hospital foundation yesterday =) Let’s see what we can do for the NHS CHELSEA WOLFE @CCHELSEAWWOLFE stage outfit now worn to play guitar in bed CHRISTINA BOOTH @progqueen The heady scent of wisteria fills the air & I’ve just seen two swallows returning to the barn… one could almost forget there’s a battle going on in the big wide world WORRIEDABOUTSATAN @teamsatan Struggling to resist the urge to blow all this Bandcamp money on obscure Ukranian football shirts instead of, y’know, bills and food and stuff. MATT BERRY @porksmith Phew. Roland Jupiter X is exactly what I wanted it to be. All the major Roland polysynths (convincingly) under one roof. Praise be. TARJA TURUNEN @tarjaofficial What a relief! My…

Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery is inviting fans to take part in another crowdfunding campaign for the release of his second solo album Revontulet. He says lead track La Silla, which was launched in April, is a “good picture” of the space themed album as a whole, which he describes as “a little bit cinematic – it’s got a bit of Vangelis, a bit of Pink Floyd.” The roots of the LP go back a few years to when he visited astronomical observatories in Chile. He’s always had a love of space – “I suppose I’m a Trekkie,” he says – and has also collaborated with Rick Armstrong, astronaut Neil’s son, who plays bass. The aim is to release Revontulet in 2021 on InsideOut, but Rothery admits the schedule is up…

Protest The Hero are to release what Rody Walker describes as “the most difficult record to produce in my entire career.” Palimpsest is out on Spinefarm on June 19. Says Walker, “I couldn’t be happier with it. It’s unrelenting in its speed and more melodic than ever – two things which I think can sometimes contradict each other, but for us it really works.” In 2018, while touring in celebration of the 10th anniversary of revered record Fortress, the singer began experiencing problems with his voice. The tour had to be pulled and tracking for their fifth album was put on hold while he recovered. It’s taken two years, but the record is finally ready to see the light of day. Walker admits he felt trepidation about recording the track…

Magenta leader and keyboardist Robert Reed has offered assurances that their upcoming album Master of Illusion, released on July 1, represents a return to the sound of their first two works. Their most recent LP, 2017’s We Are Legend, was more of an electro-oriented work when compared to 2001 debut Revolutions and 2004 follow-up Seven. Reed reveals he was struggling before the creation of We Are Legend. “I was thinking I had done everything musically that I could with Magenta, and couldn’t get any enthusiasm to make the record,” he says. “I had to go to extremes and chuck electronics and loops on it – things I had avoided for years. That unlocked it for me. But once I exorcised that demon I was desperate to make a real prog…

“My love of prog started with Focus and Jan Akkerman when I was about 16. Akkerman was in his mid-20s at the time and he was already blowing people away. Being from Holland, they were heroes for me. We all watched them explode in England and America – it was inspiring. Then I discovered early Yes, who were a little rockier with Roundabout – I actually remember trying to figure out some of their classical guitar parts back then. “About six months ago I used the first UK record to test some new speakers in my house and I realised just how ahead of its time it was. They made complex music sound so easy, which makes me very envious as a guitar player. It still sounds very relevant today.…

Mark Davyd didn’t do too well at school and admits he has no musical talent at all, but at an early age he realised he had the ability to make things happen. Combined with his love for live music, that led him to becoming a local venue operator. Six years ago he helped launch the Music Venue Trust charity, which supports the UK’s small pubs and clubs. Very suddenly, in March 2020, the trust became the focus of the industry’s fight to survive the coronavirus lockdown, and Davyd helped launch the Save Our Venues campaign. “Most of our time is taken up organising the sector, writing briefings for the government, cultural sector and music industry and dealing with specific threats of closure,” he says. “In 2019, we dealt with 96…

“I GREW UP on a lot of Australian rock bands like Gyroscope and Powderfinger, but then I found The Mars Volta,” admits Ebonivory’s singer Charlie Powlett when pressed about his introduction to prog. “They really pointed me in the direction of progressive music and what music was really capable of and since finding them, I’ve just been going down this big rabbit hole of prog from Opeth to Dream Theater, Periphery to TesseracT, and it’s been a great journey!” The band’s latest album, The Long Dream I, which Powlett produced, engineered and mixed himself, is out now and sees the Ballarat natives pushing their musical abilities outside of what they’re used to. “Our last record, The Only Constant, feels a lot more raw and emotional. I was younger back then…

“Lee [Pomeroy] said to me that he can hear Yes in some of The Red Planet. Well I was part of the band, so there’s always things I’ll do that will sound like Yes. And I’m not worried about that one iota.” Coronavirus has generally proved a great leveller. But there are exceptions to every rule, as evidenced by music mogul David Geffen tweeting injudiciously from his Rising Sun superyacht in the Grenadines, while Richard Branson shamelessly sought a British government bailout for Virgin Airlines from his Necker Island tax haven in the Caribbean. However, Rick Wakeman has been subject to coronaviral levelling. Not only was an April launch at the National Space Centre in Leicester for his forthcoming all-instrumental album The Red Planet kiboshed, but a house move has…

Ambition has never been something that Haken have lacked. Ever since 2010’s Aquarius introduced the British progressive metal act to the world, they’ve striven for each new step to be bigger, bolder and braver than the last. Those selfperpetuating designs have put them at the pinnacle of the contemporary progressive metal scene, where they have remained for the last 10 years. Visions quickly followed in late 2011 and The Mountain, released two years later, married their technical virtuosity with raw, emotional lyrics, that showed a vulnerability making their complex music hugely relatable. It was the record that sent a fast-rising act skyrocketing. They haven’t let up since, producing two more critically acclaimed records in synth-loving Affinity and 2018’s forceful Vector. Now, as their first decade together draws to a close,…

I’m heading north up Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue in August’s broiling heat just as a fast as my legs will carry me. It’s 2008 and I’ve an appointment with Robert Fripp who, aside from being the 42nd best guitarist in the world according to Rolling Stone’s 2003 poll, or the 47th best on the planet if you prefer guitar maker Gibson’s more recent hit parade, is also a stickler for punctuality. Although I’ve been to the USA a couple of times in the past, this is my first time in the Big Apple and it’s hard to resist the temptation to loiter and gawp awhile amidst the iconic buildings and strangely familiar streets. Having seen NYC on so many movies and TV shows gives one an odd sense of déjà vu.…

Before we start, a word about what this list of albums is, and what it probably isn’t. It’s not a list of the best prog albums of all time. Although many of these records would sit quite happily in such a list. Rather it is a list of albums that we here at Prog, along with musicians as diverse as Steven Wilson, Pete Trewavas, Carl Palmer, Mike Portnoy, Magenta’s Robert Reed, Mastodon, Tim Bowness, Ihsahn, Alan Reed and more have debated and see as being pivotal in the ongoing development of progressive music. So albums that probably inspired the originators of progressive music. Many of the high points of the early classic era of the genre. But also, as progressive music has developed over the years, other albums force themselves…

NIGEL BLOWS A TUNE “Depends how you say this one. I got the idea for this first section of the piece from my cousin, Nigel Blow, who was always messing around with nice chord sequences on the piano. By the way, both Nigel and myself are related to the famous John Blow (1649-1708) who, apart from being a composer, was the choirmaster and organist at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.” LOVE’S A FRIEND “Probably my take at the time on: why shouldn’t lovers be friends, and why shouldn’t friends be lovers?” MAKE IT 76 “Again, there are a few connotations. Seventy-six appeared many times in my life. I counted the number of beats in this section, and I ‘made it 76’ altogether.” DANCE OF THE SEVEN PAPER HANKIES “One…

It was mathematician ET Bell who said that time makes fools of us all, though history will surely judge Haken’s appositely titled sixth album as being so on the money it’s uncanny. Virus was written on their last tour and will no doubt be best enjoyed in lockdown. And while Prog doesn’t wish seclusion on anyone, it’s probably best you digest the latest Haken album while consumed by concentration; there’s a lot to take in. Never backwards in coming forwards creatively, Haken have changed lanes almost at will before coming to fruition with 2013’s dizzying The Mountain. That they chose to follow that with the playful electronica on the 80s tinged Affinity album three years later says as much about their self-confidence as it does their desire not to be…

Madness And Magic KARISMA Retro-modern majesty from cult Norwegians. Arabs In Aspic have quietly risen to become one of Norway’s leading retro prog bands. Madness And Magic is their seventh album and shows a great deal of maturity. Progressive trickiness is carefully balanced against thoughtful and engaging songwriting. The required trappings are here, the dreamy Mellotrons, searing analogue synths and chunky Hammond organ, handled ably by Stig Jørgensen. But also present are gorgeous vocal harmonies to rival CSNY, folksy carpets of acoustic guitars, and, on the turn of a dime, a forcefulness that belies some of the members’ metal backgrounds. In opening track I Vow To Thee My Screen we get all these aspects as well as nods to mid-70s Pink Floyd, while two-part Lullaby For Modern Kids offers whimsical…

Synæsthesia COLLISION COURSE Kiwis’ debut with an emphasis on the emotional. It’s common to see bands try and cram every idea they’ve ever had into their debut album, with sprawling and uneven results. But City Of Souls feature seasoned stagers from New Zealand’s hardcore, rock and prog scenes. And after releasing no fewer than eight singles before putting Synæsthesia together, they’ve got a pretty clear idea of the sharp musical statement they wanted to make here. From the opening bars of Life Blood the listener is hit by an immersive, widescreen wash of arenasized sound. It helps to have three guitarists in your line-up, of course, and the gut-pummeling riff barrages that underpin tracks such as Wolf have a visceral heft that never fails to quicken your pulse. Then when…

Black Rain ESOTERIC Another banquet of lushness from the pastoral proggers Despite the presence in their ranks of bassist Nick Beggs – a man never destined to win any Shrinking Violet Of The Year awards – Fish On Friday come from the less-is-more school of prog. Theirs is a sedate style, founded upon sweeping, skylark melodies and rich, generous harmonies. Black Rain follows last summer’s ‘best of’, An Initiation. With a combined duration of almost 14 minutes its first two tracks, Life In Towns and Murderous Highland Highway, are as compelling as anything the British-Belgian-American group have released during the first decade of their existence. Beggs is FOF’s most prominent member although it’s Marty Townsend who pulls their symphonic strings. The guitarist may not have been blessed with the world’s…

Bereavement JUPITER HOLLOW Contemplative cosmic jaunt with youthful Canadian multi-instrumentalists. Continuing a musical trajectory and narrative arc from 2018’s debut album AHDOMN, the followup from Canadian duo Jupiter Hollow is a rich, varied and challenging collection which eschews easy genre labels. Where L’Eau De Papineau is the sound of a folky pop band emerging from a forest soundscape replete with bird song, recent single The Rosedale is reminiscent of prime Kings X, and Kipling Forest delivers some brutal, bewildering prog metal riffs. Such stylistic eclecticism extends to the lead vocal throughout, with singer Kenny Parry evoking Geddy Lee, Devin Townsend and Robert Plant, even busting out some Cookie Monster death growls at one point. Still, the playing is uniformly astounding, the arrangements imaginative, and the continuing underpinning story both suitably…

Celexa Dreams WHITE STAR A dash of 80s art pop and a dose of prog rock to cure what ails you. Kryos’ follow-up to 2016’s Vox Humana – and their first LP since guitarist and vocalist Samuel Higgins left last year – is markedly different from its predecessor. Here, the Londoners delve into 1980s style art pop: Celexa Dreams owes more to Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, and Thomas Dolby than Yes, Dream Theater or Rush. But dig below the surface and the quartet’s formula remains embedded in their songs. As expected, their prog rock penchants are more visible elsewhere, such as on the rhythmically intricate and dynamically unpredictable In Vantablack. Later, Technology Killed The Kids III makes for a fascinating third entry into the band’s multi-album suite that’s full of…

Ekhidna RUNE GRAMMOFON Jazz rock nirvana from Norway’s six-string queen. Fans of berserk psychedelic rock will already be familiar with Hedvig Mollestad thanks to the six albums the Norwegian guitarist has released with her eponymous Trio over the last decade. Mollestad was formally schooled in jazz, at the Norwegian Academy of Music, but although her music has routinely embraced improvisation and amorphous structures, Ekhidna is the first record she has released under her own name that truly belongs in the jazz realm. A collaboration with latterday drumming legend Torstein Lofthus, keyboard players Marte Eberson and Erlend Slettevoll, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and percussionist Ole Mofjell, these songs exhibit the same untameable energy that Mollestad has made a trademark, but in an entirely fresh and invigorating context. A mercurial eruption of…

Metal, Meat & Bone CHERRY RED Art rock’s eternal awkward squad have got the blues. As brilliantly bewildering as ever, The Residents’ late-career splurge continues, with a supposed tribute to gravel-voiced bluesman Alvin Snow, aka Dyin’ Dog. Described as “an albino born into a multiracial family, with a penchant for exploiting older white women”, Snow almost certainly never existed, and yet he’s provided The Residents with some of their most straightforward music yet. Cunning, really. Superficially rooted in Beefheartian blues, the alleged Mr Snow’s songs are recreated with the legendary eyeballwearers’ usual off-kilter touches, from keening violins and droning synths to all manner of unidentifiable clonks and throbs. But from the Tom Waits-like clatter of Bury My Bone to the swivel-eyed voodoo rock of Tell Me, these are often great…

Empath – The Ultimate Edition INSIDEOUT Devin’s acclaimed 2019 album gets a multi-disc makeover. Can it only be just over a year since Devin Townsend released his most expansive, multi-faceted and ambitious album yet? For those who might have missed it, Empath was as wilful and far reaching as the man himself. Brooking no musical or philosophical boundaries, it featured members Frank Zappa’s old band, a women’s choir, an orchestra and even one of the guys out of Nickleback. Townsend’s unique vision is writ even larger here. During his near-30-year career, the Canadian maverick has embraced everything from crunching heavy metal and country to batshit space operas and musical theatre. All he needs now is a spoken word record and he’ll have pretty much covered all the bases. Empath didn’t…