Table of contents for Issue 144 in Prog

Van der Graaf Generator lynchpin Peter Hammill has taken inspiration from the unlikely figure of pop colossus Taylor Swift in his decision to re-record two of his Enigma Records released albums: 1988’s In A Foreign Town and Out Of Water, which followed two years later. Both have been unavailable to buy for some time and the new versions are set for release on November 24 via Esoteric. “Earlier last year, I was in the process of sorting out the copyrights that I still owned from Fie! Records,” says Hammill, “and it became clear that there was a dispute about the ownership of these two albums, because these were two albums that I made for Enigma in the States. It wasn’t clear whether that ownership had passed on to various other…

A (non-alcoholic) toast to the Magenta frontwoman’s long-awaited third LP. "I’ve been spoiled over the years to have such talent on tap,” says Christina Booth in the notes for her third solo album, referencing Magenta (guitars), Jiffy Griffiths and keyboard player, But they’ve had some pretty good material to work with too: Booth’s vocal is assured, distinctive, soft yet powerful. The themes are big – political corruption, ageing, bereavement, alcohol addiction – but her range, expression and talent for storytelling (often from a first-hand POV) carry it off, with parallels to her late friend and collaborator David Longdon. Booth moves convincingly between genres too: the soulful and The Giant Awakes, the gospel-buoyed Genevieve, the light and jazzy Age Of Revolution, which dips into Portishead’s Glorybox mid-way. Thanks to Reed’s finely…

Cornwall-based symphonic proggers’ long and winding return. It’s the old sweeten-the-pill trick: lure the listener in with sweet tunefulness and infectious hooks, then take them where you will. This St Ives quartet do just that when they kick off the weighty, 23-minute suite Out Of Time that opens their fifth album with the enchanting topline melody that vocalist Tree Stewart serenades us with. It acts as a prelude to some engagingly freewheeling electric piano from Stewart, backed up by wriggling fretless bass and mood-swinging percussion, before guitarist Ally Carter gets to show out on the fretboard. Yet before the halfway point, the instrumental improvisation begins to meander to the point of indulgent padding until the vocal returns for the final passage. Attention is grabbed again on Timeless, not least thanks…

Ambient king’s unlikely alliance thrives. Top Boy, currently embarking on its swansong season, is a gripping TV series following the travails of London drug dealers amid a backdrop of contemporary hip-hop and grime. While the writing and acting ensure there’s a lot more to it than that (it’s suspenseful and soulful), the first guy in line to score it between the bits where, say, Central Cee, Ghetts or Little Simz are testifying about life on the streets wouldn’t necessarily be the esteemed, professorial Brian Eno. Yes, he’s provided soundtracks to films about lunar landings, Russian museums and more, but could his work gel with a pressurised drama where words like “wasteman”, “patterned” and “allow it” boil in a very different temperature to that exhibited on Before And After Science or…

Still in search of Space – and it seems they’ve found it! Space has perennially fascinated musicians, from Holst’s The Planets to Sun Ra’s claim that he hailed from Saturn, to Hawkwind and the Hawklords. Originally led by Robert Calvert and Dave Brock, they were a short-lived late-70s Hawkwind spin-off and the current line-up’s claim to the Hawk name comes from guitarist and vocalist Jerry Richards, who was both in Hawkwind and a 2000s iteration of Hawklords, and bass guitarist and vocalist Mr Dibs, another Hawkwind veteran, while Dave Pearce also drums with The Bevis Frond. Space is certainly the place here with every song evoking its vastness and mystery. With this engaging and energised collection, Hawklords refer to a familiar space rock lexicon of monster riffs, electronic jet streams…

Glow sticks out for the prolific Aussie group’s 25th release Is there no stopping King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard? Apparently not as the Melbourne group dive headlong into album number 25, and, having explored garage rock, psychedelic pop, prog and metal in their 13-year existence, it’s time for them to go all-machine space-disco-rave with The Silver Cord. They might be ridiculously prolific, but the quality of what they do remains extremely high, even when they’re admittedly out of their comfort zone of guitar-based rock. The Silver Cord showcases their love of Giorgio Moroder, Jean-Michel Jarre and modern electronic dance music, with some new age, mystical touches on Theia and Gilgamesh. Don’t let this last reference be a turn-off; if late-period Tangerine Dream prompts a little bopping, The Silver Cord…

French keyboardist gets colourful on collaborative fourth LP. Vivien Lalu, the driving force behind the project that bears his surname, has assembled a strong line-up on his fourth album. The result is greater than the sum of its parts. Lalu gives plenty of freedom of expression to each contributor, allowing them to shine among the glittering whole. Ex-Threshold vocalist Damian Wilson impresses throughout, particularly on the ever-shifting textures of The Wondering Kind. Guitarist/bassist Joop Walters’ playing brings a touch of class, with the title track’s satin-quilted solo a highlight. Lalu’s parents both played in 70s French prog act Polène and his love for such music is clear, as he balances progressive pomposity with memorable musicality. Forever Digital melds decades together, with a 70s-inspired keys-driven stomp meeting Wilson’s 80s arena-rock vocals.…

Great lost album from komische legend. Dieter Moebius was best known for his work with Hans-Joachim Roedelius in Cluster and Harmonia, their surnames complementing each other like butter compliments bread. The 88-year-old Roedelius continues to perform with American composer Tim Story, and he’s reputed to be in possession of thousands of kilometres of magnetic tape yet to be digitised, meaning there’s likely plenty more from him. Moebius, on the other hand, died in 2015 and was less prolific than his musical companion, though Story is also involved in preserving his legacy. Following 2021’s posthumous MoebiusStrips, which featured collaborations with Michael Rother, Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Yuri Suzuki, comes Aspirin, an album of outtakes dating back to 2006’s Nurton. The way each recording sits together so cohesively with the next feels almost…

Yumi Hara’s Groove Study (Bonobo’s Ark Records) distills so many of the musical ideas that she’s pursued in her work as a composer and performer over the years (she has collaborated with luminaries such as Gong’s Daevid Allen, Soft Machine’s Hugh Hopper and various members of Henry Cow). It fizzes with invention and inspiration: Orlyonok is driven by back-breaking time changes and a serpentine melody. Embraced by Hara’s voluminous church organ, which dominates much of the album, it’s nothing short of majestic. Henry Cow’s Tim Hodgkinson and Chris Cutler bring their precision A-game to Hara’s incisive compositions. Given the presence of touch guitarist Trey Gunn and drummer Pat Mastelotto, Tu-Ner’s T1 - Contact Information (7d Media) unsurprisingly references the febrile energies of King Crimson’s fraKctal adventures in the 90s. Joined…

Norse prog metaller turns down the volume. Best known as bassist with Norwegian prog metal veterans Green Carnation, Stein Roger Sordal is a sensitive soul at heart. His first solo album, As I Try To Remember… eschews the ornate bombast of his day job in favour of stripped down, acoustic balladry. Pitched somewhere between the sleepy beauty of Fleet Foxes and the delicate aesthetic of Nick Drake, these songs are tender glimmers of melancholy and hope, with Sordal’s quietly soulful voice leading the way. The opening Who Could Tell sees sparse strumming providing a minimalist backdrop for the singer’s gentle pleas. There are hints of hazy alt-folk in the dreamy drift of Ride On, and 187 veers into Americana territory, albeit with a windchill factor that is uniquely Norwegian. It…

Downbeat storytelling and musical familiarity from UK proggers. This Winter Machine’s fourth album is a concept record centred around a near-future in which sterile human clones populate a new underclass tasked with jobs of drudgery and danger. Vocalist, founder and last remaining original member Al Winter is still the main motive force and songwriter, so the album’s overall sound doesn’t deviate too far from what TWM fans might expect. Guitar-centric, hard rock-leaning narrative songs with neo-prog synth flourishes front and centre in the likes of Solitude, Silence And Steam, with its scintillating guitar solo from John Cook, and Final Goodbye combine with the occasional reflective interlude like the sombre piano-led The River – Pt 2 and plaintive guitar and voice of Nothing Lasts Forever. Musically, the protagonist’s journey is suitably…

Original frontman reclaims his legacy with joy and authenticity. In recent years, original It Bites singer/guitarist Francis Dunnery seems to have had a change of heart about the band he co-founded in 1982, shifting from decidedly cool to warmly embracing it. Every January since 2018 – the pandemic years excepted – he’s played a handful of UK gigs as Francis Dunnery’s It Bites. This Blu-ray/CD captures this January’s set: two hours of IB’s instantly identifiable fusion of prog, hard rock, 80s pop and Cumbrian chutzpah. With a terrific band, including British prog luminaries Peter Jones and Cyan/The Tangent’s Luke Machin, he cherry-picks from the three extraordinary albums It Bites released between 1986 and 1989. There’s the powerful yet quirky rocker All In Red, anthemic toy shop fantasy of Plastic Dreamer,…

’Ello, ’ello, ’ello, what do we have here, then? “This is the story of a struggle, but don’t worry, it does get very cheerful,” writes Stewart Copeland in the introduction to his Police Diaries, a lovingly detailed and comprehensively illustrated chronicle of The Police’s years from formation to their first American tour. While other groups opportunistically rode the post-Pistols bandwagon, few had a past as visible as at least two-thirds of the peroxide power players. Not just flirting with the enemy of the old guard, but in Copeland’s case literally sleeping with them, as the long-term partner of Sonja Kristina, lead vocalist of Curved Air, the group in which he drummed. Guitarist Andy Summers had the joint distinction of being old (35 when he joined) and had played with Soft…

VENUE POPPODIUM 013, TILBURG, NETHERLANDS DATE 16/09/2023 When the normally reclusive Arjen Lucassen presents in the live arena, it’s usually something pretty spectacular. Six years ago, in this very venue, Prog witnessed Lucassen’s first-ever official Ayreon live shows, entitled Ayreon Universe. No fewer than 16 singers and 11 instrumentalists presented an eye-popping spectacle to packed-out crowds. However, Ayreon playing live in 2023 isn’t quite as unique as it once was – Lucassen played Graspop in 2018 and presented 1998’s Into The Electric Castle at this venue in 2019. But even so, the sheer scope of ambition and execution of five performances (three evening shows and two matinees) of 2007’s 01011001 is impressive in the extreme. Add in an Ayreon pop-up shop – the queue for which never seems to dissipate while Prog…

Hello and welcome to the latest issue of Prog magazine. I’ve been listening to the work of Keith Emerson a lot of late, understandably for this issue’s celebration of Keith’s colossal talent, and also because I worked on the brand-new Variations box set, which is out now through Spirit Of Unicorn Music. In many ways, these hours of enjoying Keith’s work with ELP, The Nice and his own solo work has taken me back to my early teens, when I first heard Brain Salad Surgery, my gateway into his world, and an album I picked up second-hand from Cheapo Cheapo Records in London’s Soho for the princely sum of £1.40 (this was the early 80s!). This issue, Keith’s great friend Rick Wakeman gives a fantastic insight into the man behind…

“I listened a lot of prog when I was growing up in the early 70s because my older sister was into it. She took me to see Camel play at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester when I was about 10 and it was pretty life changing. They played some of Mirage and some of The Snow Goose, and they had this huge screen behind them with the camel and the pyramid projected on it, and then The Snow Goose cover as well. I don’t even think I’d been to a gig before that, apart from maybe Supertramp a little while before, and I’d never even seen a screen that big. I remember something in me changing when the lights went down [and thinking] ‘I don’t know what this is…

Formed in Prague in the late 90s and having undergone a variety of personnel changes across four albums, Czech proggers Votchi have stabilised both their membership and sound while looking beyond their borders. Founding member Mirek Mužík (keyboards/vocals) is now bolstered by singer Alex McBeat, guitarist Martin Smejkal, bassist Dominik Vozobule, drummer Jan Ježek and flautist Olga Vlachová. Their latest single release Out Of Love – their first new music since 2015 album Out Of Jail – trails the EP of the same name, which will be issued on Canadian label SODEH Records in early 2024. “The band’s initial inspiration came from Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and Yes,” says Martin Smejkal. “By our third album, New Religion, we reached a more modern and progressive sound like Porcupine Tree or Dream Theater.”…

www.progzilla.com/listen/ ON THE DAY Prog speaks to him, session gun and solo artist Ben Reed is re-shelving and re-alphabetising his enormous vinyl collection. He has around 10,000 records, only a few of them on CD, and he doesn’t do digital – he’s never downloaded nor streamed a song in his life. “I would never listen to music digitally,” he says from his cosy attic studio in west London. “One of the main incentives of making music for me is to see it spinning on my turntable.” Well worth a spin, his excellent current album Bandaged is his fourth solo work after 2004 debut Tall Story, Who Dreams Of Hyssop (2009) and Station Masters (2016). As a jobbing bassist, Reed’s played for a diverse roster of hip artists on the XL and…

GALA: We went to Warners and realised we could do it for Dad’s 80th, creating the best package we could. Guy told me Steven Wilson really loved the album, and that he should have a go at remixing it. Steven believed it could be improved. We love it – he brought out the layering of the keyboards. WILSON: If you’d listened to it casually at the time, you’d have dismissed it as the indulgence of a man on his yacht in Greece. Removed from all that, it sounds like a beautiful entry in the Floyd story. You hear how much of the Floyd DNA came from Rick; those slightly jazzy overtones that were even a part of albums like Animals. You hear a lot of that Wish You Were Here…

American/Venezuelan freak-folk musician goes electronic. Best known for skewed, impish, early Bolanesque folk rock, Devendra Banhart treads pastures-new on his 11th album. Recorded in a cabin in California’s Topanga Canyon once owned by Neil Young, Flying Wig dispenses with acoustic guitars, utilising synths, vintage beat-boxes and seismic, heavily processed electric guitars instead. It’s an approach that works beautifully on hazy dream pop stand-out Fireflies, but these dense, largely downtempo songs just occasionally get stodgy, indistinct. Banhart’s co-producer here is Welsh singer-songwriter and labelmate Cate Le Bon. Together, they sidestep convention on Twin, which pitches itself somewhere between David Bowie’s Fashion and Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, Pt 2. Drawing inspiration from a hope-in-the-face-of-adversity poem by Buddhist priest Kobayashi Issa, Banhart approached Flying Wig “battle-scarred by life and loss”,…

Modern prog heavyweights waste no time in reuniting. Just 20 months after their debut, Nick D’Virgilio, Neal Morse and Haken vocalist Ross Jennings return with an album that, unlike its tongue-in-cheek title, is bristling with imagination. Given all three are assured singers, it’s no surprise that Sophomore is a vocal-led record that’s embellished with minimalist but astutely assembled instrumentation. On the likes of Hard To Be Easy the trio’s voices blend seamlessly together, morphing into a wall of harmonies and deft acoustic undercurrents. On others, their individual timbres shine. D’Virgilio leads on the cheery, fluttering I’m Not Afraid, the proggiest song on offer. Morse is beautifully meditative atop The Weary One’s cello-lavished tome, and Jennings is a charm on the purring, morose Weighs Me Down. Despite their individual achievements, Sophomore…

Soft-focused quartet’s wistful sixth album. While it’s always impressive to see progressive rock that, well, progresses, there’s also something to be said for fine-tuning a signature sound. That seems to be the approach of this Antwerp-centred four-piece, who have borne the influence of Alan Parsons Project, Asia and other AOR-leaning art-rock pioneers on their previous five albums. And it hits the melodic sweet spot again on the title track of 8mm, which creates a wonderfully nostalgic feel enhanced by the sound of the titular camera reel whirring in the background. If 2020’s Black Rain had a sense of foreboding running through it, 8mm sounds more optimistic. In fact there’s a real sense of post-lockdown appreciation of life in Jump This Wall, not least when they rhyme the title with ‘I’m…

More ornate and expressive gems from the accomplished art-rockers. For roughly a decade, Head With Wings have been defying stylistic restrictions with their exploratory and heartfelt musings. Aided once again by the production of Redemption/Silent Skies’ Vikram Shankar, the group double down on those strengths on Without Intervention. It kicks off with The Dream a multifaceted track whose forceful musicianship, defiant vocals and symphonic yet subtle nuances are simultaneously accessible and avant-garde. Elsewhere, Galaxy, uphold that adventurous magic. A couple of minute-long electric guitar interludes in the shape of Remnant and 26 Bell Chimes add a cinematic dimension to the sequence, with the former’s moody coatings and the latter’s ceremonial rings giving each plenty of personality. Dreamlike ballads Task Of Breathing shake things up further, solidifying the album as their…

Space rock meets instrumental virtuosity. An instrumental power trio playing extended range instruments – eight-string guitar and six-string bass – it’s tempting to compare Infinite Rising to Animals As Leaders. However, these Italians bring their own personality to progressive metal, with a style they describe as ‘spatial prog’. Sci-fi themes permeate Awakening, reflected in the song titles and the feeling of exploring the vastness of space. There’s constant dialogue between Federico Albanese’s guitar and Silvia Pistolesi’s bass, passing melodic ideas back and forth, and taking turns to establish musical themes. Pistolesican harmonise with the guitar or lock in with drummer Alessandro Formichi to highlight a groove. Nocturnal Skywatchers begins in a drifting, relaxed mood, like watching the stars come out at dusk before Albanese introduces a menacing theme that evokes…

The ability to read backwards will come in handy while listening to the debut album by Vrajitor’s Tenebrarium. An unpredictable scamper through esoteric prog rock, avant-garde ambience and all things horror-related, Esrevinu Eht Fo Naicigam Eht, Lived Eht Ot Detoved (Avantgarde Music) owes plenty to cinematic forebears like Goblin, Jacula and Fabrio Frizzi, but the inventive, cartoon-creepy likes of Rubedo and Exorcismus can more than hold their own against the classics. After nearly 20 years of experimental heaviness, Vanishing Kids have made their masterpiece. Miracle Of Death (Aural Music) is the missing link between shoegaze and organic 70s hard rock. From the rootsy, proto metal of Spill The Dark and Only You’s bullish dream pop, to the anthemic arena-psych of Midnight Child and Feral Angel’s glacial goth rock, it’s utterly…

Jazzy ambient improv from Roxy Music instrumentalists. In the 70s, Roxy Music were all about grabbing attention. With opening tracks like Remake/Remodel, Do The Strand and Street Life, perhaps only their labelmates King Crimson could claim to enter the room more exuberantly. Blue Skies, the song which opens the latest album from Roxy duo Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay, is the antithesis of exuberance, with a deep bass groove, smatterings of light percussion and meandering horn giving the opener its only real direction. The pair’s musical relationship stretches back more than half a century, though AM.PM finds them at their most spontaneous. A hazy aesthetic permeates an album that was conceived and largely executed during the pandemic. These improvisational pieces thrive on the liberty that being locked up allows, with…

US proggers take a slightly different path with smoothly crafted collection. Pattern-Seeking Animals’ third album, 2022’s Only Passing Through, banished any lingering impression of them as merely a Spock’s Beard side-project, the band from which their four original members are also associated with. This goes further, making deliberate changes to their sound. With a different producer, a different studio and a different approach to songwriting and arranging, PSA have delivered an album that sounds like a true progression. There are still familiar points of reference: sections of the 12-minute He Once Was evoke both Pink Floyd and post-Lamb Genesis, while Somewhere North Of Nowhere throws up fleeting shades of Yes. But it also sees them dialling back the full-on rock elements and adding hooks galore, most notably on Bulletproof’s fantastic…

Colorado trio reflect on hope and despair with fourth album. There’s plenty to like in Source’s new album, Emergence: the gritty riffs, the soothing vocals, the knotted rhythms. It’s their fourth record, but they’ll still find it tricky to shake the comparisons to prog luminaries Tool and Opeth. Shades of the former snake their way in through the floating guitar riffs, while for the latter, vocalist Benjamin Gleason sounds like Mikael Åkerfeldt – but that’s no bad thing. Dig deeper and this is a band who have just about enough to stand out on their own; Vesica (The Path In) benefits from some stinging bassfrom the hands of Pascal Faurie, while the middle salvo of A PathOut is a prog metal trip. The group, meanwhile, are completed by drummer Justin…

Adroit all-rounder crafts charming opus. As a versatile musician who plays for Camel and Cyan among others, Peter Jones has long proven his uncommon ability. It’s on his own project, as Tiger Moth Tales, where his songwriting talent comes to the fore, and this might be his most agreeable album yet. Some of his earlier work has bordered on being too sweet or ornate, but here, while good nature still emanates from every line, there’s a restraint which allows the songcraft to do the heavy lifting, and if melancholy sometimes fleetingly invades the sunny optimism, then so be it. His rich voice retains a husky, very Peter Gabriel basenote, and the mid-period Genesis prog structures of the title track or The Snail, The Horse And The River transmit their compassion…

A snapshot of an eventful year in prog. Right from the off, Kevin Furbank – the author of previous Sonicbond books on Gong, Fairport Convention, and psychedelic rock from 1967 – readily acknowledges that the problem of a list-based tome, such as this, is that it’s based entirely on his taste. That, of course, means that not everyone is going to agree with the 22 albums he concentrates on in this 1972 focused book. Accepting that one person’s classic is another’s clunker, there’s no dissension with the inclusion of big hitters such as Jethro Tull, Yes and ELP. Alongside them, space is given to relevant releases from underdogs Strawbs and Matching Mole, as well as a host of European arrivals including Can, Neu!, PFM, Focus and even Aphrodite’s Child. While…

VENUE THE MET, PHILADELPHIA, PA, USA DATE 22/09/2023 Regardless of how many ‘classic’ members remain, Yes deserve praise for keeping on after more than half a century. They’re likely the longest-standing progressive rock group still active both onstage and in the studio, and as their nearly two-hour set tonight proves, they remain masters of their craft. It’s not a perfect evening, but it’s certainly a satisfying one, and it undoubtedly validates them as an act still well worth seeing. Prior to Yes’ performance, celebrated artist Roger Dean – who’s worked with the band on/off since 1971’s Fragile and contributed to this year’s Mirror To The Sky – gives a 30-minute overview of his artistic beginnings and accomplishments. Despite his humble tone, appealing insights and early illustrations, his presentation isn’t as well-received as…

VENUE STUDIO9294, LONDON DATE 22/09/2023 SUPPORT PENELOPE TRAPPES With the summer fast becoming a distant memory thanks to earlier sunsets and a palpable drop in temperature, the return of ethereal trio Esben And The Witch couldn’t be better timed. While they continue to defy easy categorisation, their intoxicating blend of post-punk, post-rock, goth, psychedelia and prog is shrouded in a dark mystery that’s entirely in keeping with the lengthening shadows outside and the increasingly gentrified industrial environs that cast them. And the plumes of smoke that are emitted periodically from beneath the stage to engulf the largely black-clad audience sure help, too. This is the band’s first UK gig in five years, but their earlier European dates have clearly sharpened their delivery, for what slowly and incrementally unfolds here tonight is an…

VENUE NEW CENTURY HALL, MANCHESTER DATE 15/09/2023 Almost 10 years to the day since the release of their sixth studio album Wild Light, Sheffield’s experimental post-rockers bring their anniversary celebrations to Manchester’s modern-looking New Century Hall. This record about the end of the world – with a little hope poking its peaks and troughs, too – feels even more appropriate now than ever. In today’s uncertain landscape, experiencing it performed in its entirety feels a very apt way to spend a rain-battled Friday night. Opener Heat Death Infinity Splitter introduces a wall of sound that many bigger line-ups wouldn’t be able to muster, before the swathing, psychedelic keyboards of Prisms play off Rob Jones’ incessant, energetic drum patterns. While it’s gratifying to see keyboardist/guitarist Paul Wolinski so absorbed in his tasks and…

VENUE THE NIGHT OWL, BIRMINGHAM DATE 20/09/2023 Multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer Rosalie Cunningham might be best known from her Purson days, but she continues to mingle through the hippie age and captivates with her own unique and eclectic blend of baroque’n’roll. She struts onstage in Birmingham with a retro-looking Gibson SG strapped across her black velvet jumpsuit. Her bandmates equally look like they’ve been plucked out of a 70s photoshoot, especially guitarist Rosco Wilson with his orange-tinted specs, as they launch into opener Start With The Corners. It’s a slow burner; there are plenty of shimmering guitar tones to hang on to and a Doors-esque groove-laden jam that spirals into the woozy riffs of Ride On My Bike. Its fuzzy tones explode into a space-rock high and a solo fit for an…

Send your letters to us at: Prog, Future Publishing, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London, W2 6JR, or email prog@futurenet.com. Letters may be edited for length. We regret that we cannot reply to phone calls. For more comment and prog news and views, find us on facebook.com under Prog. GENERATION PROG My first proper prog experience came back in 1978 when I heard Lost by Van der Graaf Generator. It was just full of everything and it opened a door to a whole musical universe that is continuing to expand. It was so exciting to realise that there was music like that that had been created and that there were galaxies of it to explore. Like your first love, your first prog experience always holds a special place in your heart. I…

Swedish prog metallers Opeth have been announced as the final headline act for next year’s Bloodstock Festival, which takes place at Catton Park, Derbyshire from August 8-11. It will be the band’s only live appearance in UK for 2024, and the set will be voted for by Opeth fans. “I don’t remember how many times we’ve played the festival, but we do have fond memories from there,” says Opeth singer and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt. “‘Filling in’ for Heaven & Hell when RJD [Ronnie James Dio] had passed is one. Fuck! Can’t remember a more emotional event on stage for us, to be honest. Anyhoooo, we’ll be there‘rocking’ and ‘rolling’ in our own way, playing songs that you’ve chosen (apparently).” Norwegian prog metallers Enslaved have also been added to the bill,…

INCORRIGIBLE ODDBALLS ALWAYS find their way to prog in the end. For the first part of his musical career, multi instrumentalist Craig Schmuhl was guitarist and frontman with a death metal band called Hate Storm Annihilation. Today, he releases music as The Mystical Hot Chocolate Endeavors. His latest, A Clock Without A Craftsman, is an extraordinary 98-minute journey through modern prog, post-rock, shoegaze and metal: solid proof that Schmuhl has found his true calling. “The prog thing didn’t really come around until I was at college,” he says. “I was just writing long songs, and a friend said, ‘Oh, you mean like prog rock?’ What the hell is prog rock, you know? [Laughs] I was just writing songs the way I do, but then he turned me onto Genesis and…

www.progzilla.com/listen/ “THE FEELING THAT I wanted to come out of this album was that I wanted, under all circumstances, to love every second of passing music,” Pomegranate Tiger mainman Martin Andres says. “I can say, with a smile on my face, that I think I’ve accomplished that job. I tried to not follow any rules: I went full prog. I try to tell a story with every song, I try to be as creative as possible. If five people listen to it, or five million, I literally did everything I can and there’s no more that I can do.” He seems exceedingly satisfied after putting his all into his prog metal project’s instrumental third album, All Input Is Error. Some sections are reminiscent of Animals As Leaders and Between The…

www.progzilla.com/listen/ “I WANT IT to be a celebration of instrumental guitar in all its forms,” says Michael Astley-Brown, the man behind Maebe. Raised in the Cotswolds, Astley-Brown grew up on grunge and pop-punk before discovering the joys of post-rock at university. Hearing Mogwai proved a transformative experience, because“it made me realise I don’t need a singer to get my ideas across”. The love of guitar led to a career in music journalism writing for Guitar World before a series of personal upheavals provided the impetus for Maebe’s eponymous 2020 debut. “I was like, ‘The shit has really hit the fan, why don’t I try to do this thing I’ve always wanted to do? I’m going to make an album.’” On Maebe and now Rebirth. Relive. Repeat., Astley-Brown played or programmed…

Who hasn’t dreamt of working for a record label, or even starting their own? In the 21st century, all you need is an act or two, legal terms to release said acts’ work and the internet. But going back 25 years, things were a little more complex. Not that that would put off two friends, Chris Reeder and John O’Carroll, who would go on to run one of the most respected, progressive minded underground labels in the UK, Rocket Recordings. “We heard Hawkwind and that became huge for us. Not just the music but their record sleeves, too.”Chris Reeder, Rocket Reeder and O’Carroll first met in the third-year art class at secondary school in Alveston, south Gloucestershire. “John was primarily into hip hop and I was into metal,” Reeder tells…

King Edgar keeps the freak flag still flying on late-career solo album. Break The Dark began life as a collection of sketches that Edgar Broughton had saved on various devices with the intention of completing with drummer brother Steve and long-term Edgar Broughton Band bassist Arthur Grant. The pandemic and Steve’s passing in 2022 derailed and then ultimately galvanised the project. Featuring appearances by Grant, cellist Calle Arngrip and Broughton’s son Luke, the result has a stately, glacial feel and a languorous minimalist richness. Broughton’s work is deeply ruminative and often profoundly mournful: The Raven’s Song is a deep and dark jig (‘a plague upon our capital that brings us to our knees’), while the moving Flowers In A Bowl brings Arngrip’s cello to the fore. Broughton’s voice has developed…

US proggers’ invitation to stick around and enjoy their thoughtful partying. It’s long been clear that District 97 collectively possess prodigious talent and, in Leslie Hunt, a singer with authority and a strong identity, even if their off-kilter approaches and wilful eclecticism can be a bit much at times. Five albums and a couple of line-up changes in, Stay For The Ending might well help to ease some of the doubters off the fence and into their world. From the title-cut opener through to final track The Watcher, apparent that the band have lost none of their edge or musical chops. Strains of Crimson (especially in Crossover) and UK can be detected, alongside more guitar-heavy prog metal elements, and drummer Jonathan Schang even sticks in a drum solo to hard-rocking…

Occult psych rockers conjure a pagan party. 'You are about to embark on a journey into occult Albion. Come, it’s time to explore this heathen land,’ commands the voice that begins Londoners Green Lung’s third album in an opening worthy of The Twilight Zone. What follows is a further exploration of the dark, forgotten places and pagan histories they dived into on 2019’s Woodland Rites and 2021’s Black Harvest. It’s intoxicating stuff, powered by a blend of John Wright’s rumbling organ, Scott Black’s wicked riffs and grooves deep enough to drown in from the rhythm section of Joseph Ghast and Matt Wiseman. Leading the ceremony, Tom Templar has the pipes and the charisma to keep the congregation mesmerised. They can channel the churning heaviness of doom in One For Sorrow,…

AOR, prog, djent: it’s all here and more. It’s all change for HeKz as frontman Matt Young assembles a fresh line-up for the band’s fourth album. Terra Nova sees Young joined by guitarist Mark Bogert, Irina Markevich on violin and drummer Moyano el Buffalo, with a guest appearance by keyboard wizard Adam Holzman. Young’s influences aren’t hard to fathom, but they are sufficiently diverse to lend Terra Nova musical breadth, combining the classic and the modern. Sabotage suggests the pomp and grandeur of Kansas, and Mayday taps into the prog metal riffage of Dream Theater. The vocal harmonies and Young’s belting delivery hail from the era before growling replaced singing in rock music, but the production is glossy and distinctly contemporary. While So Far Gone is an unabashed power ballad,…

Ingenious retro-prog from the frozen north. This prolific Norwegian duo have been making fine vintage-style prog for nearly a decade now. Having cleared the decks with last year’s Nattfiolen Suite (an epic outtake from 2019’s Nattfiolen album) and Jord Sessions (rejigged material from their self-titled), they can now get back to the vivid, sepia-steeped adventures that made 2021’s Pastoralia such a joy. Salighet is Jordsjø’s fifth full-length, and it’s their most fully realised flight of fancy yet. Their sound is still an amalgam of classic 70s prog, Norwegian jazz and lysergic folk, but there’s a sense of momentum to songs like the shape-shifting Sankeren that makes this a more immediate record than its predecessors. It flows beautifully from start to finish, but saves its most sumptuous indulgences for the closing…

Alt-proggers keep it accessible without blunting their edges. With their third album, French/Irish four-piece Molybaron continue to straddle the line between alt-rock anthemics and prog tinted experimentation. While not every track delivers everything a prog fan looks for in music, there is plenty for teeth to be sunk into. What each song does offer, without fail, is oodles of energy and a ‘play it simple, stupid’ approach to vocal hooks. On the bass-driven, danceable Dead On Arrival, the track’s title is uttered 14 times in just over three minutes as the quartet try – successfully – to get into their listener’s heads. Yet there are enough dynamic shifts, subtle string undercurrents and spinning riffs to keep things interesting. It’s an approach that works in more subtle instances too, like the…

London duo continue their trend of heady and hypnotic electronic prog. The eighth album from Vincent and Dominic Hemy is one for hypnotism enthusiasts rather than thrill seekers. The pair’s dark ambience is meant as an antidote to commercial songwriting and what they offer instead is both cyclical and kaleidoscopic. Seven-minute opener Force Majeure orbits around a simple motif, sucking without ever really doing much. It’s a trend that the understated 8-bit synths of Invocation and the stuttering beats of the dizzying Trip Hazard all too happy to continue. In fact, the 11-minute closer Space provides the record’s only real drama. It comes in the form of heightened dynamics and a frenzied change in mood, with acid trip, horror film freak-outs playing off fuzzing stoner rock guitars and spacey jazz…

Welsh neo-proggers’ rebirth continues. The world doesn’t seem in urgent need of any more moderately successful acts from yesteryear reforming to address ‘unfinished business’, with the emphasis on the latter word. But when Retreat From Moscow reconnected in 2019, after 38 years apart, there wasn’t any obvious financial incentive beyond a desire to play together again. Last year’s debut (!) album The World As We Knew It backed up that perception and this vibrant follow-up further reinforces it. Its nine tracks are bold, immediate and melodic, with opener Saving California tapping into the prehistory of the US West Coast, and diverse topics touched upon elsewhere include homelessness (Windchill), Welsh mythology (Flowerbride) and that old prog perennial, visions of a dystopian future (The Machine Stops). Whether or not the words prick…

An enjoyable yet formulaic introduction from the prog metal supergroup. Comprising current and former members of Haken, The Neal Morse Band, Shining and others, Temic’s debut album arrives with high expectations. Although it scratches itch, it does little to establish the quartet as an eclectic and individualistic new project. It’s not entirely without interesting moments. The soaring harmonies and Losses, Mothallah and Skeletons are impressive, but more often, Terror derivative hodgepodge of familiar sounds and ideas. Through The Sands Of Time and Acts Of Violence evoke the bombastic, melodramatic songwriting and vocal style of Threshold and Evergrey, much like the complex instrumentation of Friendly and Falling Away hew too closely to the timbres and techniques that Dream Theater and Symphony X have been using for decades. Terror Management Theory showcases…

Australian artist John Greenwood is best known in these parts as the lead guitarist for Unitopia, and his sterling solo album Dark Blue (bit.ly/johngreenwoodprog) was produced by his bandmate Sean Timms. With a largely orchestral palette and a theatrical sweep, this rich, earnest, beautifully made prog record considers the evils and sadnesses of the modern world, the thoughtful lyrics underpinned by maturely sensational guitar playing and musicianship throughout. Steve Hackett has supplied a favourable foreword for Dark Blue, and rightly so – it’s a wonderful surprise, and Greenwood deserves broader attention for it. Another group meriting a wider audience in the Northern hemisphere is Chile’s Tryo. Over their 35 years together they’ve opened for the likes of Yes, Adrian Belew and Focus, and their powerful new concept album, Suramérica (Myolodon),…

Highly entertaining and nostalgic comic novel from Darryl Way. Charles Shorwell is the nom de plume of Curved Air co-founder/violinist Darryl Way, who proves to be a natural storyteller in this highly entertaining, nostalgic comic novel. Set amid the dope-wreathed counterculture of late 60s, the story opens with pianist Daniel Luckham coming down from the mother of all acid trips in his London bedsit. Like Way himself, he’s studying at the Royal College Of Music, but an early encounter with Spooky Tooth, a love of The Beatles and a drug bust see Luckman drawn inexorably into the rock world. The colourful tale is populated by musos, crusty hippies, dodgy dealers and dodgier managers, homely girls and femmes fatales. Shorwell/Way’s style is conversational, funny and – at nearly 500 pages –…

VENUE THE HALF MOON, LONDON DATE 21/09/2023 Though the notion of a band continuing well after the departure of a key member is hardly new, the idea of musicians who’ve backed a particular artist getting together after the singer has died is a novel one. Especially if the musicians in question never actually played together at the same time in the same place, even though they served the same master. Held By Trees are a case in point. Most of the talent gathered here tonight – guitarist and bandleader David Joseph, lead guitarist Robbie McIntosh, drummer Paul Beavis, keyboardist Laurence Pendrous, Andy Panayi on flute, sax and clarinet and James Grant on stand-up and electric bass – backed Mark Hollis either with Talk Talk or in a solo capacity in the studio…

VENUE WYLAM BREWERY, NEWCASTLE DATE 19/09/2023 “We hardly drink these days,” says Wishbone’s Ash’s venerable leader Andy Powell, alluding to tonight’s ale manufacturing venue. Recreating the tracklisting of their classic 1973 LP Live Dates (adding Real Guitars Have Wings at the beginning plus encores Living Proof and Persephone), it’s clear that the Ash know how to organise a pit stop in a brewery. Though the 7.30pm start has latecomers scrambling for their seats after the slow-building folk prog classic The King Will Come has already been crowned, it’s apparent that no one will go home feeling short-changed tonight. Performing a short walk away from the Newcastle City Hall, where parts of the original Live Dates were recorded, Wishbone Ash play two 50-minute sets with heart, guts and feeling. Powell sold three of…

VENUE REGGIE’SROCKCLUB, CHICAGO, IL, USA DATE 26/08/2023 It’s not easy being a support act. Is there anyone here to see you? How do you get the crowd’s attention? Can you make an impact during a limited set? Tonight’s support, Tu-Ner consist of a virtuoso touch guitarist and two King Crimson alumni so they need not worry about such things. More than a few Crimson fans have gathered at Reggie’s Rock Club to catch the action before headliner Greg Howe takes the stage. It’s not difficult to hear an extension of King Crimson when Tu-Ner start their set with an improvisational piece rooted in touch guitarist Markus Reuter’s lush soundscapes. When Warr guitarist Trey Gunn and drummer Pat Mastelotto enter, it’s easy to hear shades of ProjeKct X, a short-lived side-project of King…

VENUE THE BEDFORD, LONDON DATE 10/09/2023 Opening this third annual celebration of the rich, varied world of prog is an improv set from The Fierce & The Dead’s Matt Stevens and Kevin Feazey (the latter a fitting replacement for an ailing Andy Tillison) on guitar and bass respectively. Both seated and getting thoroughly lost in the process, theirs is a set of four weird, wonderful and otherworldly in-the-moment creations. Employing an arsenal of effects (at one point Feazey deploys a “mystery” pedal just to see what it does), they meld ambient space rock with psychedelia, country, threatening drones and dreamy jazz funk. Gentle waves of sound swirl around and slowly build into walls of noise then dissipate. Stevens stretches his guitar sound in all directions, imitating at different points choral voices, flute…