CD Review – Kekal – Envisaged
A conundrum to begin with – can a group with no official members still be a band? On the face of this release by Kekal the answer is a very definite “yes!” Kekal is/was an Indonesian based band that formed in Jakarta in August 1995. The band sought to inject fresh ideas into a fundamentally […]
CD Review – Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate – The Confidence Trick
Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate has been building a very positive reputation for itself over the last ten years or so. Over the six albums since 2012 the band has woven together a reputation for intelligent, literate, imaginative, artful music created with warm and empathic philosophical outlooks and positivity. The Confidence Trick again grasps that […]
Roots in July
The Canny Band – The Canny Band The Canny Band are an eclectic trad trio based in Glasgow, born from a love of traditional music and fuelled by student poverty. Sam Mabbett (button accordion) and Michael Biggins (piano) formed the band in 2016 and Callum Convoy (bodhran) makes up the trio. It’s taken several years […]
CD Review – Charlie Griffiths – Tiktaalika
First, a quick lesson: tiktaalika refers to tiktaalik roseae, better known as the “fishapod,” a three hundred- and seventy-million-year-old fossil fish which was discovered in the Canadian Arctic in 2004 (I can look things up as well as anybody!). Its discovery sheds light on what is considered a pivotal point in the history of life […]
CD Review – Derek Sherinian – Vortex
Keyboard virtuoso Derek Sherinian returns with his latest album, Vortex, which sees him taking up where he left off in 2020 with The Phoenix release. That is not to claim that he is re-treading the same old ground but as Derek himself sates it is a “continuation”. “However, I feel the composition is stronger on […]
CD Review – Mickey Jupp – Up Snakes, Down Ladders
This is Mickey’s first album release of new recordings in nearly forty years. That’s quite some time. Just think what you were up to forty years ago and what’s happened to you since! He is quite often referred to as the godfather of pub rock and was once referred to as a “white Chuck Berry” […]
CD Review – Han Uil – Walking In Circles
Han Uil is a is a singer- songwriter and guitarist, formerly the frontman of symphonic rock band Antares and also vocalist of the neo-prog rock band Seven Day Hunt which featured three ex members of Egdon Heath. He is also songwriter/singer/guitarist for TumbleTown. Alongside this he has been running a solo career that has seen […]
CD REVIEW – Crystal Palace – Still There
Crystal Palace came into being in 1990’s Berlin, with debut album “On the Edge of the World” released in 1995. The only link to that era is founding member Yenz, at the time on bass. Keyboardis Frank Köhler joined in 1998 and as the 2000’s started, Yenz took over vocal duties. Over the following years […]
CD REVIEW – Pure Reason Revolution – Above Cirrus
Is the best kind of progressive band one where you can hear their original roots, while seeing, hearing and following a progression within their new music, able to celebrate their newest music’s freshness, innovation and new direction? If so, this is the best kind of progressive music. This is the new Pure Reason Revolution album, […]
Drifting Sun Release Twilight On Blood-red Vinyl
News from proggers Drifting Sun: The band’s 2017 album Twilight is now available to pre-order as a DOUBLE vinyl, in blood-red colour, in collaboration with Plane Groovy. The record will feature the entire Twilight album, spread across 3 sides, with side D containing bonus tracks only. Main man Chris Topham made it possible, and they […]
Dopapod Release Fannie
Dopapod, the American prog band who sometimes find themselves described as a jam band, has released another single from the new album. There is an animated film of the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDZsqCjl_E A daydream-like journey through time and space, the song opens with a hypnotizing, bluesy guitar part overtop strange ambient noises. The song’s narrator […]
Yes Interview on Youtube
A new interview with Yes men Steve Howe and Geoff Downes has been posted on Youtube. The interview was recorded on 25th May 2022 with Prog Magazine Editor Jerry Ewing prior to the band’s The Album Series Tour 2022, which now features Close To The Edge, celebrating its 50th Anniversary, rather than Relayer as originally […]
CD REVIEW – White Spirit – Right or Wrong
Hartlepool in County Durham may have been White Spirit’s first origins, but their debut single, Backs To The Grind, released on NEAT Records in 1980, saw immediate major label interest, keen to snap up and share with the wider world a band that had so much to offer in and amongst the plethora of NWOBHM […]
CD Review – Ghost Of The Machine – Scissorgames
With Scissorgames a new relatively “old” band releases its debut album. Kind of. Ghost Of The Machine are, by and large, five of the musicians that comprised The Winter Machine prior to the split with vocalist Al Winter. They are now joined by singer Charlie Bramald, who used to work with covers band Harmony Of […]
CD REVIEW – Reaven – For Tomorrow
Roméo Bassi (Lead Singer-Guitarist) and Vincent Fernandes (Drummer-Vocalist) were schoolmates who created their first band in 2004 at the age of 14. Fast forward to now, and Reaven who describe themselves as a France-based pop-rock group composed of drummer/backup vocalist Vince, bassist/backup vocalist Rudy, keyboardist/backup vocalist François, and lead singer/guitarist Roméo. Roméo describes Reaven’s sound […]
CD Review – OU – One
There’s a line of thought that Progressive Metal has become somewhat anchored in recent years with too many bands having their eye’s only being a part of that genre with all its associated clichés and mannerisms whilst neglecting the element of progress that is inherent in the term. Certainly, there are some bands around who […]
CD Review – Soft Ffog – Soft Ffog
Now here’s a band that has had a long gestation period. Soft Ffog began life as one-off, a group formed to perform a gig commissioned by Kongsberg Jazzfestival in 2016. Although the event was considered something of a success, the band failed to gain traction as a proper working band. The group’s members had busy […]
Roots in June
Chris Brain – Bound to Rise A local lad (Leeds based, Yorkshire born), this album was recorded onto analog tape and produced by Tom Orrell (Koyo, Weirds, Wandering Monster). What you get are ten live performances on record. As his bio says: “Chris Brain renders songs embedded in folk tradition and the pastoral, with a […]
CD REVIEW – Esperfall – Origins in Darkness
Esperfall are a melodic progressive metal band from Hungary. They formed in 2016, have released two E.P.’s (‘A Leap Of Faith’ in 2018 and ‘The Leaf Legacy’ in 2019) and now comes their debut album ‘Act I – Origins In Darkness’. And here, in full, is their deep concept for the album: The album presents […]
Alan White 1949-2022
Immensely sad news from Yes this evening. Our deepest sympathies to Alan’s family, friends and colleagues. He was an immense talent and undoubtedly one of the iconic drummers working in rock. The band has issued this statement: It is with deep sadness that Yes announce Alan White, their much-loved drummer and friend of 50 years, […]
Yes Have Announced Alan White Not To Tour On Upcoming Dates
Yes has announced that due to current health issues Alan White will not be taking part on the forthcoming 50th Anniversary Close to the Edge UK & Eire Tour. Alan was really looking forward to playing live again preparing to celebrate 50 years with Yes, having joined the band for the July 1972 Close to […]
CD REVIEW – BJORN RIIS – Everything to Everyone
Airbag co-founder, songwriter and lead guitarist Bjørn Riis has released fourth album of six tracks clocking in at 50 minutes. Finally someone understands that you don’t need to cram a CD with filler – quality over quantity everytime. Whilst Bjørn Riis is vocalist, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, a wide variety of instruments, he’s roped in some notable guests: Henrik Bergan Fossum (Airbag), Kristian Hultgren (Wobbler), Simen […]
CD REVIEW – Bob Marston & the Credible Sources – So Long
Bob who? Bob Marston’s musical journey as a child, singing songs written by his mother for his brother, sister, and himself, local sanitation workers, and whatever else they came across during their days. Bob’s older brother George began playing piano at age 4 and once he was old enough, Bob would sing the Bruce Springsteen, […]
CD Review – Datadyr – Woolgathering
You have to admire musicians who aren’t prepared to belong to one particular given musical style rather than another. Datadyr are one such group. There have been plenty of prog rock bands that have strong leanings towards jazz, King Crimson and Yes come to mind, but there aren’t too many jazz bands that have such […]
CD REVIEW – Roger Chapman – Moth to a Flame
With his marmite voice, I suspect many, me included, have not paid as much attention as we should have, to this chap’s musical output. Moth To A Flame – The Recordings 1979-1981 is the sum of Chapman’s first three solo albums, plus 25 bonus tracks drawn from studio out-takes and live recordings. What you hear is […]
CD Review – Asia – Asia In Asia – Live At The Budokan, Tokyo, 1983 Boxset
From a British perspective, it is sometimes forgotten just how big Asia was as a band in the early 1980’s. To say that the group was considered out of step in the UK with a music press that was still in thrall to swastika wearing punks and an indifferent rock buying public would be something […]
CD-Single Review – Edenbridge – Somewhere Else But Here
Austrian symphonic metal band Edenbridge has released the single Somewhere Else But Here, taken from the forthcoming album Shangri-La which will be released on 26th August 2022. Somewhere Else But Here itself is a buoyant slice of symphonic rock with crunching guitars and a theatrical, almost operatic, vocal melody. It has great raunch and is […]
CD-Single Review – Semantics – Sleep At Night
We all need and depend on something to get us through the day. It is a part of being human. A coping mechanism that we develop to protect and aid with our day. Brisbane punky alt-rockers Semantics explore that feeling with the new single Sleep At Night. Singer Callum Robinson explains; “Everybody has a crutch […]
CD Review – Dramatis – For Future Reference
Readers of a certain vintage may have heard the members of this band before and not realised it. Chris Payne (vocals, keyboards), Rrussell Bell [his spelling] (guitars, keyboards), Cedric Sharpley (drums), with Denis Haines (keyboards) had been a part of Gary Numan’s band Tubeway Army. When he seemed to announce his retirement in April 1981, […]
Thu 12th May 2022 – IT + Ghost of The Machine
LIVE “SPIRIT OF PROG” GIG Local Authority, Eldon Street, Sheffield, S1 4JU Doors 7pm Tickets £16 advance (click to buy) Beginning life as a psychedelic, multi-media group,IT is a band with a colossal sound that shakes the bones, with a barrage of images that feeds the mind. IT’s sound fuses the classic melodies of prog […]
Clive Mitten – Tales from a Misspent Youth Volume 1
English eccentric, founder member of Twelfth Night and renaissance man Clive Mitten has followed up his orchestral reimagining of Twelfth Night material (Suite Cryptique) with a double album where he goes back to his roots and reimagines some of the big beasts of progressive rock in orchestral form. This is not a covers album per […]
Roots in May
Stephen Doster – Over the Red Sea This will be his third solo release in sevenyears: “For me the record is kind of a travelogue starting with that boat on the cover by the Horn of Africa to London, from Dublin to Belfast, Virginia to Mississippi, and back home to the Texas Hill Country before […]
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Spirit of Progressive Rock 