Roots in June
Joe Edwards – Keep on Running In the small town of Devizes in rural Wiltshire was the local blues/cellar bar, offering a great education in the art of intimate and stripped back acoustic roots music. And thus inspired, Joe Edwards began to play covers of his favourite Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B King songs […]
Jethro Tull – The Prog Years Tour
An announcement from Jethro Tull: 27th May 2020: We are sorry to announce that the Jethro Tull – The Prog Years UK tour in 2020 will be postponed to September 2021. Due to the current uncertainty of putting on large events in the UK, we feel that the responsible and safest option for our fans, band and […]
CD Review: Hansan – Nattflykt
It’s always interesting to see what past experiences have brought an artist to the certain point when an album is released. Sofia Karolina Talvik is a singer-songwriter from Gothenburg whose first album ‘Blue Moon’ was released in 2005. Her nordic folk style is delicate and rustic, her crystal clear voice melancholic and ethereal. A year […]
CD Review: Lesoir – Mosaic
In 2019 Lesoir toured as ‘special guests’ of Riverside and were inspired to write this new album, their fifth. Recorded in the winter of 2019, the result is an emotional, less angry offering than previous albums and seeeks to capture their dynamics, recreating the energy of their live performance. Strengthened by producer duo John Cornfield […]
Notes from the Edge: Rock down in the Lock down
A trio of releases get the James R Turner seal of approval
Kansas – New album and New Video
KANSAS, America’s legendary progressive rock band, has released a new song and music video for their song “Memories Down the Line” taken from the band’s highly anticipated new studio album “The Absence of Presence” out June 26, 2020 through Inside Out Music. Fans can listen and watch the music video at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0tEhzcMBxE “‘Memories […]
Marillion – Release Video of Lockdown Version of Made Again
A press release from Marillion just about says it all! 15th May 2020: We had the idea to do a ‘lockdown’ version of Made Again for you all. Unbeknownst to us, our manager Lucy made a call (via social media) to ask fans to send in videos of themselves, in the hope of replicating the […]
Yes Reschedule UK Dates
YES announce re-scheduled UK dates, due to the coronavirus pandemic, for The Album Series 2021 Tour. The tour was originally scheduled to kick off this month in Liverpool – it will now begin on 16th May 2021 in Manchester. The show will feature their 1974 Relayer album in its entirety together with a selection of […]
CD Review – Three Colours Dark – The Science Of Goodbye
The Science of Goodbye is the debut album release from Three Colours Dark, a new project from Rachel Cohen and Jonathan Edwards. It is their first writing/recording collaboration in sixteen years, since their partnership as two of the founding members and songwriters of the award-winning original line-up of Classic Rock Society favourites Karnataka. Following the […]
Book Review – Mike Barnes – A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & The 1970s
There was a time when it was difficult to find books about progressive rock, be it general surveys or about individual bands. Those on bands seem to appear first, particularly photographic histories, whilst now there are plenty on the market based on a narrative history of the genre. (Even more recently, autobiographies and biographies have […]
Book Review – Steve Howe – All My Yesterdays
Steve Howe’s prominence in the prog rock world cannot be denied, so there will be a lot of interest in this autobiography. Of course, fans will approach the book for different reasons, maybe hoping to gain an insight into the music or the relationships between Yes and/or Asia band members. There is more to Steve […]
Steve Hackett – A Genesis In My Bed
July 2020 will see the publication of A Genesis In My Bed – the autobiography from guitar great and former member of Genesis, Steve Hackett. As with his music, Steve has written a highly detailed, entertaining and embracing tome that charts his life in full, but with a firm emphasis on his years with Genesis […]
Paul Birchall – Frangible
Way back in 2007 I was sent a CD by a band called Combination Head. In fact it was Paul Birchall, keyboards, programming and all round musician that made me aware. The album had heavy leanings to Camel and I knew would appeal to the CRS followers. It did and so a gig at Rotherham’s […]
Roots in May
Eileen Rose – Muscle Shoals Rose’s breakthrough album, 2000’s Shine Like It Does was recorded with country-techno renegades Alabama 3 (responsible for the theme tune to The Sopranos) and co-produced with Jerry Boise (Buena Vista Social Club) and released on Rough Trade Records. It met with praise, as have all following albums: Be Many Gone […]
CD Review: The Great Adventour – The Neal Morse Band
Mike Portnoy proclaimed “The Similitude of A Dream” as Neal Morse’s best album, only to give the same accolade to the follow-up double album “The Great Adventure”, and that together they are an epic 4-disc set. This performance of “The Great Adventour – Live in Brno 2019” (audio only in my case as reviewer) is […]
Roots in April
The Reverend Shawn Amos & The Brotherhood – Blue Sky Prior to emerging as the Reverend in 2013, folks knew Shawn Amos as producer (Solomon Burke’s Live in Nashville and Shout! Factory box set Q : The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones), and an Americana singer-songwriter who’d grown up in a dramatically dysfunctional L.A. home, […]
Album Release – Kansas – The Absence of Presence
American proggers Kansas have a new album out this summer, It’s called The Absence of Presence and is their first studio release since 2016s The Prelude Implicit. The Absence of Presence, released by Inside Out Music on 26th June 2020, features nine all new tracks written by the band, produced by Zak Rizvi, and co-produced […]
CD Review: Zopp -Zopp
Oh my, oh my……. Pure Canterbury. Proper Prog. Gorgeous. Best of 2020. So far. “Epic fuzz organ driven prog/jazz/electronic rock music with a slice of lemon” (they said that, not me) I am first listening to this just as fear is hitting the good folks of the UK, panic beginning to manifest itself in […]
CD Review: The Toundra – Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari
‘Das Cabinet des Dr.Caligari’ is the latest musical initiative of Toundra, a rather intrepid instrumental rock band from Spain who are not afraid to tackle new projects in a unique fashion and reinvent their art. An atmopheric soundtrack to the quintessential German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene that turns exactly 100 years old in 2020, […]
CD Review – Ms Amy Birks – All That I Am & All That I Was
Amy Birks first came to the attention of the prog scene as a member of Beatrix Players, for whom she was lyricist, co-composer and lead vocalist. The band won Prog magazine’s Limelight award in 2017, Amy herself winning best female vocalist in the same magazine in 2018. Now on her own, Amy releases her first […]
Cairo Postponed
We have heard from Cairo that they have decided to postpone this Thursday’s gig at Local Authority. From Cairo: CAIRO GIGS POSTPONED “It is with sincere regret that we have decided to postpone next weeks Cairo gigs in Sheffield and Milton Keynes, due to the coronavirus epidemic concerns which have escalated exponentially in the UK […]
Roots in March 2020
Sam Lewis – Solo Sam Lewis has collaborated with the likes of Leon Russell and been dubbed “a modern Townes Van Zandt”. Following a nomadic youth throughout the south-east USA, he began calling Nashville home in 2009. To date he has released a self-titled debut (2012), Waiting On You (2015), and Loversity (2018), in the […]
Get your music heard!
Put your music onto the Spirit player at the top of the Spirit of Prog website and get your stuff heard by loads of avid Spirit of Prog followers. Email your mp3’s to kris@spirit.rocks with details of the album it is from, and the year of release and if it’s good enough it’ll make it […]
Pallas to play The Spirit of Prog
The Spirit of Progressive Rock is extremely proud to announce that we will be playing host to one of the September tour dates for Pallas. Tickets are available now.
CD Review: Orange Clocks – Metamorphic
Metamorphic is the new album from Orange Clocks and was released by Bad Elephant Music on Valentine’s Day of all days. Anybody heard of Seventies’ supergroup Klementine Uhren’s soundtrack for Tope’s Sphere? Nope, me neither. So we can’t look at this new album with any wisdom or consideration of the Clocks’s reinterpretation of said item. […]
Roots in February 2020
Catherine MacLellan – Coyote Juno Award winner (for her last album of original songs,The Raven’s Sun), Catherine MacLellan returns after a four-year break (celebrating the life and legacy of her father GeneMacLellan (writer of Anne Murray’s Snowbird) with this eagerly anticipated sixth album. They were all recorded and produced at Catherine’s home studio in Prince […]
New Gig : Cairo & White Sail
A last minute booking! You don’t have long to plan this one. Patreon sponsors of course can claim their discount by using the password shared over on the Patreon website. Award-winning prog rock band, CAIRO are excited to play The Local Authority in Sheffield for the first time for an evening of melodic progressive rock […]
A Genesis In My Bed
July 2020 sees the publication of A Genesis In My Bed – the autobiography from guitar great, former member of Genesis, and of course one of our honarypatrons, Steve Hackett. Steve has apparently written a highly detailed, entertaining and embracing book that charts his life in full, but with a firm emphasis on his years […]
Strangefish: Sun 26 January, Robin 2, Bilston, Wolverhampton.
The Robin 2 is a superb venue with a regular sound-guy who knows what he is doing, it has a well- stocked bar and there’s often catering available which includes grey peas and bacon, a local Dudley delicacy (gray-pays). This year the venue has announced some Sunday ProgRock all-day festivals of which this was the […]
CD Review: Here it comes again – Francesco Gazzara
Five years have elapsed since the release of Francesco’s first Genesis influenced album “Play Me My Song”and his recently released sequel “Here It Comes Again” continues his re-interpretation of classic Genesis tracks. He has, like on his previous album, focussed on genesis’s 1971-1980’s repertoire selecting ten tracks taken from the seven albums covering the Nursery […]
Yet another venue bites the dust.
Were sad to announce that Sheffield’s RS Bar (sometimes known as the Tune Inn or the Royal Standard) has closed. The RS Bar has hosted many different bands in it’s time including a few events from Spirit favourites Haze and my own folk band Ethryll. We hope a new landlord is found soon!
Help us thrive! Become a sponsor.
We are now taking sponsorships to help us move to the next level. Bigger gigs, bigger names – we’d love to do them all – but the money is always the issue. Our aims for 2020 are as follows. Improve the website (and sell tickets on here, rather than relying on Skiddle) – however this […]
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