Latest articles by Johnny Sharp
“Uncompromisingly melancholic – but there’s light amid the despair when Elizabeth Heaton sounds positively lovestruck”: Midas Fall’s Cold Wave Divide Us
Self-described “miserable prog” soundscapists return after six years with beefed-up but still brooding fifth album
“Lyrically, it’s something that makes Samuel Beckett sound like Tommy Cooper." Tim Bowness and the story of Flowers At The Scene
Tim Bowness may explore morose subjects like murder and divorce on his new album, but this collection of “cinematic short stories”, featuring an impressive prog line-up, is certainly not all doom and gloom…
“I felt like a zombie… I don’t think I’ve ever put myself through that kind of intense collaborative experience before”: Bruce Soord pushed himself hard to deliver The Pineapple Thief’s It Leads To This
2024 album marks the first time band leader and drummer Gavin Harrison created music together in the same room
"I was bored, so I wrote an album": Meet Skinny Knowledge, who've channelled lockdown frustration into bursts of pop-punk catharsis
Dorset band Skinny Knowledge have followed their refreshingly raw debut with Twentytwo, a heavier affair that rocks with abandon
"The results rock with dynamic, dramatic vigour": The Pineapple Thief turn to concise structures on It Leads To This
Prog-leaning art rockers The Pineapple Thief self-edit in style on punchy 15th album It Leads To This
"Like Lee Hazelwood sleepwalking through a guest spot with The Cure circa Faith": The Telescopes' Growing Eyes Becoming String
Growing Eyes Becoming String is the 16th album from psychedelic shoegaze veterans The Telescopes
“I didn’t want to record the best progressive album of all time, I just wanted to have fun." How Riverside made ID.Entity
2023's ID.Entity saw Polish prog rockers Riverisde moving into a new phase of their career
“Hats off to the duo for bravely naming one of their most affecting ballads after a commuter town in Surrey…delivered with a conviction that’s hard to deny”: Wilson & Wakeman’s Can We Leave The Light On Longer?
Threshold and Ozzy Osbourne alumni deliver their third album of piano-led songs, exploring the nature of human connections
The Magnum albums you should definitely own
Magnum have never joined rock’s big league, but over the course of 50 years these Brummies have nevertheless produced some of pomp rock’s best albums
“It shows how the founding five’s skills that first bewitched in the early 1970s didn’t fade in the slightest”: Pentangle’s Reunions clamshell box
Four-disc collection spans live appearances from 1982 to 2011
The 50 best rock albums of 2023
The past 12 months may go down in history as a period of tumult and turmoil, but on the positive side, rock'n'roll is very much alive and well – as the best 50 albums of 2023 reflect
“Ian Anderson does have a face that lends itself to illustrating… He doesn’t have to do much to look evil!” The creation of Jethro Tull’s The Broadsword And The Beast Cover
Artist Iain McCaig recalls the Steven Spielberg-like collaboration for 1982 album art - and what happened to the monster’s head prop he took home from the tour
“Not my finest hour… but if you can forgive my codpiece and tights in the 70s you can forgive me getting out a coffin in a cloak and comedy fangs”: Ian Anderson on Jethro Tull’s 80s era
The decade started with a “big split” and continued through unhappy electronic experiments and bad videos to that controversial Grammy win - but leader says it’s all part of their “universe of silliness”
“I was interested in being on stage with people who are not only comfortable with not knowing what’s going to happen next, but would rather not know”: Bill Bruford’s journey through jazz and prog
The groundbreaking drummer’s bid to find a balance between Yes, King Crimson and Genesis on one hand, and his Earthworks project on the other
“The day I ask the audience to sing my songs I might as well go home. It’s hard enough for trained singers, let alone an audience who will massacre it”: How Ian Anderson refined Jethro Tull stage shows
He took a long hard look at his production values when The Broadsword And The Beast was first released in 1982
"So Jaco Pastorius and Joni Mitchell walk past and ask, ‘Hey, is there a party here?’." The story of Italian prog legends PFM
Newly signed to InsideOut Music, Italian prog legends Premiata Forneria Marconi returned with new album Emotional Tattoos in both English and Italian
“A mature viewpoint without sounding remotely irrelevant or unwelcome”: Galahad’s The Long Goodbye
12th studio album tackles nuanced experience rather than youthful certainty - assisted by timeless songcraft
"It turned out to be a wonderful show, and it healed us for a little while": Nirvana at Reading 1992 - a story of rumours, a wheelchair and salvation
In the build-up to Nirvana's final UK show the band were unhappy and underprepared... and then Kurt Cobain was pushed onstage in a wheelchair
“It was a finished product, called A for Anderson, intended as a solo record. Then the record company heard it." The story of Jethro Tull and A
When 1980's A came out it featured a new Jethro Tull line-up, a new sound and songs about the threat of nuclear war and terrorism. Not everyone was impressed.
Either ‘too progressive’ or ‘not progressive enough’: the impressive boxset that reveals some heart-breaking detail behind The Pineapple Thief's early career
Not yet ratedThe Pineapple Thief's How Did We Find Our Way – 1999-2006 8 CD boxset
Meet Laura Meade, the most dangerous woman in America!
On her latest solo album, IZZ’s Laura Meade turns history into herstory while exploring Hollywood’s love-hate relationship with female celebrities...
30 musicians on the album that changed their life as a kid
Members of Kiss, Black Sabbath, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, Rage Against The Machine and more reveal the albums that set them on the path to rock stardom
"We had the opportunity to reimagine what we do to a certain degree." Big Big Train and the making of Common Ground
Big Big Train's thirteenth studio album Common Ground saw a new line-up but the same classy approach and prog rock sound
