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Prog
The Prog newsletter brings you the very best of Prog Magazine and our website, every Friday. We'll deliver you the very latest news from the Prog universe, informative features and archive material from Prog’s impressive vault.
Welcome to Prog's brand newTracks Of The Week! We've got seven new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
Congratulations to UK math-rockers Maebe, whose new single Brain Paint won last week's Tracks Of The Week, with Crippled Black Phoenix edging ahead of Arcane Roots after a terrific tussle for second and third places.
The premise is simple - we've collated a batch of new releases by bands falling under the progressive umbrella, and collated them together in one post for you - makes it so much easier than having to dip in and out of various individual posts, doesn't it? The idea is to watch the videos (or listen if it's a stream), enjoy (or not) and also to vote for your favourite in the voting form at the bottom of this post.
Couldn't be easier, could it? We'll be bringing you Tracks Of The Week, as the title implies, each week. Next week we'll update you with this week's winner and present a host of new prog music for you to enjoy.
If you're a band and you want to be featured in Prog's Tracks Of The Week, send your video (as a YouTube link) or track embed, band photo and biog to us here.
GREEN CARNATION - SANGUIS (BLOOD TIES)
Norwegian prog rockers Green Carnation have shared a video for their brand new single, the Hammond-drenched Sanguis (Blood Ties). It's taken from their upcoming album, A Dark Poem, Part II: Sanguis, the second part of their trilogy of albums inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's Ophelia, which began with last year's A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia, and which is released on April 3.
“This song paints a pretty grim picture of my childhood”, says bassist Stein Roger Sordal, who wrote all the lyrics for the new album. “I do have great memories from that time, too, but parts were very dark. I had some tough issues with my father, but I now know that he had it worse. I didn’t think about that when I was younger, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that there is usually more to the story”.
“It took Stein Roger almost 50 years to understand why his father treated him the way he did”, Nordhus says about his dear bandmate. “He didn’t understand until he had kids of his own and was watching them grow up."
MAGENTA - THE LOVERS
Popular Welsh proggers Magenta, who celebrate their 25th anniversary this year, have returned with their brand new single, The Lovers. It's the band's first new studio music for six years and heralds the arrival of their brand new album, Tarot, which will be released through Tigermoth Records on April 10.
"Musically I decided that I would look back to what the blueprint was when we started Magenta back 2001," says Robert Reed. "I was, and still am, a massive fan of Renaissance, and when we made Revolutions, I was very much influenced by their unique sound. So, on this project I really wanted to have one distinct style, a mix of orchestra, guitars and keyboards but with the bass guitar loud and proud. I’m very pleased by what we’ve achieved and think that ‘Tarot’ is the most coherent and consistent Magenta album to date and can’t wait to unleash it to the world.”
A.A. WILLIAMS - WOLVES
Having recently signed to Reigning Phoenix Music, where she now counts Opeth as labelmates, A.A. Williams has shared her second single for the new label. The haunting, dark and atmospheric new single Wolves follows the previously released single Just A Shadow, more music of depth and quality. Williams is touring the UK and Europe for the remainder of the month!
"Wolves describes the blurred lines between dreams and reality," she says. "Ideas and emotions bleed across the boundary, their imprint faint but profound, a softly etched signature on your psyche. Hazy memories begin to fade, you force your feet to touch the ground, yearning for things that were never yours, hopelessly, endlessly searching for the unattainable."
EXPLORING BIRDSONG - 42
Pop prog trio Exploring Birdsong have shared a video for their latest single, 42, and announced headline dates for September, including their largest London show to date at Islington Assembly Hall. Here's hoping the talented trio have a new studio album. under their belts by then!
42 is a song about paranoia, conspiracy theories and confirmation bias - it is written from the perspective of someone who has lost touch with reality, seeing patterns in their day to day life that are leading them to some answer, or a warning - but never quite getting the full picture of what it could all mean," says singer Lynsey Ward of 42. "Thematically, the song was drawn from personal experience in childhood, where a few coincidences with numbers could spiral into a feeling of being ‘followed’ by a number or symbol, and like the storyline of the rest of your life was being written with this at the centre, or as a clue.”
CHRIS BRAIDE & DEAN JOHNSON - WILD HONEY HAIR
Downes Braide Association and Producers fans will be well aware of singer Chris Braide's wonderful voice, but Liverpudlian songwriting pal Dean Johnson maybe less so. The pair are revisiting material they penned in the early 00s, with their 2005 album, The Upside, from which comes the smooth Wild Honey Hair, released on vinyl, CD and digitally through Upside Records on April 23. It's a radically reworked version of a 2005 album made by the duo, distributed privately at the time only to family and friends.
“We wrote our first songs together in 1998 — two people chasing sound and emotion with nothing to prove, just instinct," says Braide. "Twenty-plus years later, we opened those notebooks again, and the songs still breathed. They’d been waiting for us to grow into them. The world had its noise in between — charts, deadlines, planes, studios, the occasional hit that changes everything and nothing at the same time. But this... this is the quiet return.”
HEKZ - THE FUTURE IS HERE
Young UK prog rockers HeKz have shared a video for their brand new single, The Future Is Here. It's taken from the band's upcoming fifth studio album, Qisma, which they will release on April 3. A double concept album; a tale of self-discovery in a world that demands conformity, where modern systems prioritise control over creativity and compliance over courage, Qisma (which means fate, destiny or divine will in Arabic) features guest contributions from Adam Holzman, John Mitchell and more...
“The Future Is Here is the perfect introduction to Qisma,” says singer and bassist Matt Young. “It sums up exactly what HeKz is about. Music and lyrics working together to tell a story, with no boundaries on where that story can go. This album is a celebration of the power of doing things your own way. There’s simply no chance we could have made an album like this as part of someone else’s system. We’ve made Qisma on our own terms and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with the world. Long may independent music thrive!”
ECHOVERSE - RADICAL REBIRTH
God-fearing US prog quartet EchoVerse follow-up 2024's Whispers Between Worlds with their new album, Fall Towards The Sky, from which comes the gritty Radical Rebirth, which blends the band's blending of Christian spirituality with modern progressive and hard-rock influences.
“With this record we didn’t want to repeat the past," explains vocalist Kyle ‘KG’ Graves. "Fall Towards The Sky is heavier, sharper, and at the same time, more hopeful. The video for Radical Rebirth really captures that tension between struggle and breakthrough.”
“This record feels more confident and more direct than anything we’ve done,” says lead guitarist Rob Perez. “We pushed ourselves into heavier territory without losing sight of the heart of the band.”
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