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 Finnish prog metal sextet Sum Of Seven, whose rather catchy Supreme won the very first TOTW for 2026. Big Big Train came in second with Counting Stars and the symphonic grandeur of Charlotte Wessels' After Us, The Flood in third.
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.
OPETH - §7
Swedish prog rock maestros continue their current trend of releasing videos for songs from 2024's critically acclaimed album The Last Will and Testament album, this time for §7, the one that featured Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull on spoken word, in a new performance style video. Opeth heads out on tour in the US with fellow prog-inclined countrymen Katatonia later this month.
"That track was scary to play live at first," says Mikael Åkerfeldt. "Most of our songs are challenging, I suppose, and this one is no exception. I believe we all love playing this one. There are a myriad of details that could go wrong though, but it’s fun. It keeps you on your toes. And of course, then there’s Ian Anderson’s narrations, which is the only thing in our set that isn’t ”live". Since we don’t play to a click-track, it’s dragging or pushing depending on the tempo of the evening. Again, it’s fun and I love the unforeseeable character of this song in a live setting. That’s a bit odd since I normally want to feel completely secure and really know what I’m doing. I generally don’t like surprises on stage.”
MYRKUR - TOUCH MY LOVE AND DIE
There was a time when if you'd have suggested a heavy metal band make a pitch for the Eurovision Song Contest, you'd have been laughed all the way to Mars. There'll be people reading this who remember the sorry plight of poor old Scottish hard rockers Heavy Pettin back in 1987 with Romeo! Yet since Finn's Lordi triumphed in 2006 with Hard Rock Hallelujah, the floodgates have opened. Prog got in on the act with Voyager's superb run in 2023.
Enter the fray, Danish atmospheric rocker Myrkur, whose new single, the suitably morbid Touch My Love And Die is also her entry for the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, the winner of which will represent Denmark at the Eurovision Song Contest. Given her more metallic musical instincts are often held in check by melodic folk and more progressive inclinations, this doesn't come as much of a surprise to us here. This is also a beautiful piece of music, and we wish Amalie Bruun the very best of luck.
NMB - HURT PEOPLE
In which NMB (that's Neal Morse Band to those that haven't kept up) rock out like there's no tomorrow. New album L.I.F.T., which is released through InsideOut Music on February 27, is probably the best thing with Neal's name attached to it that we've heard in years, and a pleasant surprise too, given drummer Mike Portnoy's commitments to Dream Theater these days. It's full of great songs, of which Hurt People is one of the most in-your-face!
“At some point in my life, I heard the phrase “hurt people hurt people”, meaning that those who are doing damage to others are damaged themselves. Anyway, the phrase always stayed with me," Morse himself explains. "When we were writing L.I.F.T., we were at the point in the story arc where the person has his or her break in belonging, and we were working on this heavy section. Mike and Eric were playing this heavy stuff and I started singing “hurt people hurt people” over what they were doing. It didn’t fully come to life until Eric sang it, (what a vocal! - not to mention guitar solo!) which didn’t happen till months later, but when it all came together, wow.”
ESTHESIS - OUT OF STEP
French prog rockers Esthesis, who won Prog's Best Unsigned Band category in the 2020 Readers' Poll, recently released their latest album, Out Of Step, to much acclaim. The band have performed the whole of the album in a live studio session, and here present the title track.
"Choosing a track to unveil a live session is never easy," says vocalist and keyboard player Aurélien Goude. "However, among the nine tracks on the new album, there is one that perfectly sums up its atmosphere and what Esthesis has become: it is the eponymous track, Out Of Step, which was the first I composed and the last to be arranged by the band. Anything but normal, this is our most powerful, trip hop and hypnotic track to date. What better way to enjoy the cold and long winter evenings than to unveil this first video, which we hope will take you far away into a storm zone."
WORRIEDABOUTSATAN - A LOOMING SPECTRE
Yorkshire-based electronic musician worriedaboutstaan c elebrates twenty years in the music-making business this year, and, as luck would have it, also releases his 20th album, No Knock No Doorbell, on his own This Is It Forever label on March 27. As lead single, the gently pulsating A Looming Spectre displays, he's lost none of his knack for widescreen, engaging electronic prog!
“I wanted it to sound a bit more natural - I wanted to explore textures that weren’t necessarily electronic ones, or those you might associate with electronica - I picked the guitar back up, I got some live drums, I played bass," reveals Gavin Miller, the man behind the name. "It’s nice to break yourself out of that feeling of ‘let’s just turn the synth on and see what it spits out’ - it had to be a bit more direct this time”
HOLOSOIL - SPIRALS
Berlin/Helsinki-based art rock quartet Holosoil have shared their third single since announcing their signing with prog specialists InsideOut Music. The video for the majestic-sounding Spirals features an impressive dance sequence, no mean feat, considering the jarring rhythmic complexity of the band's music.
“Holosoil’s third single is a mystical anthem of heterogeneous essence, swirling through genres and textures, in the image of the world itself," the band relate. "The lyrics are about an existential spiralling of humanity back to where we come from. Falling from illusions of linearity - into the cosmic spiral of ancient and future merging in a never-ending circle of creation. How our striving for progress ironically is taking us back to the ancient wisdom of nature.”
JEGONG - PARALLEL TRACKS
For the uninitiated, motorik duo JeGong are MONO drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla and Reto Mäder (Sum Of R, Ural Umbo), who return with their third album, Gomi Kuzu Can, released through Pelagic Records on February 27. The new work, described as "bold and genre-sculpting", continues the pair's enjoyable yet intense krautrock-driven sound.
"With Parallel Tracks we wanted to take sounds that might feel discarded or rough and give them new life," the pair say. The title reflects how there are always multiple ways for sounds and grooves to come together, finding unexpected harmony. The video manifests this spirit, inspired by early motion graphics experiments, where the focus was on exploring possibilities and seeing what kinds of images would emerge from the sounds.
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