Welcome to Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week! This week we've got seven more new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
Well, what a battle we had on our hands last week! And huge congratulations to Bulgarian proggers Untold Stories, whose Pale Horizons edged ahead of Alex Henry Foster to win last week. And in third place, we had US prog metal quintet Outrun The Sunlight who pipped fellow US band North Sea Echoes by the closest of margins to grab third place. Well done all!
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.
THE PINEAPPLE THIEF - HOLD THE ASHES
The new single from The Pineapple Thief, Hold The Ashes, is the band's first release since signing to InsideOut Music, and although there's no news about a new studio album yet, Prog understands the band have recently completed work on their as-yet-untitled sixteenth album. So it doesn't take much to connect the dots and reckon this is a taster for the new album. Sounds really good, too...
“One thing is certain, one day we’ll all be ashes," says signer and guitarist Bruce Soord, cheerily. "It’s the ‘gift from the gods that comes to us all’. For some reason, when writing this song, I couldn’t stop singing about ‘ashes’ in the context of understanding what life is about. ‘Writhing in constant conflict’. Why? So take these ashes and scatter them far and wide. You know, make the most of it.”
CHANGING PLACES IN THE FIRE - HOME
Changing Places In The Fire are a Venezuelan quintet who will release their self-titled debut album through Wild Thing Records on July 24. As you will hear from the band's latest single, Home, they meld muscular prog rock - think Tool, laced with Porcupine Tree, with more expansive post-rock moments which bring to mind the much-missed Oceansize. We reckon they're in to a winner here...
"Home reflects on distance, guilt, and memory - on the ghosts that follow long after leaving," explains keyboardist Alfredo Ovalles. "It confronts the ache of belonging to a place you can’t fully return to, and carrying that absence forward."
SOURCE - OPTIMISTIC
If you're going to cover a song like Radiohead's Optimistic, then you'd better be prepared for some scrutiny. Fortunately, this Boulder, Colorado trio have got the chops and deliver a thoroughly engaging version. The band talk of their music in terms of "heavy psychedelic prog rock" and they've released four albums thus far, with new single, Optimistic, nodding ahead to a fifth.
"When we decided to cover Optimistic, we really wanted to showcase our love for the song while bringing our own voice to the arrangement," the band say. "I think our version has a lot of similar ingredients, but the way we choose to highlight those ingredients really displays our unique approach and sound. The tones are much heavier, the tempo is faster so it feels like there's more energy, and the way we flip the ending into a heavy riff is my favourite part of our version."
RAPHAEL WEINROTH-BROWNE - FALL FOR ME
Not one but two covers this week! Canadian cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne offers up his take on Sleep Token's Fall For Me, the video set against the stunning backdrop of Ontario bathed in golden sunlight. Sleep Token divides the prog world, mostly, we suspect, because they seem to have emerged from the metal world despite evidently not being a metal band, but Weinroth-Browne offers a take on the song that's probably far more palatable to prog fans, all the while managing to keep his shirt on for a promo video. No mean feat in itself!
"Fall For Me is a hidden gem in Sleep Token’s catalogue - its gorgeous melodies and rich choral harmonies lend themselves perfectly to the cello. In reimagining this song, I tried to convey the same juxtaposition of sadness and beauty that makes the original so poignant," he says. "The music video was shot at the epic Eagles’ Nest Lookout in rural Ontario by Ben Kissner of Monscene Studios. My face was completely devoured by mosquitoes and black flies by the end of the shoot, but I believe it was worth it for the final result!"
PRINCE OF FAILURE - PHANTOM
Prince of Failure is the new collaborative project featuring TesseracT singer Daniel Tompkins and Paul Ortiz from Chimp Spanner, and they've just released their self-titled debut album through Kscope. It's an album rooted in deep ideas, based around neurodivergence, masking, and the psychological weight of living out of alignment with expectation
"Phantom explores the fight against the darker forces that live both within and around us. It’s about being haunted by destructive impulses, temptation, and the feeling of losing control to something that seems impossible to escape," Tompkins explains. "Within the wider story of the album, it represents a descent into chaos - the moment where the protagonist is forced to confront the parts of himself he’s tried to suppress, only to realise that the battle may already be consuming him. Themes of conflict, self-destruction, and overwhelming power run throughout the song, creating a sense of inevitable collapse as everything begins to burn around him."
MAYA ONGAKU - ASTRAL ECHOES
Anyone who's been suffering during the heatwave that's been hitting the UK this past week might find the gentle melodies of Astral Echoes something of a balm. it's the new single from Japanese psych tri Maya Ongaku, who will release their new album Nothing Space Music on August 7 (digitally) and September 9 (physically) via Guruguru Brain. The band draw inspiration from the experimental rock of the 1960s and 70s, Japanese folk and psychedelia, avant-garde art movements, literature, philosophy, and cultural anthropology, and this all sounds rather wonderful.
"Astral Echoes explores the moment when art comes into being — when inspiration quietly enters the mind," the band state. "I believe inspiration is not something to be chased or seized, but something that emerges when we patiently wait for its arrival in silence."
DATURA LODGE - STONE
Datura Lodge are a brand new prog duo from Bergen County, New Jersey. The enigmatically named Nicky B and “W” will release their self-titled debut album through Arquen Records on October 2. The album has been produced by the band and Ben Karas from Thank You Scientist, who also adds violin to this single, which, according to the band, "fulfils the 'rock' component of their progressive sound."
"I was listening to Lou Reed’s 'middle-aged man era' albums a lot and love how his lyrics are rooted in reality but also very funny," explains "W". "Stone is my third-rate impression of that."
