It's back! Finally a brand new Tracks Of The Week! We appreciate we've not done one since the end of August, but what with various members of staff moving house and the tail end of the festival season to mop up, we just haven't managed to find the time, for which we apologise. Here we are though, with seven brand new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
It might have the end of August, but that doesn't mean we should deny our last TOTW winner their dues. And that was enigmatic prog artist Jonathan Hultén whose Dawn just pipped Aussie's Teramaze and with Icelandic retro proggers The Vintage Caravan in third place.
The premise for Tracks Of The Week 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.
EF - NOLL
Gothenburg post-rock quintet EF are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year and to celebrate the band have reimagined their 2005 debut album, Give Me Beauty… or Give Me Death!, which will be released through their label Pelagic Records on November 28. It'll be the record label's 300th release too, from which comes the prog-leaning cracker Noll. What a way to celebrate!
“Since it’s our precious firstborn, we wanted to give it the love it surely deserves," the Swedes say. "We felt we didn’t want to celebrate its big 20th birthday by just remastering it and we surely didn’t want to make the songs too modern and unrecognisable for the old fans. We wanted to give it a tighter, more dramatic and bombastic makeover… a gentle touch of today’s EF.”
L.O.E. - MONSTERS & MIRACLES
You should be no strangers to Halifax prog rockers L.O.E. (Last Of Eden) by now. They've even walked away with the TOTW honours before as well. We'd say they're in with a good chance with this, their latest single, Monsters & Miracles, with its engagingly animated video. The song is taken from the quartet's upcoming album, Chiaroscuro, which is out on December 5.
"This song is deeply personal, especially for our bass player, Ben Walsh, whose ongoing struggle with Chronic Kidney Disease has been a defining part of both his life and the creation of this album," the band relate. "Ben has faced the relentless physical toll of ill health and we as a band have had our struggles watching someone we deeply care about face these challenges—an experience that can sometimes feel like a constant, uphill battle."
CIRCU5 - INFINITE LIQUID GEOMETRIC FEVER DREAM
UK prog rockers Circu5 (it's pronounced sur-kuh-five, in case you were wondering) have also delved into the world of animation with their latest video for Infinite Lucid Geometric Fever Dream. It's another track taken from the band's latest album, Clockwork Tulpa.
"It's about those endless knotty dreams you get when you're ill," says Steve Tilling, Circu5's founder and frontman. "The ones where your brain won't let you rest until you've completed mundane tasks and impossible geometric puzzles. You wake up feeling like you've run a marathon.
LUNAR & THE DECEPTION - NO MORE SECRETS
Visually taking some tips from last TOTW winner Jonathan Hultén it seems, UK darkwave/dream pop outfit Lunar & The Deception have returned from a five-year hiatus, yet will only release their debut album The Somnambulist in March next year. No More Secrets is the first single, which suggests prog-leaning goodness coming your way.
"These are powerful times. The walls of the old world are crumbling, and the secrets that upheld them are being revealed. No More Secrets is about the fall of oppressive systems and the return of balance—it’s a rallying cry for the rise of the feminine, the artist, and the truth.”
OSLO TAPES - ANALEMMA
Italian quartet Oslo Tapes' music has been referred to as kraut-gaze, which we guess s a mix of krautrock and shoegaze. New single, Analemma, certainly makes for engaging listening, which suggests that the band's upcoming fifth album, Lăst Comet, is released on November 14.
The album features collaborations with Emil Nikolaisen (Serena Maneesh), Håkon Gebhardt (Motorpsycho) and Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Emilie Lium Vordal.
HILARY WOODS - TAPER
We're sure that Irish multi-instrumentalist and singer Hilary Woods is a lovely person, but there's something quite unsettling about her brand new single Taper and its accompanying video, made by Woods herself. It's taken from Woods' upcoming album Night CRIÚ, which is released on Oct 31 via Sacred Bones Records
"Taper is a song that honours a presence to one that is absent," Woods explains. "A love song that only a children’s choir could express fully, it was a real joy to work with the Hangleton Brass Band on this one. Each record is a life buoy, a raft, a snapshot, a marker in the sand, a date that requires me to meet it. Making records is a way of being."
RO1 - DEATH HEX
By day, he's Rohan Sharma, keyboardist with Australian prog metal band I Built The Sky. By night however, he's RO1, playing heavy, progressive metal/djent, driven by synths and keyboards. He'll release his debut album, Sunder, under the RO1 banner on November 29, from which comes Death Hex and which features guest appearances from Toby Peterson-Stewart (The Omnific) and Rohan Stevenson (I Built The Sky).
“Sunder was written and produced with a stronger emphasis on sound design compared to my previous releases," says RO1. "I was spending hours creating synth patches, using unusual effects pedal chains, field recording and focusing on the sound more than ever before.”
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