Features archive

October 2023

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252 articles

October 31
- The 10 spookiest heavy metal songs of all time
- "Pearl Jam used to hire out bars to drink with us": Idlewild's Roddy Woomble on how four punk rock kids from Scotland emerged from the wreckage of Britpop, gatecrashed the UK charts and got adopted as Pearl Jam's new favourite band
- Biffy Clyro, blast-beats and Brexit: how Simon Neil and Mike Vennart made one of the extreme metal albums of the year with Empire State Bastard
- The most played live songs by 10 iconic alt rock bands
- 5 things to consider when investing in a pair of earplugs
- 18 of the darkest, most terrifying prog rock songs ever made
- Every Nightmare On Elm Street movie ranked from worst to best
- The 10 scariest heavy metal album covers of all time
- "My voice will go at some point, but until then I’m about customer service and rock'n'roll": the oddball story of Rush's "little brother band" Max Webster
- "The farewell tour was us wanting to put Kiss out of its misery:" How Kiss's long-awaited reunion turned into a catastrophe
October 30
- 10 great classic rock songs that were huge hits in America but largely ignored in the UK
- “The most wonderful ideas can come from people you might call amateurs… they haven’t been playing long enough to get bogged down in the rules”: King Crimson ex David Cross loves jamming with students
- "There was always an undercurrent of youthful exuberance, violence and piracy": Why The Cult's Billy Duffy and Ian Astbury aren't scared of summoning the ghosts of their past by resurrecting Death Cult
- The 10 greatest Universal monster movies, ranked
- The 10 greatest ghost movies ever, ranked
- 10 up-and-coming progressive metal bands every self-respecting metalhead should know
- "Among bass fishermen, our next guests are considered the preeminent heavy metal band": In 1998, the original lineup of Black Sabbath appeared on TV together for the first time in more than 20 years
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Lucifer, DeWolff, The Hives and more
October 29
- "We are bathing in innuendo": Whitesnake's Lovehunter artwork was knee-jerk response to their critics, but the album itself was a game-changer
- “With British crowds, it was: ‘We want Jon! Get Jon back!’ People were aggressive about it”: how Yes faced down the haters and made the classic Drama album
- "I’d heard this one thing, Smoke On The Water or something. But I’d never actually seen them": the night an ex-Beatle gatecrashed a Deep Purple show for an impromptu jam
- “We had 35 labels pass!” Through The Ashes Of Empires at 20: The groove metal monster that saved Machine Head’s career
- “Our ideas were more solid than our ability to play them! We had to raise our game”: The lessons Rush learned from Hemispheres
October 28
- 10 massively successful British bands who failed to crack America
- “Peter Sellers wanted to change places with me on part of my tour. Only if I could play Inspector Clouseau in a movie”: the outrageous story of Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare
- “That level of success was like nothing we had ever experienced before. It was such a huge record for us”: how Rush’s prog classic Moving Pictures marked their great reinvention
- "The curtain across the control room went back and there was Rick with his dick in a wine glass going, 'Coq au vin, anyone?'." David Paton's life in music
- The 10 most imaginative covers of Metallica songs
- “He released the set without even bothering with a single to precede it, preferring fans to hear it as a whole entity – an archetypically progtastic move”: Prince’s Around The World In A Day
- "We had broads in our trailer. The refrigerator was loaded with beer. We were into coke. We were animals": Why Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park was destined to be rock'n'roll's worst movie
October 27
- "He grabbed me and said, I like you. You've got a lot of nerve": ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons on the night his teenage band supported Jimi Hendrix, and closed their set with Foxy Lady and Purple Haze
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “I think we cross a lot of boundaries and I think our fans are very open-minded.” Ne Obliviscaris and the making of Urn
- "Prog to me means taking something a step further." Joey Eppard on 3 and their Revisions album
- "Mustaine held his Flying V guitar by the neck, and swung it like a baseball bat at the head of a teenager who was spitting at him": the true eyewitness story of the Megadeth gig which inspired Holy Wars
- Great new prog music from Moon Safari, Chelsea Wolfe and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "Childish. Chaotic. Random." Devin Townsend and the return of Ziltoid The Omniscient
- The 10 greatest zombie movies ever, ranked
- “So many of my peers are like cover bands of their own selves these days… I didn’t want to be a museum. So this is a kind of reinvention”: The return of Edgar Broughton
- "We were four separate guys at the beginning of the afternoon, and by the end of the evening we were a band": Paul Rodgers on life with Free, Bad Company, The Firm and Queen
- "It would have been the most stupid and self-destructive thing we could possibly have done": Why the man who signed Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones failed in his repeated bids to sign Fugazi, not even for 10 million dollars
October 26
- "We’re getting there, but we’re not in a rush." Haken and the making of Vector
- 10 times classic metal songs sounded surprisingly beautiful on acoustic guitars
- The 40 best power ballads of all time
- Fred Abbott's new album may sound like the work of a denim-clad heartland rocker from some obscure corner of the American Midwest, but it was recorded in a South London basement
- "He reckoned we could conjure a demon. We tried it every night on stage, but it never worked": the story of Black Widow, rock's original pretend Satanists
- "Roger punched me once, and I’m sure I asked for it": How The Who overcame internal strife and a drummer behaving like 'a Saudi prince' to make their most poignant album
October 25
- "We’re definitely not your typical prog band." Leprous and the story of Pitfalls
- 10 rock anthems only played live once
- "I learned that any innocent little comment can be twisted to make it seem something that it isn’t": Mike Portnoy on his departure from Dream Theater
- “Colin Moulding was deemed the good-looking one who wrote the singalong stuff, so he mostly got the A-sides. And because I was the weird specky one, I used to get the B-sides”: XTC’s Andy Partridge looks back and forward
- The 10 worst creative decisions in heavy metal history
- 10 up-and-coming stoner and doom bands every self-respecting metalhead should know
- "In the last five-to-ten years I’ve seen more promising new bands and artists than in a very long time": Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes is hopeful about the future of rock music
- Yngwie Malmsteen: "Each night on stage I play songs that I wrote forty years ago, and I challenge myself to play them differently. I’m not a jukebox. And that’s what makes things exciting"
October 24
- “It’s an homage to all the fans who stayed with us for all these years.” Galahad and the story of The Last Great Adventurer
- 10 heavy metal cover songs more popular than the originals (according to Spotify)
- "We have some crazy interludes and instrumental passages.” How Haken made second album Visions
- 12 ways to make your home more goth
- 10 times legendary metal bands performed classic albums live in full
- “Vinyl is slightly cheaper to manufacture in Poland, but all the big companies have cottoned on… it’s taken six months to get The Last Great Adventurer pressed”: Galahad on how to keep working as an independent band
- "It was fantastic – it was ridiculous how good it was": In 1987 Eddie Van Halen appeared on Saturday Night Live and displayed the full range of his talents
October 23
- "They thrived on the tension. They walked the precipice and won": the story of the show that propelled Nirvana from the underground to worldwide attention
- Five bands keeping the spirit of Riot Grrrl alive
- "I was employed to take Jimi Hendrix round Paris for an evening, show him a good time": Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on his adventures in 1960s France, hanging with Jimi Hendrix, partying with Brigitte Bardot and getting arrested with Syd Barrett
- Every Within Temptation album ranked from worst to best
- “We’ve got to thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year!” Watch Lars Ulrich’s brutal Grammy acceptance speech in 1992
- Everything you need to know about Sleep Token
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including The Struts, the Cadillac Three, Dirty Honey and more
- Meet cinematically minded alt.rock Brit stars Black Honey: one eye on Courtney Love and another on Tarantino movies
- "An era of decadence began with a hope, passion and joy centred on music": how Los Angeles in the 1980s became the hair metal mecca
October 22
- "You just can’t make it big enough, rude enough or loud enough": Producer Tom Allom on engineering Black Sabbath and helping create the sound of heavy metal
- "Within about 20 minutes I came up with Show Me The Way. Then that afternoon, as the sun was setting, I sat under a palm tree and wrote Baby, I Love Your Way." Peter Frampton remembers his greatest day
- "It’s the biggest project I was ever involved with." How Steve Hackett made Genesis Revisited II
- "To say it sounds too much like Dream Theater, I just can’t wrap my head around it. What do you want us to sound like?" Dream Theater hit back at the trolls with A View From The Top Of The World
- “I bought Van der Graaf Generator’s Pawn Hearts second-hand from the school notice board. Who would sell that?!” Andy Jackson on where to find great prog
October 21
- “I was on heroin, I’d torched my marriage, I was homeless and penniless”: the rise, fall and rise again of hard rock survivors Little Caesar
- “I looked out the window, the sun was coming up and I started playing the riff of Sunshine Of Your Love": how Cream made Disraeli Gears in five days and changed music forever
- "I think Damian’s the singer we should’ve had from the very first day.” How Damian Wilson revitalised Arena on The Theory Of Molecular Inheritance
- The 10 best Radiohead B-sides, out-takes and buried-deep treasures
- “Take the album out of the Kiss context, and you have a remarkably coherent work”: Why Music From The Elder is a prog metal masterpiece
- “Keith Emerson said, ‘Why do I need to join Yes when I have ELP?’”: the story behind Yes’ delirious Relayer album
October 20
- "When I joined the Yardbirds all I kept hearing was... 'Eric wouldn't have done that'": For Jeff Beck, replacing Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds was a challenge, not least because Clapton wanted the band to fail
- The 13 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- The second biggest hits by 10 one-hit wonders
- "Billy Corgan's got an ego bigger than my arse": Inside the Smashing Pumpkins vs. Sharon Osbourne feud that made Mrs O "sick"
- Cool new prog music from District 97, Teramaze, Gandalf's Fist and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- The 10 Metallica songs most played live
- “People won’t make a connection between Rush and Napalm Death, but we’ve included some of their more odd timings into our music”: Shane Embury, prog fan
- The Screaming Eagles on their new album, sharing a slash with Myles Kennedy, and Brian Johnson as babysitter
- "A guy in a wheelchair calmly eating live locusts out of a cigar box": five shock rock bands from the 1970s you should definitely know
October 19
- 10 classic Queen songs you won’t hear on the radio
- “Chris and Jon often didn’t get on… I didn’t want to be the leader, but to be a strong voice on the team, brave enough to speak up”: Steve Howe learned to play peacemaker in Yes
- The 10 greatest metal power ballads ever
- Metal For Good: the Rob Halford-approved metal charity looking to make positive change
- "I did not save your life, but I can be an avenue that helps you": Beartooth's Caleb Shomo is a reluctant rock star, but the one metal desperately needs
- "It was like making friends with the devil:" When Guns N' Roses took Faith No More on tour it got messy, to the point where Axl Rose confronted his support band to ask, "Why do you hate me"
- "A great solo has that Beavis and Butt-Head thing where you can sing it": Baroness' Gina Gleason talks Cirque Du Soleil, Smashing Pumpkins and why watching her bandmates is like listening to Zeppelin
- The Final Cut by Pink Floyd explored themes of loss, disillusionment, and the human cost of conflict: It was also popular with chickens
- 10 amazing heavy metal albums that you can’t find on Spotify
- “Natural ability counts for nothing… One of the problems progressive music has had is it never encouraged everyone to have a try”: Peter Gabriel’s guide to success
- "I went to my neighbour's house, told them my name was Lola Vasquez, an orphan from the 1930s, and could I please come inside and have a Pop-Tart." Six things you need to know about Grace Potter
- "Sometimes performing on stage with her could be a transcendent experience": the triumph, trauma and tragedy of Sandy Denny
October 18
- 10 times metal bands made masterpieces late into their career
- “They demanded a great deal from their audience”: 10 Pink Floyd concerts that show how they cemented their reputation for live brilliance
- How the mutual love affair between The Prodigy and Rage Against The Machine spurred both bands on to make harder, heavier, darker music
- Rising UK doom stars Green Lung say their upcoming album This Heathen Land is their Number Of The Beast
- 10 heavy metal replacement singers that just couldn’t live up to their predecessors
- "The paramedics said, ‘If it had been another 10 minutes, I don’t think he would be here": From having glasses thrown at him in Wolfsbane to trial-by-fire in Iron Maiden, Blaze Bayley is heavy metal's ultimate survivor
- “The teacher’s hatred of my guitar probably goes a long way to explaining why I persevered with it”: How Genesis’ Mike Rutherford survived boarding school
- The UFO albums you should definitely own
- "I love to just get up and shake every demon out of my soul": The Glorious Sons' Brett Emmons on mental fortitude, scuppered sessions and his livewire stage persona
October 17
- "We resisted the offer of a million pounds to reunite": the magical Zombies' song that was only a hit after they broke up
- Your essential guide to every album by The Smiths
- "It probably read like I was some kind of malevolent psychopath": the truth behind that entertainingly one-sided Mogwai vs Blur feud
- "There's a lot to be said for going inside": the time that Ian Brown got sent to prison for threatening to cut off an air hostess' hands
- “I now toy with the dilemma of either just going along with her or embarrassing her”: Rick Wakeman explains how to deal with strangers on a train
- "There are so many phenomenal ladies and great singers." Heavy metal legend Doro Pesch reveals who else she thinks deserves the title of 'Metal Queen'
- 10 hard rock and heavy metal farewell tours that weren’t actually farewells
- “It really wasn’t emotional… We walked to the front of the stage together and waved at the audience. He walked off, got into a car and drove off. That was it”: How Kansas survived Steve Walsh’s departure
- "The days of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed being dark and wayward and fascinating are long gone": Philip Seth Campbell on the Temperance Movement, sobriety, and being broken
- "They do this crazy thing – they write good songs! And it doesn’t sound dated!": My 80s Mixtape, by Clutch's Neil Fallon
- Six songs to understand the electrifying genius of Mitch Mitchell
- "We didn't look like hobbits and we hadn't been to public school": how Marillion, IQ, Pendragon and more kick-started the unlikeliest of prog rock revivals
October 16
- “When I started out I thought: ‘I’ll be able to play guitar, drink, take drugs and shag as many women as I can!’ But we ended up in the prog vein”: Pye Hastings’ lifelong urges
- "Someone said that they were in a Portaloo while we were on stage, and the bass rumbled some excrement out of them.” Getting to know Wargasm, the genre-splicing, Fred Durst-approved duo making major waves in modern metal
- Jack Black has been flying the heavy metal flag in the mainstream for nearly 30 years. It’s time we gave him his flowers.
- The 10 hardest death metal songs to play
- "It was a critical mistake, and ultimately it broke up the band": How Creedence Clearwater Revival fell to pieces
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Bush, Joanne Shaw Taylor, CJ Wildheart and more
October 15
- "Electric Ladyland was one of those albums that I look back on now and think 'Good grief! What the hell were we doing?'": the road to Jimi Hendrix's final studio masterpiece
- "You don't look like a rock star, you don't write music like a rock star": how Joe Satriani confounded his label and recorded the one-take wonder that changed his life
- “I’ve always said it’s not just ‘progressive anything’. It’s progressive rock and it needs to rock." How Glass Hammer turned it up to 11 with Skallagrim – Into The Breach
- Frostbitten fantasy kingdoms, Spinal Tap mishaps and kidnapped cats - forget Lords Of Chaos, we want to see the Immortal movie: "I’ve even been offered to do it, but Blashyrkh belongs to Immortal"
- “It was like an ego thing. It did make me wonder if Bruce was right for the band”: how Iron Maiden rose above bickering, booze and exhaustion to make The Number Of The Beast, the album that defined them
- The 7 songs Metallica have only played live once
- 10 cover versions absolutely hated by the people who originally wrote them
- “We got to be crushed by a huge corporate giant right up close”: Eddie Vedder on the time Pearl Jam took on Ticketmaster
- “A few progressive leaps too far, with its experimentation and sheer audacity… but the future understood”: The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat
October 14
- “Black Sabbath? Anyone?” Watch Jack Black absolutely nail singing War Pigs on The Tonight Show in 2011
- “We wanted to show how much Babymetal evolved.” Inside Babymetal's bold new era - and why, with new member Momometal, three is once again the magic number
- "Yes’s double and triple albums were seldom off my turntable!" Thomas Dolby opens up on his love of prog rock!
- "You can be a girl boss and a sugar baby at the same time": Scene Queen lays down the law on Bimbocore, the UK and being pitted against other women
- “She was the mentor who made R.E.M. a band in the first place”: Michael Stipe on the time R.E.M. roped in his hero Patti Smith as a guest singer
- “I wanted to define the archetype messiah rock star. That’s all I wanted to do”: the epic oral history of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album
October 13
- Heroin, groupies and a court order: the story of the controversial documentary the Rolling Stones didn’t want the world to see
- "I may not leave the same amount of blood on the floor every night, but I'm still happy to bleed": Bob Mould on identity, community, bringing punk to the people, and taking no nonsense from anyone, ever
- The 13 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “Adam's wife cottoned on that we would work for maybe 20 minutes then climb over the wall to go to the pub”: The world of Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman
- Great new prog music from Ozric Tentacles, The Flower Kings, Tiger Moth Tales and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "We certainly weren’t going to destroy the band because Heather left." How Mostly Autumn steadied the ship with Go Well Diamond Heart
- Fight Songs: 10 rock anthems attacking well-known rock stars
- “Getting to Architects’ or Bring Me The Horizon’s level would be a huge step up.” How Tesseract pushed themselves further than ever to become prog metal's most ambitious modern band with War of Being
- Five rock stars, three songs and only one concert: The story of Damnocracy – the most bizarre and disappointing supergroup of all time
- Meet Akilla: the new face of UK melodeath
- Aerosmith helped Karen Lawrence on her way, and she wrote a four-times-platinum hit single… but then Barbra Streisand stole all the glory
October 12
- "I'm not going to thank anybody. None of you f**kers have ever given us a hand. You didn't do anything": Why Motorhead's Lemmy always hated the Grammy Awards
- "Your favourite prog rock albums can take you back in time." Glass Hammer and the story of Chronomonaut
- “You find a certain sound and you write some songs around the sound, and then you get tired of being there and you move to another place." How VOLA tackled the 'difficult second album' syndrome
- They've collaborated with Perry Farrell and count Iggy Pop, Damon Albarn and Iron Man as fans: Sleaford Mods on becoming broken Britain's best cult band
- "Sure, we missed a few boats, but if you are willing to push yourself to the bone, you’ll get the next one.” How Code Orange's refusal to stand still helped them craft masterful - and catchy as hell - new album The Above
- "We went through everything, from homelessness to starvation.” Megadeth at 40: how Dave Mustaine's "revenge" on Metallica lay the foundations for a thrash metal dynasty
- “I drink a box of red wine if I want something really morose, and cider if I want something more upbeat”: Robert Smith’s boozy approach to songwriting in the 80s
- “David Gilmour doesn’t show anger often… that night, if he knew karate he’d have broken the table”: Fight over Comfortably Numb’s inclusion on The Wall was key moment in Pink Floyd’s history
- Former blues wonderboy Oli Brown didn't touch his guitar for a year: now he's back, and things are very different
- "The eighties was permission to be your biggest, loudest self": My 80s Mixtape, by Halestorm's Lzzy Hale
- The Fleetwood Mac albums you should definitely own
- "My symbol was about invoking and being invocative": Everything we know about the origins of Led Zeppelin's mysterious four symbols
- "I kind of wished Kiss would sound like AC/DC": The Hives' Pelle Almqvist on the soundtrack of his life
October 11
- "He's the ultimate songwriter, singer, lead guitarist and soundscaper... I don't think anyone can touch him": Why I ❤️ Neil Young, by Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard
- Essex deathcore, Mumbai post-metal and an underground noise supergroup: these are the best new metal bands you need in your life this month
- “Imploring humans to explore a deeper understanding of everything”: Tool’s proggiest moments
- This is why I’m waiting until Black Friday to buy the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones
- In 2007, an unknown gothic/dark wave anthem broadcast on German radio in the '80s was shared online. Sixteen years on, no-one still has any clue as to the identity of, and truth behind, The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet
- "All the people that I looked up to are now considered my peers." Meet nothing,nowhere.: the former Soundcloud rapper collaborating with Lorna Shore, Fall Out Boy and more to bring Myspace vibes back to alternative music
- “Air disasters – a strange fascination that actually makes me feel better to do as much flying as I do”: A snapshot of producer and multi-instrumentalist Fernando Perdomo
- "The new, sober Alice was much more dangerous than the old Alice:" How Alice Cooper cleaned up and became a pop star all over again
- "Let's face it, getting somewhere in this business has become so difficult": Vega on the perils of being in a band, losing key members, and the love of the road
October 10
- The Krokus albums you should definitely own
- “Playing the second-ever single alongside brand-new compositions brings a degree of eccentricity that’s important to Soft Machine”: The new line-up’s new album Other Doors
- 10 classic heavy metal songs only played live once
- “The dark sound on the Alien soundtrack… That’s my reference, not Larks’ Tongues In Aspic!” John Mitchell says he can count the prog bands he likes on one hand
- The 10 greatest masked bands in heavy metal history
- "Is it true you're planning a rock musical called Ring Ring based on the life of Alexander Graham Bell?" When Alan Partridge met Oasis' Noel Gallagher (and future Mission Impossible star Simon Pegg)
- “We had to pick the single before we recorded anything.” Run To The Hills: How a rallying cry against colonialism became Iron Maiden’s signature song
- The 20 best British albums ever, according to Lemmy
- "Our name symbolises fear, paranoia and death": What happened when Anthrax claimed to be changing their name to Basket Full Of Puppies and CNN believed them
- "I knew I had to say something, and that I didn't have many words to say it in": a track-by-track guide to King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King
- "The psychedelic scene was largely over by the summer of 1968, but that spirit of musical adventure was still running rampant": A beginners' guide to the origins of prog rock
October 9
- “Steve Harris of Iron Maiden loves A Passion Play. I’m glad someone liked it!” Every Jethro Tull album in Ian Anderson’s words
- “This is where the real politics takes place – on the streets!” What happened when Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine became a political correspondent
- Every The Gaslight Anthem album ranked from worst to best
- 10 up-and-coming death metal bands every self-respecting metalhead should know
- 10 heavy metal replacement singers even better than the original
- Death, hurricanes and Slayer cameos: The surprisingly emotional story of glam metal splatter-comedy Hairmetal Shotgun Zombie Massacre
- “There was quite a lot of pressure. Those demands have bordered upon insult – largely from my wife”: Trevor Rabin’s return to action with Rio
- The John Lennon albums you should definitely own
- "This song is so powerful and still makes me emotional": My 80s Mixtape, by Def Leppard's Phil Collen
October 8
- These are the best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including The Cadillac Three, Sophie Lloyd, Vixen and more
- 10 cover versions absolutely loved by the people who wrote them
- The hits, the posthumous tracks, the interstellar space jams: These are the 20 greatest songs Jimi Hendrix ever recorded
- “Otherworldly, intensely powerful and sometimes baffling… the product of an artist they no longer recognised”: Tim Buckley’s Lorca
October 7
- 10 brilliant punk and alt. rock albums that you won't find on Spotify
- “His mother used to rock him to sleep to Kooks!”: the time David Bowie and Trent Reznor teamed up on tour together
- "We were at a real low point after it... we had to scrap the whole idea": Radiohead once recorded a Bond theme that never happened
- “Steve invited me round to his nan’s house to jam”: the story of Steve Harris’s pre-Iron Maiden bands Gypsy’s Kiss and Smiler and the birth of a legend
October 6
- “There was an interruption to a news broadcast with the voice of this alien… I thought, ‘What if it were real?’” I Am The Manic Whale bring an old storybook to life
- "This is always the first place I try to get to when I go to the UK." The time that Guns N' Roses legend Duff McKagan revealed his deep love for Pret A Manger
- 11 iconic guitars and the legendary guitarists who played them
- The best new metal songs you need to hear this week, featuring Avenged Sevenfold, Lamb Of God, Mike Shinoda, Health and more
- Meet the Mavon Safia, the Finnish proggers uniting talent and taste through guitar-driven instrumentals
- Great new prog music from Gong, TesseracT, Maer, Pattern-Seeking Animals and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- If there's anything more joyous than Peter Gabriel singing Solsbury Hill while gleefully whizzing around the stage on a bicycle, then we haven't seen it
- Eddie Van Halen: game-changer, tone-chaser, riff machine, songwriter, composer, avant-garde artist and genius
October 5
- "It’s a bad combination to be really loud and have no fans if you’re playing at a bar": how Dinosaur Jr. overcame indifference to became one of the 80s most influential bands
- “I always get depressed at the beginning of the year and I thought this would be something to do and take my mind off it." Tiger Moth Tales and their A Song Of Spring
- The most played live songs by 25 iconic metal bands
- “It was either this or nothing - when you get to that point, there’s no fear to have”: Avenged Sevenfold needed to make divisive album Life Is But A Dream…
- Best turntable speakers 2025: Take your vinyl listening to the next level
- “I think it’s a quality album; I think it’s sophisticated." Katatonia and the story of Dead End Kings
- "This album was therapy from personal tragedy."Lunatic Soul and the making of Fractured
- “I always knew that I was going to return to the Amory Wars." Coheed And Cambria and Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures
- “Iron Maiden? Don’t make me laugh. We were light years ahead of everyone”: It Bites have no regrets about their 80s arrogance
- "This band has literally cost me everything!": Tigertailz know it's ludicrous to keep dreaming but they're in too deep to stop
- "I think John Bonham is so responsible for a lot of Zeppelin’s songwriting on III": Why I ❤️ Led Zeppelin III, by Michael Schenker
October 4
- Brian Johnson's 25 best performances, from Geordie to Power Up
- “Signature absurdities, from a local criminal to sentient grease, neglect all pop sensibilities”: The prog nature of Everything Everything’s Re-Animator
- “It was so terrible that they couldn’t even finish it.” The story of the band who made the worst metal album ever – on purpose
- 10 metal cover songs that are unforgivably bad
- “I didn’t stand up for the rest of the night!” The time Metallica’s James Hetfield punched Lars Ulrich
- "We’d been working on it for two weeks… Mike Oldfield had wiped it. There was no undo button. I was in shock. It was the only time it’s ever happened to me in 40 years": Trevor Horn's lows and highs
- 10 heavy metal bands that took incredibly long to release a new album
- Ten times massive bands covered punk songs (and didn’t ruin them)
- Your essential guide to every Nirvana album
- "Had somebody predicted we would still be around 45 years later, I’d have told ’em they were stupid:" how Girlschool silenced the doubters, including themselves
- In 1979 Fleetwood Mac hired a 112-piece marching band to enliven a song they were working on: it was the start of a long and beautiful relationship
October 3
- "People would be literally hanging off the roof beams. The excitement was amazing": the story of the London club that launched the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton
- “Once you understand them, and have felt them in your heart, you will struggle to find anything that will ever come so close”: Mike Vennart introduces The Cardiacs
- "An unmitigated disaster which defrauded consumers." When Guns N' Roses (almost) went to war with Dr Pepper
- “Millions are in love with Metallica and Black Sabbath. I just thought they were great jokes”: Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards was never a heavy metal fan, but he does have a soft spot for AC/DC
- The 10 most perfect final albums in heavy metal history
- “A lot of the time, ‘prog’ conjures up images of the yesteryear. It’s interesting that prog metal has become bigger than prog”: Godsticks understand why they have to be classified
- "They were very avant-garde and I thought I was too, and it was all going to be very beautiful, man": how Pink Floyd learned to fly
- "It's A Long Way To The Top tells you everything you need to know about being in a rock band": Why I ❤️ AC/DC, by Saxon's Biff Byford
- In 1973 The Who appeared on Top Of The Pops: their performance ended with carnage and a lifetime ban
October 2
- “In the context of Matt’s cancer, and stuff going on in the wider world, why are we worrying about if anybody’s going to like this?” The Fierce And The Dead refocused for News From The Invisible World
- 10 legendary hard rock and heavy metal bands who’ve never had a lineup change
- “The BBC showed one minute and 10 seconds of it!” Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter: How a banned, censored and divisive song became Iron Maiden’s only UK number one single
- These are the best new rock songs you need to hear right, now featuring Europe, The Lazys, Florence Black and more
October 1
- "You can't dance or clap along to it. When we play it live, you can always see the audience getting caught out": Turn It On Again by Genesis even confused Peter Gabriel
- "If you're in an abusive situation you need a safe place. I took refuge in music. Rock'n'roll was my safe place": the life and legacy of Tom Petty
- According to records, these are officially the 10 loudest concerts of all time