Welcome to Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week. Six brand new and diverse slices of progressive music for you to enjoy.
Congratulations to UK electro-prog duo We Are Bodies, whose Lost pipped Alex Henry Foster's A Mind's Tapestry right at the final minute, and with Laibach's Leben heißt Leben, their subversive cover of Opus's Live Is Life, 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.
SWALLOW THE SUN - CHARCOAL SKY
Finnish dark prog metallers Swallow The Sun release their ninth studio album, Shining, today through Century Media Records. And although the band have striven not to repeat the intensely personal Moonflowers (2021), there's still lashings of gloom and misery on display, which is exactly what their fans want.
"Charcoal Sky is a true anthem for the autumn and the weight of the coming winter," says guitarist Juha Raivio of their latest single. "To recognize and face the killing season within, to be reborn again.
"It feels almost surreal to release one of our best and bravest album 24 years into the band’s existence. Like an ice dagger through a sleeping heart. Sunrise in the night sky. Horns and Halos. Shining dark."
“Charcoal Sky is musically the heaviest song of the album," adds vocalist Mikko Kotamäki. "Can’t wait to perform this song live. Great riffs and catchy chorus. Future classic so to speak.”
RICHARD HENSHALL - BOUNCE
With Bounce Haken guitarist Richard Henshall gives fans a sneak preview of what to expect on his upcoming second EP Mu Vol. II, details of whch will be announced shortly. It is, obviously, the follow-up to Mu Vol. I, which was released earlier this year. They both form the first two parts of a trilogy of releases that highlight elements of funk, jazz and prog not always evident in Haken, combined with Henshall's ability to hold the attention of the listener.
"I like to think of this one as the sister song to Land Aliens [on the Mu Vol. I EP] as it shares the same rhythmic motif," Henshall explains. "They initially started life in the same project, but clearly sound very different from each other, so I did the sensible thing and split them into two tracks. Once again, I'm working with the incredible Lang Zhao on drums. His versatile playing style has really helped bring the "bounce" to this one. I'm also lucky to have Adam Carrillo rip out another tasty solo on this one after his stellar work on Mu Vol. I. I can't wait to share the rest of Mu Vol. II with everyone in the coming months."
SARAH NEUFELD / RICHARD REED PARRY / REBECCA FOON - SLOW NEW YEAR
First Sounds is a collection of cinematic, modern composition and orchestral arrangements, out November 1st via Envision Records in North America and One Little Independent in the UK and the rest of the world, is the debut album from a trio made-up of cellist Rebecca Foon, violinist Sarah Neufeld and multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry. The group originally met in Montreal, Quebec, during the late 1990’s while independently finding their footing in the local arts and culture community.
"In Montreal, October 1999, the three of us played music with each other for the first time," explains Perry. "As we began to improvise together, we felt a shared, wordless musical language emerge right away, somehow intuitive and familiar from the very start. Decades of friendship and many bands later, in the heart of the first pandemic winter the three of us got together in a room and made our first album as an ensemble. Picking up exactly where we left off years earlier, we began fashioning compositions that immediately tapped into the same musical language we had discovered between us so many years earlier."
BLIND EGO - IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
Blind Ego are the solo project of Kalle Wallner, also the guitarist of the German prog rockers RPWL, and they release their latest album, The Hunting Party, through Gentle Art Of Music today. Wallner is joined on the new album by vocalist Kevin Kearns, also of metalcore band Cyant, drummer Michael Christoph and Wallner'sRPWL band mate Yogi Lang who not only played keyboards, but co-produced, mixed and mastered the album.
"I'm always looking for new challenges, such as writing on a specific topic as part of a team for RPWL," says Wallner. "Voices was more or less an instrumental album and now, for the first time, I composed to finished lyrics instead of finding the lyrics for the music. You can hear this inspiration in the songs: they sound fresh and unspent, they are very varied, have hard and soft tones, are sometimes driving and quite complex rock songs and sometimes ballads. All these elements come together on The Hunting Party to form a very special unity. The lyrics of the seven songs can be interpreted very differently: in a very personal way, but also in an outward-looking, social way. You can always be the "hunter" but also the "hunted". Wallner continues: "I like lyrics that you can empathies with and that leave enough room for your own thoughts and speculations."
TOMO KATSURADA - MOSHIMO
The gently psychedelic Moshimo is the new single from Tomo Katsurada, best known to Prog readers as the founder and frontman for acclaimed Japanese psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo. Currently based in Amsterdam Katsurada has set up his own Future Days Shop record label, Katsurada will release his first solo EP, Dream Of The Egg, on his new label on November 15.
Moshimo means “If…” in Japanese and features guest musician, Jonny Nash’s ethereal guitar tones which weave effortlessly with the vocal melody, creating a harmonious dialogue that sets the tone for the album’s unique sonic landscape.
DAYS BETWEEN STATIONS - SEEDS
US prog rock duo Days Between Stations will release their brand new album, Perpetual Motion Machines (Music For A Film), on November 29, from which comes Seeds. The band's first new studio recording since 2020's Giants and began life as a soundtrack for a documentary film about artist Jean-Paul Bourdier, and after creative differences with the film producers, the band salvaged the project by turning it into a “proper” album.
All of the instrumental pieces are cues from the intended soundtrack, written and performed by band members, keyboardist Oscar Fuentes Bills and guitarist Sepand Samzadeh and produced by Navon Weisberg. Durga McBroom sings on the final song Being, for which a video will be released on the same day as the album.
