Here’s some music that various members of the Prog team have been grooving to this week…
EDITOR – JERRY EWING
Big Big Train – Wassail
Another winner from the Big Big Train boys. Loving the folkier direction they’ve taken with this track. I can also imagine this, along with previous single Make Some Noise will go down a storm at their hugely anticipated live shows later this year, with their booming song-a-long choruses. Nice artwork, too!
DEPUTY EDITOR – HANNAH MAY KILROY
Galley Beggar – Silence And Tears
Anyone yearning for the days when British folk pop reigned supreme with the likes of Fairport Convention and Pentangle will find sustenance in Kent’s Galley Beggar. Taken from their brand new album Silence And Tears, Adam And Eve is a stunning nod to the golden age of folk.
ART EDITOR – RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER
Laura J Martin – Red Flag
I first heard of Laura J Martin on the delightfully eccentric Bonus Skor EP back in 2012. A flautist and mandolin player using loops, Laura happily wades around the psychedelic folk end of the progressive spectrum with nods to Jethro Tull (of course) and Kate Bush. In fact this track from her second album Dazzle does evoke the creative drama of Kate Bush’s The Dreaming and is none the worse for it.
NEWS EDITOR – NATASHA SCHARF
The Great Discord – L’homme Mauvais
These new Swedish progressive metallers love early Genesis but that might not be entirely apparent from the sound on their new single! Unbelievably The Great Discord have only been around for a couple of years but L’homme Mauvais is an impressively slick and insanely catchy song that’s taken from their debut album Duende. It’s out through Metal Blade next month.
Listen to the track here.
REVIEWS EDITOR – GRANT MOON
Henry Cow – Living In The Heart Of The Beast
Henry Cow’s In Praise Of Learning was released exactly 40 years ago, May ‘75, and it features this catchy little number. Living In the Heart Of The Beast sums up everything that attracts some to the avant-garde centre of prog, and has others fleeing fast in the opposite direction. Here’s the Cow at a Swiss festival the year after, and among the many things to love here is Tim Hodgkinson’s mumbly stab at introducing the tune in French…
WRITER – RACHEL MANN
IOEarth – New World
You’d have to have a pretty hard heart not to love Midland masters, IOEarth. Not only do they make ambitious, symphonic prog, but they genuinely try to treat fans as part of the family. Yes, the songs are epic, winding and full of pyrotechnics, but more than that they do prog right – they want to make the apparently impossible possible. Their launch for new album New World, from which this track is taken, underlines their virtues: find a great venue, get fans from all over the world together, bring in brass and string sections and party till late in the evening. A modern band all prog fans should pay attention to.
LIMELIGHT BAND – RYLEY WALKER
Primrose Green
Genuinely nomadic folk fuelled by a love of jazz and a sound of the 60s, with echoes of John Martyn and Tim Buckley? We’re sold…
