Welcome to Prog's Tracks Of The Week. Six new and diverse slices progressive music for you to enjoy.
Hearty congratulations to US heavy prog rock sextet They Watch Us From The Moon, whose On The Fields Of The Moon romped home last week, ahead of current prog Eurovision darlings Voyager, with UK prog rockers Cairo a credible third.
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.
So get watching. And get voting at the bottom of the page.
GODSTICKS - IF I DON'T TAKE IT ALL
Hard hitting Welsh prog quartet Godsticks return with their brand new album This is What A Winner Looks Like, which is released through Kscope Record son May 26, and from which new gritty yet melodic new single If I Don't Take It All is taken from. It's all heartfelt choruses, knotty guitar riffs and an eye-catching video.
“It's about the struggles we all face every day and overcoming them," explains singer and guitarist Darran Charles. "Whether it's something a bit more dramatic and harrowing like the shows and characters I was inspired by, or the more personal, inner battles that every one of us will have to face at some point in our lives. It's about not giving in to anything, and each of us tried to reflect that determination in our performances."
RAY ALDER - WAITING FOR SOME SUN
Fates Warning frontman Ray Alder's latest single, Waiting For Some Sun, also builds to an equally epic finale, but it's a very different beast, featuring skittish electronica behind the brooding guitars. It's taken from Alder's second solo release, aptly titled II, which is out through InsideOut Music on June 9.
“I wanted a totally different style for a song on the new album," he says. "Something that set itself apart from the rest. Mike and I got to talking and I said I want a song where the chorus is in the beginning but builds and gets bigger every time it repeats. Also dark with a lot of attitude. This is the music he came up with. I personally love how the vocal melody has nothing to do with the guitars. A sort of chaos that makes sense. At least to me..."
MOTORPSYCHO - PATTERNS
Much has been made of Motorpsycho's new album Yay, being a shift away from the epic sounds that were writ all over the likes of Kingdom Of Oblivion and The All Is One. And as streaming new single Patterns suggests, whilst still recognisably Motorpsychpo, it operates in a quieter, more introspective realm. Yay is out on June 16 through Stickman Records.
"Motorpsycho have always been about the balance between hard and soft, electric and acoustic, big and small, light and shade," the band say, "and now the time was right for a lighter touch to balance the scales. Yang to the Yin of earlier, more epic works (N.O.X., The Crucible, and Chariot Of The Gods), this is also an album that is relatively easy on the ears, and that actually works really well with a cup of tea at noon."
HAUNT THE WOODS - FEVER DREAM (ACOUSTIC)
Expect big things of Cornish prog quartet Haunt The Woods. Signed by Spinefarm, they then supported new labelmates Crown Lands at their London show at Omeara last year. The band are currently working on their second album, the follow-up to 2020's Opaque, and have wasted no time in recording a new acoustic take on recent single Fever Dream.
"Fever Dream, arranged as an acoustic track and performed at Middle Farm Studio," explains vocalist and guitarist Jonathan Stafford. "Always a special experience recording to tape in the Middle Farm Live Room, something charming about the honesty and flaws of a single unedited take, you can almost hear the floorboards creak."
AVKRVST - ARCANE CLOUDS
Mournful Norwegian prog rock quintet AVKRVST are another band you can expect to be hearing increasingly more of. new single Arcane Clouds is the second to be drawn from the band's upcoming debut album, The Approbation a conceptual affair about a bleak soul who is left solely with his thoughts, isolated on a cabin deep into the dark forests, far away from civilisation and takes the listener though the thoughts of a man struggling towards the acceptance of death, being hauled into the abyss. Cheery stuff indeed.
"Arcane Clouds is the second single of the concept debut album The Approbation, and the anthem of forsaken hope," the band state. "An inner voice trying to convince you to fight back and keep your head above water, while the ghosts are hunting you down.”
