Prog is having a proper moment right now, and if you've been sleeping on it, this week's batch of new tracks from Prog's Tracks Of The Week is as good a reason as any to wake up.
Seven new releases. One vote. All of them sitting somewhere under the progressive umbrella. Here's what caught our ear.
The Tracks Worth Your Time
North Sea Echoes are the easiest sell in the bunch. Jim Matheos and Ray Alder, the Fates Warning duo behind the project, have released Good Enough from their second album How To Cast A Shadow, out now on Metal Blade Records. Where Fates Warning goes intricate and heavy, North Sea Echoes goes somewhere quieter and more affecting. Alder himself calls it "a simple yet beautiful song," and he's not wrong. It has crossover written all over it, and that's not a criticism.
Boss Keloid are doing the opposite. The Wigan prog rockers are gearing up for their sixth studio album, Float & Aperture, through Church Road Records on 23 October, and the nine-minute opening statement Landslide doesn't ease you in gently. Knotty rhythms, shifting time signatures, the works. Lyrically it's about recognising yourself as your own worst enemy. Musically, it sounds like a band who've genuinely earned album six.
Downes Braide Association bring something more immediately accessible. Geoff Downes and Chris Braide's new single Hello Hello is melodic, polished, and deceptively dark underneath. Braide describes it as being about psychological isolation and the courage to ask for help. Their album Trauma drops via Cherry Red Records on 25 September. Worth noting: Downes also has a new Asia album coming in November. The man does not rest.
Clive Nolan has gone full Norse. Frost Upon The Longships is the lead single from his new solo album Song Of The Winter Throne: The Saga Of Hákon Hákonsson, out 2 October via WLR and Oskar Records. It tells the story of one of medieval Norway's most remarkable kings, and if you've heard Wardruna or Heilung, you'll have a rough sense of the territory. Nolan says the pull of the North never loosened its grip on him after his previous work. The track backs that up.
Godsticks, the Welsh prog outfit, have released a guitar and bass playthrough of Hold Back from their seventh album VOiD. It features guitarists Darran Charles and Gavin Bushell alongside bassist Francis George. The band are touring later in November and have further dates in February and April. Hold Back is about emotional drain, specifically those people who manufacture drama to keep themselves at the centre of attention. Musically tight and precise. They admit it took a disproportionate amount of rehearsal to get right live.
And The One That Demands Eleven Minutes Of Your Life
The Ocean round things out with Ultima Esperanza, Spanish for "last hope," running to eleven minutes. The German collective are not a band known for restraint, and this track doesn't pretend otherwise.
Our Take
This is a strong week. North Sea Echoes and Boss Keloid sit at opposite ends of the prog spectrum and both land. Clive Nolan's Viking saga concept either clicks or it doesn't depending on your tolerance for that sort of thing, but the ambition is real. Downes Braide Association, as ever, are the ones most likely to bring in a listener who'd never normally click on a prog playlist.
Vote for your favourite over at Prog. Dikajee won last week's poll in a tight finish, with Chimpan A and Kalandra tying for second. Apparently that's never happened before in Tracks Of The Week history. Prog fans: genuinely unpredictable.