tue 11/03/2025

progressive rock

Album: Spiritbox - Tsunami Sea

Within the loud realm of metal, it often exists happily unbothered by the mainstream. And although a metal band going mainstream isn't always well received in the subculture, it is still exciting when a band feels on the cusp of shattering through...

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Album: Jethro Tull - Curious Ruminant

Folk rock has long been one of Jethro Tull’s strongest suits. Ian Anderson’s integration of Anglo-Celtic folk influences goes all the way back to the band’s second LP, Stand Up (1969), which drew also on Eastern and Eastern European music to affirm...

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Album: Doves - Constellations for the Lonely

Doves really are quite prog rock aren’t they? It’s never really leapt out at me before, probably because I’d always thought of them as brooding indie first and foremost.There are elements of things like spaghetti western soundtracks, Scott Walker...

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Album: Squid - Cowards

Brighton band Squid are not in the business of straightforward. Combining jazz chops with a sensibility that’s at once post-punk, prog and avant-garde, their music is wilfully tricksy. Yet it does groove, upon occasion, it does funk. Tunes do pop in...

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Albums of the Year 2024: Everything Everything - Mountainhead

There are some years where my pick for album of the year is obvious; something stands out so clearly amongst the crowd, something that takes a hold and doesn’t relent for a sustained length throughout the year. For me, 2024 was not one of those...

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Album: SJS - A Sequence of Mistakes

Whether or not the lyrics Stuart Stawman writes and sings are autobiographical, the persona he’s created for himself as the leader of his neo-prog project SJS is that of a dutiful lover thwarted by the pressing of the self-destruct button no affair...

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Album: Wytch Pycknyck - Wytch Pycknyck

Out on the perimeters where there are no stars, in a void full of bong-smoke and synesthetic noise… there, in a greasy biker hovel full of gigantic amps, there live Wytch Pycknyck. Some say that place is called Hastings. Whatever it’s called, this...

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theartsdesk on Vinyl 84: Ibibio Sound Machine, Dave Clarke, Eliza Rose, Billy Idol, Bodega, Mui Zyu and more

VINYL OF THE MONTHAriel Sharratt & Matthias Kom Never Work (BB*Island) + Ella Ronen The Girl With No Skin (BB*Island)Two offbeat albums from the uncategorisable Hamburg label BB*Island. They are home to the literary indie outfit The Burning Hell...

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Album: Squarepusher - Dostrotime

Tom “Squarepusher” Jenkinson has covered a lot of ground over three decades, from dank cellar ambience to refined baroque composition, and from chirpy funk to monstrous noise. But his default mode is instantly recognisable: 170+ beats per minute...

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Album: Plantoid - Terrapath

Terrapath is a prog-rock album with a large dash of jazz-rock fusion. When the styles were in their Seventies pomp, an album side could be occupied by one cut. Both sides might feature, at most, four, maybe five tracks. Yet Plantoid’s debut LP fits...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Steven Wilson on Porcupine Tree, 'The Harmony Codex' and electro-dominance

This September Steven Wilson issued The Harmony Codex, his seventh solo record in 16 years. Though rooted in mortal concerns and alert to real-world dangers, this radiant suite of electronically textured songs is so dreamily redolent of...

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Album: Steven Wilson - The Harmony Codex

Steven Wilson has merged various genres – metal, shoegaze, pop, dance, jazz – in his solo career without shrugging off the prog label he considers reductive. He hasn’t exactly jettisoned it with his seventh album The Harmony Codex, a collection of...

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