We’re back with a brand new Tracks Of The Week after a week off with another festival getting in the way! This week we’ve got seven new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
A reminder that Dutch proggers Lesoir came out on top in a very tight race last week with the thought-provoking Is It Nothing? with US proggers Pattern-Seeking Animals in second place and with Arthur Brown’s effusive Bursting The Bubble in third.
The premise 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 – it 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 (please, don’t forget the photo!) and biog with quotes to us here.
ASIA – ECHO OF YOU
After the punch of their first single, The Traveller (Into The Light), the new offering from the melodic proggers Asia, Echo Of You, drips with melody (is that a hint of Toto-esque vocal melody we hear?), reminding everyone of just what a classy songwriter Geoff Downes is. And with new bassist and vocalist Harry Whitley, he seems to have found a new writing partner that recalls the glory days of Downes/Wetton era Asia. The band release nbew album, Indigo, through Frontiers on November 6.
“This song was part of the main writing sessions between Harry and I. It took on a whole different angle in the latter stages of development, with more of a focus on electronica and a spacey production. It’s a happy, uplifting tune, despite the nostalgic overtones of the lyrics, a love song with a twist. It all ends in a chaotic mix of counter themes, chord changes and features a good old-fashioned fade-out as a nod to nostalgia, and I believe is a very fitting conclusion to the album – Indigo, hopefully leaving the listener on a high.”
JONAS BJERRE – HIKE TO THE SUN
Jonas Bjerre was singer with Danish prog poppers Mew, who sadly called it a day in 2024, although their ensuing farewell tour took another two years! Bjerre is back with a soundtrack album for a new Korean-Danish movie, Hana Korea, directed by Frederik Sølberg, about the challenges a North Korean girl faces in exile in South Korea, out digitally on August 21 and with a full vinyl release on November 20 through Invisible Hands Music. A duet with a Korean artist called YeoHee, A Hike To The Sun is the only vocal track on the soundtrack, a gentle piece that will likely find favour with fans of both Mew and Sigur Rós.
“I knew director Frederik Sølberg from his documentary films, and from his musical career,” Bjerre explains. “His initial brief was electronic and especially ambient-style music, with the key word “alienation”. I worked primarily with modular synths and vintage analogue and early digital synths. We wanted to capture the feeling of our protagonist arriving in this new hyper-modern world, and her struggle to fit in. To incorporate a warmer-sounding, more melancholy, and emotional side, I started introducing string instruments, choir, and we even wrote a singer/songwriter style song together, based on a guitar figure that Frederik came up with, which became the duet between myself and Yeohee Kim. I also really enjoyed dabbling in K-pop for a scene, and working out Spanish flamenco-style guitar pieces.”
MAIAH WYNNE – SEE THE WATER
US musician Wynne is the singer with art rockers Envy Of None, best known for featuring Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson and Coney Hatch’s Andy Curran, so she’s come under plenty of scrutiny, now largely redirected towards a certain German drummer! With Lifeson duly preoccupied, Wynne releases her new solo album, Into The Waves, for new label Kscope (conveniently home to Envy Of None). Lifeson makes an appearance on the new album, as do cellist Bethany Joyce, violinist Avelyn Reynolds, guitarist Brooks Berg, drummers Adam Brzycki and Randy Cooke and flugelhorn player Henry Sheppard.
“I wrote See The Water in a handful of minutes when I was 16,” says Wynne. “I had just been gifted a dulcimer and found my hands quickly dancing around a folky melody in D minor. What came out was the manifestation of my inner critic. That voice inside my head that always told me I wasn’t enough, no matter how hard I tried. I decided to create a character out of her to represent the feeling of being hunted and haunted by that voice everywhere I went. The imagery of water and drowning in those feelings kept coming up and in a moment of quick inspiration, the song came out fully formed and has only changed slightly in the years since. It’s nice to finally have a studio version of it out in the world close to how I always pictured it in my head.”
DUALISIS – THE DEEP
This is the first time we’ve heard French quintet Dualisis, but then seeing as this is a precursor to the band’s debut EP, Us, which is out later this month, that’s not very surprising. The Deep is a lengthy and musically complex piece, which suggests great things ahead of the band.
The prog metal tag might be something of a hindrance to the band, given how some now view the genre, as there’s so much more going on here musically than that tag suggests. The cheesy, acted-out segments of their video might raise a smile, but we’ll definitely be keeping our eyes on Dualisis from now on.
HIPPOTRAKTOR – OBLIVION WALKER
Belgian prog metal quintet Hippotraktor are an intense young group, but their new single, Oblivion Walker, captures everything that’s great about them in just over four minutes. They can be crushingly heavy, beautifully gentle and melodic, darkly intense and progressively inquisitive, and that’s just the new single!
It’s taken from the band’s third studio album, Annihilist, which the band release through Pelagic Records on October 2. The brutal intensity of some of the music may scare off fans of gentler prog, but that’s a pity, as the package as a whole is so rewarding.
EXIST IMMORTAL – AFTERGLOW
Great to see and hear the return of London prog metal quintet Exist Immortal, who return with a new EP, Afterglow, through Seek & Strike on September 11. They’ve always packed a hefty punch, allied with a big slab of melody, and the EP’s title track is no different. Prog metal fans will simply love this, and although some older prog fans may be wary of the odd heavy vocal sections, the song’s emphatic impact wins out.
“Afterglow is the sound of us finding out what this band actually is,” the band explain. “We wrote and rebuilt it through a period of real upheaval, a lineup change, personal challenges, health challenges and a stretch that tested whether we’d keep going at all. Somehow it came out the most assured, most deliberate thing we’ve ever made.”
END OF ABYSS – VULTURES
Vultures is the second single from Finnish prog metal sextet End Of Abyss and is taken from the band’s upcoming debut album, Escape To A New Empire, which will be released through the Inverse Record label, although the actual release date is TBC. They might be tagged with the prog metal label, but there’s more heavy rock mixed with prog, not a million miles from Norway’s Green Carnation. We’ll be keeping our eye on them; that’s for sure
“Vultures explores the many possibilities of musical interpretation,” explains composer Petrus Syvänperä. “In addition to traditional band instrumentation, the track incorporates industrial‑styled synth textures, and the chorus appears in three distinct variations throughout the journey.”
