More than three decades into an extraordinary career, Swedish progressive rock pioneers The Flower Kings return with HOPE, their 18th studio album and one of the most ambitious statements of their storied journey. Balancing refined musicianship with fearless creativity, the album is both a celebration of the band’s legacy and a bold leap forward, embracing the grand, cinematic scope and adventurous spirit that have made them one of progressive rock’s most beloved acts.
HOPE features a rich collection of expansive compositions, including the epic 30-minute centerpiece “The Gods of Rome.” Drawing on themes of power, conflict, human ambition, and the state of the modern world, the album reflects on an era marked by division…
Category: prog-rock
Flatlands is a new John Zorn project for rock power trio, in the tradition of Simulacrum, Naked City and Insurrection: twelve short pieces that turn on a dime, built on infectious riffs, atonal melodies, shifting rhythms and virtuoso solos, intense, quirky and ecstatic.
The trio is made of three of Zorn’s closest collaborators of recent years: Matt Hollenberg (Shardik, Secret Chiefs 3) on electric guitar, Simon Hanes (Gargantua, Tredici Bacci, Tsons of Tsunami) on electric bass and Ches Smith (Clone Row, We All Break, Laugh Ash) on drums.
Titles include ’69-68′, ‘Into the Dreamverse’, ‘Mabinogion’, ‘Priapus’, ‘Erotic Hyperbola’, ‘Almas Perdidas’, ‘The Blue Circle’, ‘Slipped Disk’ and ‘Greywacke’.
The second chapter in Gong’s legendary Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, Angel’s Egg takes the story deeper into the surreal, otherworldly universe first introduced on Flying Teapot. Originally released in 1973, the album follows the continuing adventures of Zero the Hero and the Pot Head Pixies, expanding Daevid Allen’s visionary mythology into an even more ambitious world of flying teapots, cosmic transmissions, spiritual awakening, and playful rebellion.
Musically, Angel’s Egg pushes Gong’s unique fusion of psychedelic rock, progressive experimentation, jazz improvisation, and anarchic humour into new territory. With its hypnotic grooves, swirling synthesizers, gliding guitars, saxophone excursions, and eccentric vocal…
Remastered from the original BYG Records tapes and cut for the first time ever at half-speed at the UK’s world-famous Stardelta Studios by Grammy Award–winning mastering engineer Lewis Hopkin, this exclusive RSD 2026 edition features a deluxe gatefold sleeve, archival artwork, and a 16-page booklet exploring the storytelling and mythology of the beloved Radio Gnome Invisible saga. Released under BYG Records – the original label that recorded the album before licensing it to Virgin – this definitive deluxe reissue delivers the best sound quality Flying Teapot has ever had: a true cosmic upgrade for Gong’s mind-bending masterpiece.
Originally unleashed in 1973, Flying Teapot kicked off the eccentric Radio Gnome…
Originally released in March 1969, From Genesis To Revelation marked the beginning of an extraordinary journey, the first chapter in the story of a band that would go on to achieve immense success and lasting acclaim. These new editions offer the most comprehensive and revealing presentation of the album to date, revisiting this vital early work with fresh perspective and unprecedented depth.
At the heart of all formats is a powerful new stereo mix by Stephen W Tayler, created with a renewed focus on the band’s performances and with less emphasis on the orchestral elements that shaped the original release. The result is both revelatory and immersive, bringing new clarity and immediacy to the album while preserving…
On their sixteenth studio album, Far and Wide, The Pineapple Thief feel more like a rock band than ever. Still progressive. Still masters of spine-tingling atmosphere. Still attuned to the strange, troubled world around us. And now, a decade and seven albums on from the arrival of Gavin Harrison on drums, they capture the chemistry, road miles and bigger stages of the last few years. You can hear that real-time heat in these songs. From the moody tones of opener New World Order, this music punches hard, all teeth and commanding shadows, without sacrificing the subtle twists and lightness’s that come to them so naturally. Rock songs of real class and nuance, in other words. Far And Wide is about shared ground. An abstract collection of feelings about…
… includes three CDs: the original mixes on CD1, the 2026 remix on CD2, and a third disc of completely unreleased studio tracks and outtakes like “Sad Suit” and “Aborted Soliloquy”, alongside live performances from their 2000 tour.
Released in 1999, J-Tull Dot Com was Jethro Tull’s 20th studio album. Anderson and company navigated the 1980s well, but the ’90s proved to have new obstacles, with CDs, the beginning of bands using the internet and a new bass player (Jonathon Noyce). Martin Barre (guitars, backing vocals) and Ian Anderson remained the core of the band with Doane Perry (drums) and Andrew Giddings (keyboards) who had been with the band since 1984 and 1991, respectively, at this point. And yet, make no mistake,…
One of the highlights of the King Crimson 50th anniversary CD/Blu-ray editions to date has been King Crimson producer David Singleton’s series of Elemental Mixes as he uses the full spectrum of available studio sessions for each album to produce very different takes on the familiar songs and pieces.
Speaking about the Elemental Mix approach, David Singleton said: “Ever since the concept of an Elemental mix was first suggested, I have approached these with equal measures of hate, dread and love. Dread and hate because you are, in effect, staring at a perfect jigsaw (the finished version of the Mona Lisa) wondering how you might roll back the years and get closer to the moment of creation – often by finding…
Following his acclaimed 2020 album The Red Planet, Rick Wakeman makes a triumphant and inevitable return to Mars with Return to The Red Planet, a sweeping new progressive work that fuses science, imagination and musical virtuosity into one of the most ambitious recordings of his career.
At a time when space exploration has moved back to the forefront of human endeavour – with missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond once again capturing the world’s imagination – Return To The Red Planet feels both timely and visionary, rekindling the cosmic spirit that helped define progressive rock’s golden age.
Where its predecessor opened the story, this album explores the planet’s ancient lakes, vast canyon systems, shifting dust storms…
Continuing the series of archival live albums documenting German experimental rock legends Can at their mid-’70s creative peak, Live in Arles 1975 captures a set recorded in August of that year at an amphitheatre in Southern France. As with other volumes in the series, the tracks are numerically titled, as the group mainly improvised in concert, though they often touched on riffs, ideas, and rhythms heard in the songs contained on their studio albums. Also like some of the other live releases, it sounds like it was sourced from private fan tapes rather than professional recordings, but the energy of the musicians’ performances mostly makes up for the murky sound quality. The group sound strong and energetic as soon as the record button was pressed…
Peter Hammill has never been an artist interested in taking the easy route. Whether through Van der Graaf Generator or his extensive solo catalogue, his music consistently occupies a space where beauty, tension, introspection and unease exist side by side. Tears in Time, his first solo album in five years, continues that tradition while looking back across decades of creative exploration.
Released through Cherry Red’s Esoteric Antenna label, the album brings together eleven compositions drawn from recordings made at Hammill’s Terra Incognita studio between 1991 and the present day. Rather than feeling like an archival collection assembled from unrelated fragments, Tears in Time develops into a surprisingly coherent journey through memory…
Haken underwent a sea change in January 2026 when guitarist Charlie Griffiths and bassist Conner Green left the band and formed metal band Tiktaalika. It forced them to regroup and reconsider where they’d been as both a band and as individuals. In a fever dream is a five-track EP created by the remaining quartet, with guest bassists Bryan Beller and Adam “Nolly” Getgood. As expected, the loss of a third of the lineup necessitated aesthetic as well as practical changes.
Haken’s trademark prog rock sound remains; this EP’s sonic profile is a close cousin to the albums Vector and Virus, with a more strident electronic backbone. That said, the music on offer here also sidles up closely to 21st century prog metal. It’s easy to hear that Haken…
The boldly colored cover of Fantastic Thoughts features a sinewy band of horses heroically galloping out of the clouds above and into the foreground. Believe it or not, even that image might still be a little understated for the mood of the music.
Multi-instrumentalist Nate Mercereau is a prolific MVP of the L.A. post-jazz scene, frequently found in the company of similarly ubiquitous, outside-the-box musical thinkers like Carlos Niño and Josh Johnson on projects including 2025’s transcendent Openness Trio album and Andre 3000’s head-turning ambient-jazz solo debut. But while Mercereau’s solo sojourn shares a sense of spiritual uplift with those projects, it couldn’t be further from their quietly contemplative tone.
Henrik Olsson‘s Antumbra Ensemble is an eponymous, genre-blending effort composed, arranged, and led by the Swedish guitarist. The Copenhagen-based outfit contains members new and old. The rhythm section, double bassist Jeppe Skovbakke and drummer Rune Lohse, and tubist Kristian Tangvik, all return from Olsson’s Hand of Benediction I and II albums. They perform in tandem and contrast with a horn section that consists of alto saxophonist Michaela Turcerová, trumpeter Erik Kimestad Pedersen, and trombonist Petter Hängsel. They assist Olsson in creating a musical universe that reflects the influences and methodologies of Henry Cow, Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus, Sun Ra, Soft Machine, Marc Ribot, and Frank Zappa, employing…
Formed in 1969 by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown keyboardist Vincent Crane, Atomic Rooster forged a sound that blended proto‑metal heaviness with blistering Hammond‑organ riffs, explosive guitar work, and punishing drum patterns. Their music often brushed against what would later become doom metal, dark, powerful, and intense enough to shake the peace‑and‑love sensibilities of the era. Across seven studio albums released between 1970 and 1983, it becomes clear just how far ahead of their time they were, even as they frequently remained under the radar.
Compiled by Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings, this 2-CD set collects the band’s BBC sessions recorded between 1970 and 1981, including appearances on Radio 1, the Friday Rock Show,…
Despite being friends for many years, The Roaring Waves by prog guitarists Steve Hackett and Marillion’s Steve Rothery is a surprise. Eight years in the conceiving, the pair began it in joint writing sessions at Marillion’s Racket Club studio. For his part, Rothery drew on his band experience. Hackett had a bigger learning curve. They developed the album jointly and separately at their individual studios as well.
With the sea as a unifying theme, the duo conjure an arresting blend of progressive rock, psychedelia, ambient, classical, and electronic music, peppered with cinematic soundscapes and atmospheres appended by lyrical hooks and startling crescendoes. It is not a competetive shredding session. The only vocals are…
Multi-track recording of a King Crimson set from June 29th, 1974, at Penn State University, featuring the Bruford, Cross, Fripp and Wetton incarnation of the band on brilliantly brutal form. Contains material from ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic’ and ‘Starless and Bible Black’ plus ‘Is There Life Out There?’ and ‘It Is for You But Not for Us’, two of the finest improvs from this tour.
Though this particular line-up were edging closer to oblivion, listening to this full show 30 years after the event, the energy levels are astounding.[endtease] In his journal from the time RF described the show as “Tired. Lifeless. Lacklustre” Maybe Fripp’s estimation of the gig was informed by his recovering from mild food poisoning, the cumulative effect of prunes and a boil in his ear!
On their third LP, Celestial, the Brazilian progressive metal band Papangu cracks open a universe of possibility by foregoing digital shortcuts in favor of ecstatic analog craftsmanship. Following their blistering 2021 debut Holoceno and the percussive fables of Lampião Rei three years later, Celestial showcases the band’s exploratory techniques with spacey jazz and textured folk instruments, harkening back to the experimental prog of the ‘60s and ‘70s without overrelying on retro nostalgia. Their music has traces of King Crimson and Magma’s stardust, sure — but the band, who hail from João Pessoa, are ultimately aligned with the psychedelic canon of the country’s Northeast; a bridge between acoustic tradition and electronic innovation constructed…
