As the title suggests, the forthcoming album, his first for the Frontiers label, finds the former Eagles guitarist looking back on his long history in music, but with a unique twist. “I have, I’d say, hundreds of ideas….going back into the ’70s. For every Eagles song, I would write and record 15 to 17 song ideas,” he tells UCR. “One became ‘Hotel California,’ one became ‘Those Shoes‘ and another one became ‘Victim of Love,’ so I was always writing.”
“I went back and started listening to some of these older demos of mine and found what I think are some magical gems that I’ve re-recorded and reproduced,” he explains. “I also wrote some new songs to go with it as well. The recordings came out amazing and I’m really excited about it.”
“Free at Last,” he describes as “a heartfelt tribute to the freedom that awaits us beyond this life. It’s about shedding the burdens of this world and finding peace in the promise that one day, we will all be free at last.”
Listen to Don Felder’s ‘Free at Last’
Felder is joined on the upcoming collection by a number of guests, including David Paich, Steve Lukather, Joseph Williams and Greg Phillinganes from Toto, plus Gregg Bissonette (Ringo Starr, David Lee Roth), Todd Sucherman (Styx) and others. The album opener “Move On” is an example of one of the songs that comes from the earlier part of his career, dating back to 1974. Other tracks, including “I Like the Things You Do,” were among the new material Felder wrote especially for this project. The Vault also features a fresh recording of Felder’s “Heavy Metal,” the title track for the ’80s animated film of the same name.
Don Felder’s Tour Plans for Summer 2025
Fans will have ample opportunities to see Felder on the road this summer. He’ll be sharing the stage with Styx and the Kevin Cronin Band as part of the Brotherhood of Rock tour, which kicks off May 28 in Greenville, SC. The 40 date outing is presently set to wrap up Aug. 24 in Milwaukee, WI. “The amazing thing about this tour, to me is the catalog of all three of these bands,” Felder told UCR. “It’s going to just be hit after hit after hit. [In the past], we’ve had a little grand finale on some of the nights that we were feeling up to it, to kind of button up the very end of the show. So it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Don Felder ‘The Vault – Fifty Years of Music’ Track List 1. Move On 2. Free At Last 3. Hollywood Victim 4. Last All Night 5. Digital World 6. I Like The Things You Do 7. All Girls Love To Dance 8. Together Forever 9. Heavy Metal 10. Let Me Down Easy 11. Blue Skies
In February, Johansen publicly disclosed that he was battling stage four cancer, a brain tumor, and a broken back. First diagnosed in 2020, his health struggles kept him from performing in the final years of his life. Last month, he launched a fundraising campaign through the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to help cover medical expenses, acknowledging the severity of his condition by stating, “I’ve never been one to ask for help, but this is an emergency.”
A statement from his family, released Saturday, said that Johansen had endured “a decade of profoundly compromised health” and that he died “peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife, Mara Hennessey, and daughter Leah, in the sunlight, surrounded by music and flowers.”
Johansen was the last surviving member of the New York Dolls, the groundbreaking band that helped shape the sound and attitude of punk rock. After the band’s breakup, he reinvented himself under the persona of Buster Poindexter, bringing a flamboyant lounge act to mainstream audiences and scoring a hit with “Hot Hot Hot.” His talents extended beyond music, as he also built a career in film, appearing in movies like Scrooged and Let It Ride.
His family expressed deep appreciation for the outpouring of love and support they had received in recent weeks, noting that Johansen was grateful for the chance to reconnect with many friends and loved ones before his passing. “He knew he was ecstatically loved,” the statement read.
Plans are underway for several events to honor Johansen’s life and legacy, with further details to be announced in the near future.
His death was confirmed on Saturday March 1 by a spokesperson in a statement to Rolling Stone: “David Johansen died at home in NYC on Friday afternoon holding hands with his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, surrounded my music, flowers, and love. He was 75 years old and died of natural causes after nearly a decade of illness.”
In February, Johansen revealed that he had been fighting stage 4 cancer for several years. He had been bedridden and requiring round-the-clock care since breaking his back in two places following a fall last year.
Born in Staten Island, New York on January 9, 1950, Johansen’s joined his first band, the Vagabond Ministries, as a teenager. But it was as singer with proto-punk provocateurs the New York Dolls that he made his name.
He recorded two albums with the Dolls, 1973’s self-titled debut and 1974’s Too Much Too Soon. While neither were commercial hits, both went on to influence bands and artists such as the Sex Pistols, Guns N’ Roses and The Smiths, whose singer Morrissey was an ardent fan.
After the Dolls split in 1976, Johansen embarked on a solo career, releasing a series of solo albums between 1978 and 1984. But his biggest success came in the late 80s via his Buster Poindexter alter ego, which saw him performing blues and jazz covers in the guise of a bequiffed lounge singer. He also appeared in several movies, including 1988’s Scrooged (playing The Ghost Of Christmas Past alongside Bill Murray) and 1992’s sci-fi bomb Freejack, the latter also featuring Mick Jagger.
Johansen relaunched the New York Dolls in 2004 with guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and bassist Arthur Kane (former guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan had died several years earlier). This version of the band released three albums between 2004 and 2011. In 2022, Johansen was the subject of an acclaimed concert film and documentary, Personality Crisis: For One Night Only, directed by Marin Scorsese.
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Last month, the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund charity launched a fundraiser to help Johansen – the last surviving member of the New York Dolls – to help with his health battles.
“Five years ago at the beginning of the pandemic we discovered that David’s cancer had progressed and he had a brain tumour,” said the singer’s daughter Leah Hennessey, when launching the fundraiser. “There have been complications ever since. He’s never made his diagnosis public, as he and my mother Mara are generally very private people, but we feel compelled to share this now, due to the increasingly severe financial burden our family is facing.”
A week after the fundraiser, Johansen expressed gratitude to the fans who had donated to the fundraiser.
“I just wanted to thank you all for giving us a big boost here with our fundraising campaign, I guess you would call it. I’ve never asked for help in my life and lately Mara’s been teaching me the beauty of, when your chips are down, asking for help.”
Jimmy Page and Brian May have both warned about artificial intelligence’s potential to destroy art and bankrupt artists financially and spiritually, echoing recent exhortations made by Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi and many more musicians.
May voiced his concerns in support of the Daily Mail‘s campaign against the U.K. Labour Party’s AI copyright proposal, which would allow tech companies to use existing copyrighted material to train AI unless the rights holders opt out.
Although Page did not explicitly reference any such campaign, he shared a lengthy and impassioned statement on Facebook in which he stressed the importance of “defending the sanctity of human creativity against the encroachment of AI” in order to “safeguard not just the rights of artists, but the very soul of our cultural heritage.”
Brian May’s AI Fears: ‘The Future Is Already Forever Changed’
Although May supported the Daily Mail‘s campaign against the British government’s AI copyright proposal, he also expressed fear that it might be too late to stop AI proponents from steamrolling over copyright laws and taking advantage of artists.
“My fear is that it’s already too late – this theft has already been performed and is unstoppable, like so many incursions that the monstrously arrogant billionaire owners of Al and social media are making into our lives,” May told the publication last week. “The future is already forever changed.”
He continued: “But I applaud this campaign to make the public aware of what is being lost. I hope it succeeds in putting a brake on, because if not, nobody will be able to afford to make music from here on in.”
Jimmy Page Implores Others to ‘Celebrate and Preserve the Human Touch in Art’
Page took a more personal approach in his denunciation of AI, reflecting on his early days as a session musician and eventual world domination as a member of Led Zeppelin. He called his grueling early session days “a crucible of creativity, collaboration, and ceaseless inspiration,” during which he “was required to create and conjure riffs and lyrical figures immediately without slowing down the momentum of the work being recorded with the other musicians and the artist.”
“This journey from the anonymity of session work to the global stages with Led Zeppelin was not a path paved by algorithms or data sets,” Page continued. “It was a voyage marked by spontaneous improvisation and the unquantifiable spark of human ingenuity. The alchemy that transformed a unique riff into an anthem was etched into the collective soul of the band — a synergy that no machine can emulate.”
Page further dismissed AI-generated art as “hollow echoes, devoid of the struggles, triumphs, and soul that define true artistry.” He added that “when AI scrapes the vast tapestry of human creativity to generate content, it often does so without consent, attribution, or compensation. This is not innovation; it’s exploitation.”
The guitarist noted that if somebody had taken his work without credit or compensation, “it would have been deemed theft. The same standard must apply to AI.” Therefore, he added, “We must champion policies that protect artists, ensuring that their work isn’t siphoned off into the void of machine learning without due regard. Let us celebrate and preserve the human touch in art — the imperfections, the emotions, the stories behind every note and cadence.”
Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi and Other Rockers Who Have Vocally Opposed AI
In a January interview with the BBC, McCartney also opposed the U.K. government’s AI proposals and demanded that the government support artists. “We’re the people, you’re the government! You’re supposed to protect us. That’s your job,” he said. “So you know, if you’re putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists, or you’re not gonna have them.”
Last year, more than 200 artists also signed a letter from the Artist Rights Alliance that called on AI developers to change their approach to how music is used with the technology, referring to the current training models as an “assault on human creativity.”
The letter — signed by the likes of Pearl Jam, Bon Jovi, R.E.M., Peter Frampton, Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder and many more — warned that “Al will set in motion a race to the bottom that will degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it.”
Led Zeppelin Albums Ranked
Counting down every canonical Led Zeppelin album, from worst (relatively speaking, of course) to best.
“I guarantee you there’s at least 20% of every crowd at our show that leaves disappointed I didn’t play ‘Panama,’” Wolfgang noted during a recent appearance on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan, adding that Van Halen’s famous 1984 track was a “great song, [but] not a Mammoth song.”
Corgan expressed solidarity with Van Halen, having been in a similar situation himself. The rocker recalled how fans would vocally demand Smashing Pumpkins material when he was touring behind his debut solo album in 2005.
In Wolfgang’s case, wisdom handed down by his famous father has helped keep things in perspective.
“My dad actually had a quote when [Van Halen] ended up doing a lot of cover songs,” the rocker recalled. “It was on Diver Down, there was a lot specifically on that album. He said, ‘I’d rather bomb with my own material than succeed with someone else’s.’ And I feel very much that way.”
Wolfgang Van Halen Says He’d Be ‘Selling Out’ if He Played Van Halen
“I could very easily shack up and do ‘Wolf Does Van Halen’ and do that and probably make a decent living at it,” he further acknowledged. “It’s very hollow and astoundingly creatively unfulfilling so I just can’t. I feel like it’s kind of selling out and I could never do that. That’s not satisfying to me. I would rather bomb on my own than succeed with what my dad laid before me.”
Wolfgang further noted that he’ll never be able to please everyone, especially the legions of fans who remain eternally beholden to his father and Van Halen. Still, the Mammoth WVH frontman sees a certain level of irony in the hatred that comes his way.
“It’s a funny thing when you see the people who are the strongest Van Halen fans outwardly acting in a way that my dad would be disgusted with.”
Van Halen Lineup Changes
Three different singers and two different bassists joined the Van Halen brothers over the years.
David Johansen, best known as the lead singer of pioneering punk band New York Dolls and their last surviving original member, has died at the age of 75.
A spokesperson for the singer confirmed the news in a statement. “David Johansen died at home in New York City on Friday afternoon holding hands with his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, surrounded by music, flowers and love,” they said. “He was 75 years old and died of natural causes after nearly a decade of illness.”
News of Johansen’s death broke less than three weeks after he went public with his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, which was discovered five years ago. The singer reportedly suffered a nasty fall the day after Thanksgiving, which left him “completely bedridden and incapacitated, relying on around-the-clock care.”
Johansen’s Early Days and the New York Dolls
Johansen was born in 1950 on Staten Island, where he started his musical career as the lead singer of a local band, the Vagabond Missionaries. By 1971, he was the frontman of the New York Dolls, a proto-punk group formed in New York City whose original lineup consisted of Johnny Thunders, Arthur Kane, Rick Rivets and Billy Murcia. The latter two were eventually replaced by Sylvain Sylvain and Jerry Nolan. They were regulars of the New York City gig scene and earned a big break in 1972 when Rod Stewart invited them to open a London concert of his.
In 1973, the Dolls released their eponymous debut album, produced by Todd Rundgren. The reception was mixed, with the band’s campy, punk-meets-glam-rock vibe not impressing — or perhaps confusing — many critics and fans. New York Dolls sold poorly, and years would pass before the cult album became considered a cornerstone of ’70s rock music. Too Much Too Soon followed in 1974 and met a similar fate.
“When I was coming around, I was involved in so many different things. Like going to a lot of protests and also being involved with Ridiculous Theater,” Johansen explained to Grammy.com in 2023. “All my friends were a very different and diverse gaggle, so I just started thinking that way. So I wasn’t trying, I just happened to think that way.”
“If you hear something that really appeals to you and you want to dig it, you want to dig it,” he continued. “You don’t want to just go halfway with it, you want to go all the way with it. For the rock and roll genre, it was a pretty big departure. But other bands were doing the same thing like the MC5 who had been around since the ’60s. Iggy Pop was a wild man in the ’60s. I don’t know what it was about us. They just didn’t get it.”
Thunders and Nolan left the New York Dolls in 1975. Johansen and the others stuck around for two more years, finally calling it quits in 1977. (They did, however, reform in 2004 with both former members and new ones, releasing two more albums and touring until 2011.)
Listen to the New York Dolls’ ‘Personality Crisis’
Johansen’s Solo Career and Buster Poindexter
Johansen went on to release four solo albums: David Johansen (1978), In Style (1979), Here Comes the Night (1981) and Sweet Revenge (1984). In the late ’80s, he released music under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter, including the 1987 hit “Hot Hot Hot.” Accompanied by the Uptown Horns, his style gravitated toward swing and jump blues. He later turned more directly to blues music with his band, the Harry Smiths.
“It [performing as Poindexter] gave me a lot more variety of things I could do with my voice,” Johansen explained to Interview magazine in 2014. “When you’re playing in a band, when I was in the Dolls, we all got together and nobody really knew how to play, though everybody could play an E. So we sang all the songs essentially in E. That’s kind of limiting if you’re a singer. … With Buster, the great thing is I can sing anything. I can do a Broadway song or what I like to call a pre-Hay’s Code rock ‘n’ roll or a jazz song.”
Listen to Buster Poindexter’s ‘Hot Hot Hot’
Johansen’s Acting Career
Johansen, who also worked in theater in his early days, acted in a variety of films and TV shows throughout his career. Some of his credits include Oz, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Scrooged, Let It Ride, Car 54, Where Are You?, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie and more.
Music, however, remained a constant in Johansen’s life, and he often emphasized that he enjoyed an eclectic variety of genres.
“I mean, there’s so many kinds of music that I love,” he told Perfect Sound Forever. “For me, it’s always been good to absorb some kind of genre. It alters me and it alters my capacity to appreciate music more. Music means a lot to me. It’s something that’s good to nurture — your enjoyment of it and your passion for it.”
Spring is here! Kind of! We’re not sure how the weather is where you are, but right now the UK seems to oscillate between glorious, bright sunshine and torrential downpours, meaning it officially feels like we’re just that much closer to festival season – and a whole heap of new albums to be announced.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, the results of last week’s vote! There were some real veterans in the running last week with new singles from Machine Head and Black Label Society, but surprisingly it was newcomers Rootbrain who took third spot with their Alice-In-Chains-gone-thrash track Unawares. Above them was horrorpunk icon Wednesday 13, but far and away the winners of last week’s poll – and no strangers to horror themselves – were The Yagas, the post-punk/goth/alt-metal hybrid group fronted by Vera Farmiga.
As ever, this week we’ve got a diverse spread for your listening pleasure, covering everything from scabrous hardcore and chest-beating metalcore anthems (Employed To Serve, Dying Wish, Get The Shot… take your pick) to ascendant black metal from Siberia’s Grima, sci-fi noir from Japan’s Esprit D’Air and even witchy folk horror tinged alt-metal from the UK’s Forlorn, as well as new singles from the likes of The Wildhearts, Deafheaven and even a cheeky Kansas cover from Bad Omens. Don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll below – and have a fantastic weekend!
Bad Omens ft. Corey Taylor – Dust In The Wind
Kansas’ Dust In The Wind might be a classic, but it also became something of a punchline after 2003’s Old School. Props then to Bad Omens and Corey Taylor for offering a powerful and emotionally driven new rendition of the track, the artists teaming up to cover the song for the soundtrack of upcoming movie Queen Of The Ring. Extra props for transforming it Johnny Cash/Hurt style into something wrought with pathos and soul.
Dust in the Wind (From ‘Queen of the Ring – Music From The Motion Picture’) – YouTube
Hear that rumble! Employed To Serve might be channelling early 2000s Arch Enemy with the intro to Fallen Star, but its not long before they’re stamping their own inimitable style, pounding metallic hardcore giving way to surprisingly melodic and gentle melodies. The title-track of the band’s new album – due April 25 – it’s a good indicator that ETS are really pushing the boat out stylistically on their latest effort.
Deafheaven might not’ve been the first band to mix shoegaze and black metal, but they’re certainly the band that helped it broach the mainstream. 12 years on from Sunbather, they’re back exploring the extreme polarities of their sound on Heathen, the latest single taken from their upcoming album Lonely People With Power, which is set for release next month (March 28, to be exact). Shifting from shimmering indie to visceral blackened fury, the track’s all the persuasion you should need to check Deafheaven out when they come over for Outbreak in June or Damnation Festival in November.
The Wildhearts – I’ll Be Your Monster
They say only two things in life are certain – death and taxes. Even the former seems too predictable for The Wildhearts, the British band bouncing back from the brink of oblivion with a new line-up, frontman Ginger Wildheart the only remaining longterm member (though bassist ‘Random’ Jon Poole has certainly put his time in on live tours). While the faces have changed, there’s an umistakable rock’n’roll quality to latest single I’ll Be Your Monster, a stompy tune that could happily sit alongside material from Renaissance Men. Keep your eyes out for new record The Satanic Rites Of The Wildhearts next week (March 7).
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The Wildhearts – I’ll Be Your Monster (feat. Jørgen Munkeby) – YouTube
“I’ll bring a bomb to a fist-fight!” Bounding along on punk energy with thumping drums and sweeping riffs, Djerv’s Rebel Heart is like a shot of adrenaline straight to the spine. Featured on Netflix series Arcane, the track bounds along on a heady mix of old school Distillers and Bronx style electrified zeal, pure fucking ecstasy.
Djerv – “Rebel Heart” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video] – YouTube
With screaming synths and thumping low-end, Japan’s Esprit D’air are at their cinematic best on new single Lost Horizon, striking a balance between noir grit and electro-enhanced sci-fi elements (think the sonic equivalent of Blade Runner). It’s a wonderfully massive mix that captures some of the band’s unique sonic appeal, an amalgam of styles and influences fusing together to create something greater. With a European tour kicking off in a few weeks – in Bristol on March 22 – this is a great primer to exploring the band.
Esprit D’Air – Lost Horizon (Official Music Video) – YouTube
20 years in, Bleed From Within are hitting their stride. 2022’s Shrine was a massive step up for the Scottish metalcore heroes and with a little over a month to go until new album Zenith arrives we’re getting hints they’re carrying the momentum to write even bigger fist-pumping anthems. God Complex is exactly that; a full-throated rager with riffs swung like wrecking balls.
BLEED FROM WITHIN – God Complex (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) – YouTube
Like stepping into an ethereal realm and stumbling face-first into a snarling demon, Forlorn’s latest single Keeper Of The Well treads a line between mystique and murderousness. Taken from their upcoming debut album Aether, due March 28 via Church Road. It’s a perfect showcase of their folk horror sensibilities, balancing the otherwordly qualities of a Chelsea Wolfe or Myrkur with the explosive power of a Spiritbox or, erm, Myrkur.
Forlorn – Keeper Of The Well [Official Video] – YouTube
If Forlorn is a journey into some eldritch realm, Grima is a headlong dive into hell. But then, that’s black metal for ya. The Siberian group’s sixth album Nightside is out today and Beyond The Dark Horizon captures their imperious majesty perfectly, a frost-tipped blast of blackened nastiness with some surprisingly whimsical folkish elements popping up amidst the blast-beats and shrieks.
GRIMA – Beyond the Dark Horizon (Official Video) | Napalm Records – YouTube
Dying Wish – I Brought You My Soul (Your World Brought Me Despair)
If you find yourself sad at metalcore’s shift away from brutal breakdowns in more recent years as the genre embraces more radio-friendliness, you need to stick Dying Wish’s I Brought You My Soul (Your World Brought Me Despair) in your ears. And likely have your eardrums booted in. Produced by WIll Putney, the track is a perfect showcase for Dying Wish’s old school metalcore sensibilities, Emma Boster employing venomous rasps and silken cleans to great effect over the stompy, spiky banger.
Dying Wish – I Brought You My Soul (Your World Brought Me Despair) (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) – YouTube
Dying Wish got you excited for brutish, slobbering metallic hardcore? Chase the fix with the feral new single from Get The Shot, Pit Of Misery. Titanic stomps and vocals that sound like a pissed off Chihuahua on steroids beefed up to the size of a tiger, Pit… is an absolute rager, somehow getting even more frenzied and heavy as the track goes on.
GET THE SHOT – Pit of Misery (OFFICIAL VIDEO) – YouTube
Right out the other end of heaviness and pacing comes Katla’s viscerally gloopy Dead Lover. Sludge metal with a massive chorus, the song’s stomach-churning bass and shredded-throat intonations are meaner than a bear with a sore arse and twice as menacing. New album Scandinavian Pain arrives March 21 and if the rest of it is like this, we’ll be delighted.
KATLA – Dead Lover (House Of Pain) (Official Video) | Napalm Records – YouTube
20 multiple choice questions to test your rock knowledge
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Welcome to The Classic Rock Quiz, a new weekly quiz designed to test your knowledge and strain the memory banks: which of you and your friends knows the most about rock?
20 questions, covering everyone from Kate Bush to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and many more besides.
All questions are multiple choice PLUS you win the chance to be humiliated and insulted at the end, depending on your score.
Share your scores with your friends and come back next week for more. Good luck!
Classic Rock Newsletter
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Tom Poak has written for the Hull Daily Mail, Esquire, The Big Issue, Total Guitar, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and more. In a writing career that has spanned decades, he has interviewed Brian May, Brian Cant, and cadged a light off Brian Molko. He has stood on a glacier with Thunder, in a forest by a fjord with Ozzy and Slash, and on the roof of the Houses of Parliament with Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham (until some nice men with guns came and told them to get down). He has drank with Shane MacGowan, mortally offended Lightning Seed Ian Broudie and been asked if he was homeless by Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch.
Welcome to this week’s Tracks Of The Week. Six brand-new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
The return of Karmakanic won out last week with the band’s ebullient new track Cosmic Love walking off qith the honours, although thry were pushed all the way by US prog quartet Earthside, and with Toronto prog quintet Derev on a respectable third palce
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.
COSMOGRAF – KINGS AND LORDS
UK prog rockers Cosmograf return with a brand new album, The Orphan Epoch, which they release through their Gravity Dream label on May 23, from which comes first single Kings And Lords with it’s great accompanying video. The album seems mainman Robin Armstrong offering up a set of songs that speak of a refusal to conform, align, or coalesce.
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“This is a new era of disconnection, disillusion and disinformation,” says Armstrong. “Your perception will define your reality… The video was created from an old Italian Western film Se incontri Sartana Prega Per La Tua Morte which is now in the public domain. My son Sam is a media studies student and huge fan of film and we found it mirrored the song’s themes of greed, power and nefarious intent, so he re-edited it to fit the music.”
Cosmograf – Kings and Lords (Official Video) – YouTube
Norwegian prog trio Oak return with their fourth studio album, The Third Sleep, released through Karisma Records on April 25. The dramatic new release sees the band contrasting light with the darkness as they blend sweet melodic folky passages with some crushing prog metal bleakness. The brooding Shimmer is the first single from the upcoming album.
“Those who have listened to Oak’s previous releases will probably notice the clear nods, both harmonically and lyrically, to Stars Under The Water from the album Lighthouse,” the band state. “The themes of conformity and condemnation are treated in a gloomy soundscape that can send the mind to dark film music. Both harmonically and lyrically, Shimmer builds a bridge from the band’s first release to the latest, before towards the end you are led into a suggestive, ostinato-like coda that gives room to process and to move on both concretely and metaphorically.”
JENNY HVAL – TO BE A ROSE
Norwegian art rocker, artist and novelist Jenny Hval will release her latest album, Iris Silver Mist, through 4AD on May 2, from which comes To Be A Rose, with its timewarp video featuring footage of Hval shot on various tours from 2015 to 2024. The new album is named after a fragrance made by the nose Maurice Roucel for the French perfume house Serge Lutens. It’s described as smelling more like steel than silver. That reignited Hval’s interest in fragrances, which in turn has inspired Hval’s new album.
“To Be A Rose was written as a restless pop structure,” Hval explains. “It has a chorus, with chords and a melody, but each chorus sounds slightly different, like we are experiencing the melody from different seasons, decades or even different bodies. The clichéd rose metaphor in the song is equally restless. It can change shape into a cigarette and then evaporate to smoke. My mother and I (two restless humans) are both present in the song: “I was singing in my room, she smoked on the balcony/Long inhales and long exhales performed in choreography”. If about anything, To Be A Rose is about how one thing becomes another thing, how we all come from somewhere and someone, and how this is stranger and more powerful than we think.”
Jenny Hval – To be a rose (Official Video) – YouTube
You’ll probably remember the melody from German prog/jazz metallers Panzerballett’s brand new single, because it’s a cover of Scottish R’n’B band Average White Band’s massive 1974 hit Pick Up The Pieces. The cover is the first track taken from the band’s upcoming album, Übercode Œuvre, which they release on April 25. The album features contributions from drummers Marco Minnemann and Virgil Donati, and on Pick Up The Pieces, fellow German drummer Annika Nilles.
“Pick Up The Pieces takes the classic funk groove and makes it our own by shifting between fours, fives, and sevens as subdivisions,” explains guitarist and composer Jan Zehrfeld. “I wanted to preserve the original spirit of the song, but with a unique Panzerballett twist. The track is intricate, funky, and definitely headbanging material! It’s got that groove, but it’s also complex enough to keep both the jazz and metal listeners engaged.”
Panzerballett feat. Anika Nilles – Pick Up The Pieces – YouTube
Australian quartet Lumens mix prog and metalcore on their self-titled debut EP, which is released on the Aussie prog label Wild Thing Records on April 11. Primrose is the second single to be taken from the EP, which explores internal conflict, self-awareness, and the weight of personal expectations. Melodic and anthemic, and hard-hitting in equal measures, while they may be a bit heavy for some ears, prog metal fans will probably lap this up.
“Primrose is deeply personal to me,” says vocalist Rhys Jackson Stars. “It’s about the struggle to maintain a balance between satisfaction and the pursuit of true fulfilment. The primrose path may seem inviting, but sometimes, there are flowers you shouldn’t smell along the way”
LUMENS – Primrose (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Prog supergroup O.R.k., who feature Colin Edwin (Porcupine Tree), vocalist LEF, Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson), and Carmelo Pipitone, have been drip-feeding singles from their upcoming Firehose Of Falsehoods album, which they release through Kscope Music on March 21. Like many of those, 16000 Days packs an anthemic metallic punch, but also offers more in the atmospheric stakes too.
“16000 Days is a song for anyone who has reached a significant life milestone and still feels as full of unanswered questions as they did as a small child,” explains abassist Edwin. “It’s the closest O.R.k. have ever come to a self-help song and I am fairly sure the sentiment is universal.”
Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.
Now rolling proudly into its fourth year, Spain’s Rock Imperium Festival has without a doubt become one of the most exciting, unique and beautifully situated rock festivals on the planet, with 2025’s edition packing another amazing lineup, guaranteed great weather and a location unlike any other for rock and metal fans.
Now taking place over four blockbuster days from June 26-29, Rock Imperium 2025 will touch down at the Parque El Batel in Cartagena, located on Spain’s gorgeous South-East coast. This year’s bill is another humdinger, headlined by Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann, British rock heroes The Cult, German rock royalty Scorpions (celebrating their 60th anniversary) and living heavy metal icon King Diamond.
Also confirmed for this year’s edition are Swedish melodic death metal veterans In Flames, power metal trailblazers Blind Guardian, cali heavy metal favourites Stryper, Aussie hellraisers Airbourne, genre-mashing euro-metallers Amaranthe, prog metal experimentalists Leprous and much, much more.
On top of boasting one of Europe’s best lineups this summer, Rock Imperium also boasts one of the most stunning and culturally significant locations of any rock festival in the game. Placed close to both Cartagena’s gorgeous coastline and a fascinating array of attractions and amenities, you can fit in some sunbathing, history-buffing, sightseeing and kickass rock’n’roll, all in one trip!
It’s also an absolute bargain; from just €95 a day ticket to only €210 for a full four-day ticket, it’s one of the best value festivals of its kind, meaning you can book a multi-day rock event and a mini-Spanish break for less than the price of most mainstream rock festival tickets.
To book your ticket or find out more about Rock Imperium, head to the official Rock Imperium website and follow Rock Imperium via the below links.
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