Author: Logan Rocker

Welcome to this week’s Tracks Of The Week. Seven brand-new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.

US prog rockers Glass Hammer triumphed last week with their ten-minute plus Terminal Lucidity narrowly beating Nad Sylvan’s return to solo work with That’s Not Me, and with Bjørn Riis in third place.

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.

MICHAEL WOODMAN – LYCHGATE

Thumpermonkey guitarist and vocalist Michael Woodman is back with new solo music. He’s just shared a new video for Lychgate, which is taken from his upcoming debut full-length solo album Hiss Of Today, which will be released through Kavus Torabi’s Believer’s Roast label on April 24. As you can see from the delightful accompanying video the themes of folk horror continue to abound in Woodman’s work.

“Back in 2023, Teddy Powell approached me about the possibility of working on a music video,” he explains. “We had a fair bit of back-and-forth correspondence about Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Mâcon and Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox – but it wasn’t until he sent me a short film he had made – essentially 10 minutes of nightmarish elliptical hauntology – that I decided we needed to work together on the Lychgate video.”

MAGIC PIE – EVERYDAY HERO

Norwegian prog rockers Magic Pie will release their sixth studio album, Maestro, through Karimsa Records on May 16, from which comes their rollicking new single Everyday Hero. The new album features seven new songs penned by guitarist Kim Steinberg and vocalist Eirikur Hauksson.

“Everyday Hero is an honest little rock tune, and quite a jolly one too,” enthuses Hauksson. “A straightforward tribute to all the nine-to-five-fivers around the world, where Kim and Erling once again invite you to a high-class guitar and synth duel. Have a listen…”

GÖSTA BERLINGS SAGA – THROUGH THE ARCHES

Swedish instrumental proggers Gösta Berlings Saga have been pretty quiet since they released Konkret Music through InsideOut back in 2020. well now they’re back, signed to Pelagic Records, for whom they will release their seventh studio album Forever Now, from which comes new single Through The Arches with its eye-catching video. It’s also the quintet’s 25th anniversary. That’s all definitely something to celebrate!

“Through The Arches is GBS in 2025 – pure and amplified,” the band say. “One of the first tracks completed for the new album, it packs all the classic GBS ingredients, but turned up a few notches. Melodic, cosmic, chaotic, euphoric—all in one track. The accompanying video, crafted by Martin Gustafsson, is a visual journey into the everlasting and beyond, perfectly capturing the song’s essence.”

SLEEP TOKEN – EMERGENCE

Sleep Token’s inclusion might feel slightly odd to anyone who’s never heard the band’s music and is only going on the masses of press the band receive, but anyone who has actually listened will know there’s plenty of prog, djent and even jazz in their expansive sound. They even cite Leprous, Agent Fresco, Explosions In The Sky and prog metal heavyweights Meshuggah as influences.

The band, who have only ever given one interview, and are taken genuinely exploratory music to headline stages around the world, will release their fourth album, Even In Arcadia, for new label RCA on June 13, from which comes brand new single Emergence.

BENTHOS – LET ME PLUNGE

Italian quintet Benthos will release their second album, From Nothing, for prog specialists InsideOut Music on April 11. As typifies many young genre-bending rock acts these days, the band mix prog, djent, metal and other musical elements. The atmospherically melodic Let Me Plunge is the third single to be released from the album, and this far, the best sonic opportunity to introduce Benthos to a wider prog audience.

“This track might surprise you–a taste of the album’s diversity, where we go beyond the heavy intensity you’ve come to expect from us,” the band explain. “With Let Me Plunge, we want to show you yet another side of our musical landscape; an emotional texture that permeates From Nothing throughout, with vintage tones and bittersweet melodies. The song expresses the inner turmoil that burns inside us when chasing our deepest ambitions, the will to listen to our voice and surrender ourselves to them.”

WORRIEDABOUTSATAN – LA MOUCHE

The hugely prolific worriedaboutsatan return with The Future Can Wait, their 18th album in just 19 years! The new album is released through mainman Gavin Miller’s own This Is It Forever label on March 14 and sees him conjuring Tangerine Dream-esque proggy electronica while mulling over themes of growing older and sitting silently and watching the world descend into hell.

“La Mouche is a personal favourite of the more recent stuff I’ve done – I wanted to take different sections of stuff and see if I could meld it all together and not have it sound really jarring, so loaded up the masters of doing things like that: Tangerine Dream. I sat back and listened to Ricochet and thought ‘right, it’s never going to sound as good as that, but I could at least give it a shot’ haha,” explains Miller. “La Mouche means ’the fly’ in French, and as I was struggling for a title for it, I watched Quentin Dupieux’s film Mandibles, which is about a huge fly that two stoner dudes befriend. As you do!”

SOM – THE LIGHT

Atmospheric US post-rock quintet SOM release their third album, Let The Light In, through Pelagic Records today. Comprised of former members of Caspian, Constants and Junius, the quartet add some metallic grit to their sound, tempered by the melodic vocals of Will Benoit. The Light features a video from award-winning queer Muslim writer/director Samia Zaidi, the second of two innovative linked videos directed for this album; returning to the themes and narratives explored in her video for the band’s previous single Let The Light In.

“This album, especially these two songs, thematically presented us with a unique visual opportunity to not only explore the act of summoning a sort of primal optimism during dark times, but to explore both the social and individual experiences of interiority within both optimism and darkness,” the band say.

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.

Iron Maiden‘s Steve Harris has paid tribute to his band’s former frontman Paul Di’Anno, who passed away last year, aged 66.

“I was in touch with him until a couple of weeks before he passed,” Harris says.

“Paul was a lovable rogue,” the bassist continues. “He liked to annoy me by dressing up like Adam Ant. Anything to wind me up. He liked to ruffle a few feathers, let’s put it that way. And ruffle he did! He used to call me Hitler. I’ve been called the Ayatollah and Sergeant Major, but Hitler takes the biscuit, really.”

Reflecting on D’Anno’s contributions to his band, Harris adds, “Paul’s voice had a certain quality to it. A rawness. But he didn’t look after himself. He had this self-destruct button. And I got the impression that he never really believed he had it in him to go to the next level. I think there was an insecurity there.”

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

Dorothy Martin can’t half sing. Stodgy American hard rock may or may not be your bag, but the Budapest-born frontwoman sounds seriously inspired on her band’s fourth album The Way. Right before the muscle-bound riffs come crashing in, the first minute of I Come Alive finds Martin wailing through the gears in spectacular fashion. She featured on Slash’s latest solo album, and he returns the favour by blasting through a customary guitar solo on merry, countrified rocker Tombstone Town, which is annoyingly catchy. Guitarist Sam ‘Bam’ Koltun injects some supreme playing of his own on the hook-heavy Bones. There’s nothing here that we haven’t heard before, but the band’s laser-focused endeavour is almost tangible.

Copywriter, music journalist and drummer. Once fist bumped James Hetfield. Words for The Guardian, Gear4Music, Metro, Exposed Mag.

Ghost mainman Tobias Forge has explained why the band’s upcoming live shows will be a phone-free experience.

They announced the decision last year after experimenting with the idea during two shows at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles in 2023.

Fans’ phones were magnetically sealed in pouches which they carried on their person and the pouches could only be unsealed as they left the venue. The same process will be applied for Ghost’s 2025 dates.

Forge tells Audacy: “It’s an experiment. Over the years it’s gone absolutely insane. If you have 10,000 people at a concert and 8,000 of them are holding a phone, there’s something deeply disconnected.

“If I’m just speaking for myself … I know a lot of artists don’t care and I know that there are plenty of upsides, especially commercially.

“The whole thing in the business is, basically, ‘Yeah, we want people to film because we want people to see the show, and that will sell more tickets.’

“Fine. I understand that there’s a promotional tool with social media. I’m not gonna neglect that. Part of our success is obviously from social media. We started on MySpace. That was the root cause for our success at the time. I don’t know if we would ever become anything if it weren’t for MySpace. And, obviously, our TikTok has played a huge part.

“I’m just saying that when it comes to the actual live show, my calling, my reason for being there, is the connection between myself and everybody that I brought with me that are working in tandem to give you an experience.

“That experience is completely decocked if everybody’s just filming. Am I wrong? Am I right? I don’t know. That’s how I, and we, felt.”

Ghost recently announced a ‘new’ frontman – Papa V Perpetua – and an upcoming new album, Skeletá.

Ghost 2025 tour dates

Apr 15: Manchester AO Arena, UK
Apr 16: Glasgow OVO Hydro, UK
Apr 19: London The O2, UK
Apr 20: Birmingham Utilita Arena, UK
Apr 22: Antwerp Sportpaleis, Belgium
Apr 23: Frankfurt Festhalle, Germany
Apr 24: Munich Olympiahalle, Germany
Apr 26: Lyon LDLC Arena, France
Apr 27: Toulouse Zenith Metropole, France
Apr 29: Lisbon MEO Arena, Portugal
Apr 30: Madrid Palacio Vistalegre, Spain
May 03: Zurich AG Hallenstadion, Switzerland
May 04: Milan Unipol Forum, Italy
May 07: Berlin Uber Arena, Germany
May 08: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
May 10: Lodz Atlas Arena, Poland
May 11: Prague O2 Arena, Czech Republic
May 13: Paris Accor Arena, France
May 14: Oberhausen Rudolph Weber Arena, Germany
May 15: Hannover ZAG Arena, Germany
May 17: Copenhagen Royal Arena, Denmark
May 20: Tampere Nokia Arena, Finland
May 22: Linköping Saab Arena, Sweden
May 23: Sandviken Göransson Arena, Sweden
May 24: Oslo Spektrum, Norway
Jul 09: Baltimore CFG Bank Arena, MD
Jul 11: Atlanta State Farm Arena, GA
Jul 12: Tampa Amalie Arena, FL
Jul 13: Miami Kaseya Center, FL
Jul 15: Raleigh PNC Arena, NC
Jul 17: Cleveland Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, OH
Jul 18: Pittsburgh PPG Paints Arena, PA
Jul 19: Philadelphia Wells Fargo Center, PA
Jul 21: Boston TD Garden, MA
Jul 22: New York Madison Square Garden, NY
Jul 24: Detroit Little Caesars Arena, MI
Jul 25: Louisville KFC Yum! Center, KY
Jul 26: Nashville Bridgestone Arena, TN
Jul 28: Grand Rapids Van Andel Arena, MI
Jul 29: Milwaukee Fiserv Forum, WI
Jul 30: St Louis Enterprise Center, MO
Aug 01: Rosemont Allstate Arena, IL
Aug 02: Saint Paul Xcel Energy Center, MN
Aug 03: Omaha CHI Health Center, NE
Aug 05: Kansas City T-Mobile Center, MO
Aug 07: Denver Ball Arena, CO
Aug 09: Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena, NV
Aug 10: San Diego Viejas Arena, CA
Aug 11: Phoenix Footprint Center, AZ
Aug 14: Austin Moody Center ATX, TX
Aug 15: Fort Worth Dickies Arena, TX
Aug 16: Houston Toyota Center, TX
Sep 24: Mexico City Palacio De Los Deportes

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock’n’roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022. 

They used to do it all for the nookie, but now Limp Bizkit are all about the love. That much was abundantly clear on March 17, 2024, at Lollapalooza Argentina. “Is everybody happy?” singer Fred Durst asks, surveying a 100,000-strong crowd who seem down with the fact that he’s wearing the kind of garish, multicoloured tracksuit once the preserve of 1980s kids TV presenter Timmy Mallett. He soon gets his response. As Limp Bizkit tear into set closer Break Stuff, the audience go ballistic, bellowing the lyrics so loudly it drowns out Fred as a sea of bodies bounce and mosh as far as the eye can see. Footage of the craziness soon goes viral, notching up more than a million views in 24 hours.

Nearly a quarter of a century after their nu metal heyday, that Lollapalooza performance proved that Limp Bizkit were one of metal’s hottest bands once again. It’s an unlikely second act, and one that would once have seemed unthinkable. At the turn of the millennium, Limp Bizkit were the biggest nu metal band on the planet, thanks to the massive success of their first three albums, 1997’s Three Dollar Bill, Y’All, 1999’s Significant Other and 2000’s Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water.

There were album launch parties at the Playboy Mansion, promo videos shot on top of The World Trade Center, and Mission: Impossible theme songs. But it couldn’t last. Limp Bizkit – and Fred in particular – became the whipping boys for a scene deemed obnoxious, misogynistic and artistically bereft. Guitarist Wes Borland quit in 2001, done with the circus that surrounded the band.

Their fourth record, 2003’s critically mauled Results May Vary, was a relative commercial flop. At a gig supporting Metallica in Chicago in 2003, Fred was heckled offstage by a hostile audience after just six songs. They reunited with Wes for 2005’s The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) EP, but their glory days seemed to be behind them.

That makes their current turnaround remarkable. While resurgent interest in nu metal, and the nostalgia that comes with it, has undoubtedly played a part, that doesn’t fully account for the fervour from fans who weren’t around for them first time around. In 2023, Fred appeared on the Club Random podcast, hosted by veteran comedian and TV presenter Bill Maher.

“These days, every night I’ll say, ‘How many people is it your first time seeing Limp Bizkit?’ The whole place raises their hand,” the singer told Bill. “‘How many people are under 30 years old?’ The whole place raises their hand… It’s young people who are reacting to the material.”

For Spookz, frontman with masked nu metal revivalists and former Limp Bizkit support act Blackgold, it’s a matter of timing.

“It’s a generational thing,” he tells Hammer. “The gap is the perfect amount now for the kids just getting into music for their parents to be like, ‘When I was young, these guys were sick’, and put them on in the car.”

Ross Robinson, the legendary, game-changing producer who worked with the band on Three Dollar Bill, Y’All, has a simpler explanation.

“The reason they’re so popular again today is the reason they blew up in the first place: because they’re fucking incredible,” he says. “They’re a freaking cocktail of pure fire and creativity.”

The resurrection of Limp Bizkit has been a decade in the making. The band reunited in 2009 following a three-year hiatus, playing a blinder of a set at that year’s Download festival in front of a rabid crowd chanting their name. 2011’s comeback album, Gold Cobra, might have been clunky and forgettable, but their status as a live draw continued to build, especially in Europe, where they became semi-regular festival fixtures.

A much-trumpeted sixth album, Stampede Of The Disco Elephants, was constantly delayed, but that didn’t matter. Limp Bizkit had well and truly come back in from the cold, cracking open the door for the return of nu metal in the process.

The Durstnaissance was rubber-stamped in 2021 with the release of Dad Vibes, their first new song in seven years. It found Fred fully leaning into the song’s title: baggy t-shirts and baseball caps were out, replaced by middle age-appropriate grey slacks, grey wig and handlebar moustache, red aviator shades, and, at one gig in Tampa, Florida in 2022, a comfy chair in the middle of the stage.

This was a funnier, more self-aware Fred Durst, one willing to embrace his age and status as a nu metal dad with only the barest whiff of irony. “It’s so Limp Bizkit to have a song about being a cool dad, but that’s something that only Fred would think of,” says Zakk Cervini, who produced Dad Vibes and parent album Still Sucks, which grew out of the long-gestating Stampede Of The Disco Elephants.

“Bands I work with that were young 10 years ago are all having kids now. [Rage Against The Machine guitarist] Tom Morello was like, ‘Oh, you produced Dad Vibes? I do a radio show, and every Father’s Day we play that song, that’s one of my favourite songs.’”

Released on Halloween 2021 with little advance fanfare, the 12-song, 32-minute Still Sucks may not have had the sales or widespread cultural impact of Significant Other or Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water, but old- and newschool Bizkit fans lapped it up.

Since then, the love for the band has only intensified. Limp Bizkit’s triumphant appearance at 2024’s Download festival was widely held up as the best of the weekend, while celebrity fan Ed Sheeran joined the band onstage at last year’s Pinkpop festival for a duet on their cover of The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes (a collab Fred dubbed ‘Fred Sheeran’ on Instagram).

It’s not just old-school fans and early-2000s nostalgists who are behind this resurgence in interest. Gen Z has latched onto the sound and aesthetics of nu metal, with TikTok and social media allowing younger fans to enjoy Bizkit without the baggage and bias that clung to them in the early 2000s. Zakk Cervini draws parallels between the band and current pop superstars.

“When I look at artists like Charli XCX or Billie Eilish, their aesthetics are baggy pants and bright green,” he says. “It’s so colourful and outlandish. It’s meant to be a party.”

The Fred Durst of the 2020s is a world away from the Fred Durst of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, sporting an ever-present red baseball cap, he was one of the main reasons Limp Bizkit were held in contempt in certain quarters. Whether it was his obnoxious swagger – embodied by the band’s infamous appearance at the Woodstock ’99 festival – or the spats he found himself embroiled in with everyone from Eminem to Corey Taylor (Fred described Slipknot fans as “a bunch of fat, ugly kids”), for many he encapsulated the worst aspects of nu metal.

He’s since insisted that his obnoxious persona was a character that got out of hand. He subsequently spoke of being bullied in his youth, and that Limp Bizkit were his chance to release that residual aggression and frustration.

“When I became that Tyler Durden guy, there were just no rules,” he told Metal Hammer in 2014, referencing Brad Pitt’s provocative character in the 1999 film Fight Club. “I was carrying this giant person behind me on a chain…. I can’t get away from it and that persona ate me up.”

These days, Fred cuts a very different character. Onstage, he’s full of smiles and grateful thanks. It feels like he’s more likely to make you a cuppa and a biscuit than start a riot or shit-talk the competition.

“I think the journey of going up and down and up and down makes any artist humble, and he’s got such humble swag when he’s onstage,” says Blackgold’s Spookz. “He makes you feel like you’re with your best mate. He’s so grateful that it’s come back around.”

This humility extends to giving a hand-up to a new generation of bands. As well as Blackgold, Limp Bizkit have taken metalcore crew Dying Wish, rave-metal provocateurs Wargasm and hardcore newcomers Scowl out on tour with them. In many cases, he handpicks the band, contacting them directly himself.

“He saw us on TikTok and ended up in our DMs,” says Spookz. “If he hears a new band and he thinks they’re sick, he’s like, ‘I’m going to take you on tour, I’m going to help you.’ Take nothing for it. No reason. That’s just what he’s like.”

Fred Durst’s public image isn’t the only thing that has been misunderstood over the years. According to both Ross Robinson and Zakk Cervini, his creative skills have been overlooked and underappreciated.

“We put together nine songs from scratch in seven days at pre-production for the first record,” recalls Ross of working on Three Dollar Bill, Y’All. “I’ve never experienced that level of creativity my whole career. Idea after idea after idea, and they were all really good.”

Zakk says that was the case on Still Sucks too. The producer describes his time working with the band as a series of “lightning in a bottle” moments. “Fred is one of the most talented people that I’ve ever met in my entire life. His voice is just so iconic and so signature. With a lot of artists, you have to work to make them sound the way they sound, but Fred jumps on the mic and it automatically sounds sick.”

Recording the album’s opening track, Out Of Style, was a case in point. “Fred was like, ‘All right, I got my lyrics. I’m going to lay it down,’” says Zakk. “He recorded the entire song staring me in the face with the mic a foot away from me. It was this crazy hour of him in my face, screaming at me.”

It helps that the instability that has plagued the band has calmed down in recent years. Wes Borland has quit the band on two separate occasions, returning both times, while DJ Lethal and bassist Sam Rivers have both left and returned to the band since 2012. The current line-up – also the band’s classic line-up – has been together since 2019.

“Fred is there for his dudes ’til death,” says Ross Robinson. That renewed sense of camaraderie is palpable on Still Sucks.

“I remember Fred bouncing ideas off of Sam back and forth being just like, ‘Do you like this? Am I going too far on this? Is this good?’” says Zakk. “Sam would keep everybody grounded. Then Lethal would just come in with all his sounds and all his turntables and they’re like, ‘Does it sound too dated?’ To me, that sounds fresh. For so many people of my generation, that’s a new thing for them.”

For Ross Robinson, Limp Bizkit’s current popularity is no surprise. It all goes back to the music. “It’s the beat, sense of song and choruses,” he says. “I like to say, ‘When we go in the studio, we are going to build a fucking pyramid – something that lasts forever.’ I knew the first Limp Bizkit record was going to do something when I put the first CD I got from mastering in my Toyota 4Runner. I pinned it wide open, sliding around corners, catching a little air, just in the dirt doing donuts with the music, full blast, and it matched perfectly. I get chills even today when I hear it.”

The excitement that surrounded Limp Bizkit may have come and gone over the years, but the current love for them is comparable to that of the original nu metal era. Their ongoing (and self-deprecatingly titled) Loserville tour hits the UK and Ireland in March, while they’re reportedly back in the studio recording the follow-up to Still Sucks.

The nu metal revival shows no sign of abating either. With 90s contemporaries Korn set to headline this year’s Download festival, it’s not unthinkable that Limp Bizkit could do the same in 2026. It’s not clear how surprised Fred is by the success of his band’s second act. By the mid-2000s, it looked like they were over and done, a hangover of the nu metal years.

Two decades on, they’ve clawed their way back to the top against all the odds. But then maybe this was all part of Fred Durst’s plan.

“I wanted to pull back and see what our music could do through a noisy world,” said Fred in 2023. “How do you rise above the noise? And luckily, I’m so grateful, there’s a resurgence and it’s happening.”

Limp Bizkit’s Loserville tour continues in Birmingham on March 13. Limp Bizkit play Reading and Leeds Festivals in August.

Danniii Leivers writes for Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Prog, The Guardian, NME, Alternative Press, Rock Sound, The Line Of Best Fit and more. She loves the 90s, and is happy where the sea is bluest.