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It’s Prog‘s brand new Tracks Of The Week! Six brand new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.

Congratulations to US quartet Kill The Robot, whose tribute to their late friend Taylor Hawkins, Western Shores, won last week’s TOTW. It was a close run thing, with the atmospheric folk prog of Shannon Pearl in second place with Frant1c in third.

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.

JONATHAN HULTÉN – SONG OF TRANSIENCE

Enigmatic prog artist Jonathan Hultén released his second studio album, Eyes Of The Living Night, through Kscope back in January which somehow seemed to slip under the radar. That’s a real pity as the new single from the former Tribulation guitarist, the mesmerising waltz vibe of Song Of Transcience is a real earworm of a track.

“In the form of a melancholic yet whimsical waltz, Song Of Transience playfully explores one fundamental question: “On your deathbed, will you be smiling or in tears?”,” says Hultén, “The video, filmed by Anastasia Lihnka in France in November 2024, reflects the mystical and relentless aspects of time, which can be both uplifting and disheartening. Edited and filmed with special lenses to capture a dreamlike, colourful atmosphere, the video also emphasises how beautiful the world really is — especially when seen from the perspective that our presence here is so fleeting, and therefore so very precious.”

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IHLO – EMPIRE

Young Scottish prog metallers Ihlo were picked up by the Kscope label, who let’s face it, know a thing or two about modern prog music, and they reissued the band’s debut album, Union, last year. Now the band are back with their second full-length release, Legacy, which, having been fortunate enough to have heard it, promises to catapult the band forward, fulfilling the immense promise they shown thus far. First single from the album is the intricate and powerful Empire.

“Empire was the song that really kickstarted the album writing process and helped guide us towards the finished product,” the band reveal. “Underneath the deceptively bouncy rhythms and uplifting harmonies, there hides a dark and brooding atmosphere that became integral to the feel of the entire record. This track showcases the shift into a more natural sound for the band, while retaining the attention to detail in every single element, and the modern production quality we love. Our first studio output in 6 years, this track contains a little bit of everything you want in an Ihlo song, and we’re so excited to finally be able to show it off to the world!”

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HIROE – COLLIDER

US post-rock quintet Hiroe are back with another impressive track from their upcoming debut album, Wield, which they will release through the Pelagic label on June 20. Collider is a ten-minute epic of a track which blends moments of gritty intensity with broad progressive flourishes that are bound to appeal to fans of post-rock bands unafraid to veer closer to the prog lane. The band’s name is pronounced ‘hero-way’, in case you were wondering.

“Collider is a song that when we play live seems to be a crowd favourite,” explains guitarist Eric Kusanagi. “It’s the longest song in our catalogue, at about 10 minutes long, and we wanted to take the listener on a journey that goes through a lot of peaks and valleys.”

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GRACE HAYHURST – TAKE OFF

Young UK prog rocker Grace Hayhurst should be familiar to some Prog readers as she is an occasional contributor to the magazine. Grace will release her new album, The World Is Dying, through her Bandcamp page on June 27. As the title implies, the conceptual piece is a no-holds-barred attack on global warming, with contributions from her mates in Kyros, Robin Johnson (drums) and Shelby Logan-Warne (mixing). It’s a message that also comes through on her new single, Take Off.

“This track tells the core message of the record – all of our frustrations with tossers like Elon Musk trying to drain the planet’s resources and run away on spaceships, leaving the rest of us commoners behind to fend for ourselves.” She doesn’t hold back, our Grace!

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HEMELBESTORMER – TURMS

Belgian quartet Hemelbestromer have been described as “post-doom instrumentalists”. No, we haven’t got a clue what their PR is on about either! What we do know is they mark some pretty intriguing, dark and thought-provoking music. The band will release their new album, The Radiant Veil, through Pelagic Records on July 25 and new single, the eight-minute plusTurms, features Caspian’s Philip Jamieson, and should appeal to those who enjoy something darker in their music.

“Turms is without a doubt the leading track and beating heart of the album,” the band explain. “Hemelbestormer is known as a pure instrumental band, but this track will surprise you, as Phil from Caspian did some phenomenal and hauntingly beautiful sounding vocals for this track, lifting it to another level.”

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NAD SYLVAN – MONUMENTATA

Steve Hackett vocalist Nad Sylvan will release his latest solo album, Monumentata, through InsideOut Music on June 20. It’s perhaps his most diverse collection so far, a reflection of Sylvan the individual, rather than playing a character. The gentle, sometimes Beatles-y title track is the third single he’s released from the album so far.

“Monumentata is about being orphaned and serves as a homage to the father I never really had or got to know properly. It reflects the loss of what could have been,” Sylvan explains. “I lost my parents, and knowing that they’re gone—and that one day, I’m probably next in line—that felt “monumental” to me. That’s where the word ‘Monumentata’ came from. “Tata” means “Father” in Hungarian, and my dad was half Hungarian. So, I combined those two words to create something new. It’s about losing someone and the disappointment.”

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EDEN CIRCUS – AGNOSTIC APOLOGY

German quartet Eden Circus released their debut album, Marula, back in 2014, and are only now getting ready to release the follow-up, Irrlicht, which translates as will-o-the-wisp, through Lifeforce Records on August 22. The band’s sound, as typified by new track, Agnostic Apology, sees them mixing prog, post-rock and touches of atmospheric metal.

“The musicians from northern Germany focus on crafting intense atmospheres and moods through deliberate arrangement,” say the band’s label. “Accordingly, “Irrlicht” unfolds with delicate intricacy and emotional weight, its songwriting brimming with dynamic contrasts — far more than one initially perceives.”

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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.

Dominic ‘Yungblud’ Harrison is 10 minutes late for our interview. “So sorry,” he says apologetically when he does turn up. He’s just had a boxing session, and is still wearing the gear he sparred in. He took up boxing a year ago and does it every morning.

“God, man, I’m literally fucking obsessed with it,” he says in his proudly undiluted Doncaster drawl. “I’ve got all this energy, and sometimes when I don’t use it all, it turns into anxiety and shit. If I do it every morning, 30 per cent of that anxiety goes away and I’m a lot more clear.”

He speaks like this all the time: a verbal rally car driver opening the throttle and flooring the accelerator, swerving this way and that, almost flying off the road, but always getting to his intended destination somehow. “I’ve got a million thoughts going through my head, I’m insecure about ten different things a minute, my ADHD’s like, bing-bing-bing-bing-bing, I’m always thinking about the next thing,” he says, not inaccurately.

Today, all that enthusiasm is focused on his upcoming fourth album, Idols Pt 1. It represents the sharpest of left turns for the 28 year old. Where previous albums had taken a grab-it-all approach, mixing pop, punk, hip hop and anything else his magpie mind alighted on, this is a rock album to its marrow, and an outrageous one at that.

The first single and opening track, Hello Heaven, Hello, is a magnificent nine-minute blow-out that channels the spirit of Bowie, U2, The Who and Queen. The rest of the album is only slightly less ambitious. There are guitar solos and real-life orchestras, Britpop influences and swirling psychedelia, big billowing ballads and gutter level rockers, not to mention a broad if indistinct concept and a second part to follow next year. In the context of his earlier albums, it’s the maddest thing Harrison has made. In the context of Harrison himself, it makes perfect sense.

“It’s the most ambitious I’ve ever been,” he says. “I went there with this: ‘I’m going to put everything I’ve got into this shot at doing something extraordinary.’ Let’s make a double album in two parts that references Dark Side Of The Moon or Rumours or A Night At The Opera, and has an idea and a through-line and a story, as opposed to ‘how many songs we can get in the fucking Top 10.’ Because why the fuck not? Let me at least try. Let me have a shot at the big boys’ table.”

There’s so much to unpack about Idols, and Harrison is here to unpack it. For the next hour he’ll talk exhilaratingly and entertainingly about everything from musicians that inspired it (“Freddie” as in Mercury, “Stevie” as in Nicks, “David” as in Bowie and Gilmour, all endearingly delivered in first name terms) to watching his unlikely friend and mentor Ozzy Osbourne slicing a salami sandwich with a machete knife while giving him careers advice. “He said, ‘You get this opportunity because you are not afraid to say the things other people will be. So when you stop fucking doing that, you ain’t a rock star any more.’”

But at the heart of it all is Harrison himself: a 28-year-old who has built not just a successful career but an entire community centred on inclusivity and tolerance and compassion and fury at the injustice of the world. The success of last year’s inaugural Bludfest – the festival he’d created, put money into, curated and headlined – rubber-stamped him as a misfit Pied Piper for the 2020s.

But the Yungblud of Idols is a different beast. It sees him deconstructing the idea of fame and what it means to be adored, wondering who he is and what he’s doing. This is Dominic Harrison changing, moving forwards and taking a shot at greatness.

Between finishing the campaign for his third album, 2022’s Yungblud, and starting Idols, Dominic Harrison found himself in a dark place.

His career had been one continuous upswing since he released his debut album, 21st Century Liability, in 2018. 2020’s Weird! and follow-up Yungblud both reached No.1 in the UK. There were high-profile collabs with everyone from Denzel Curry to his onetime partner Halsey. He was the golden boy with mad eyes, wild hair and his mouth permanently open with his tongue sticking out.

Except the Yungblud of it all was wearing off. He was getting tired of other people’s expectations of him. “The idea of being this loud, brash staple of youth was really hard to live up to all the fucking time: ‘Do the face! Be loud!’” he says. “It was just suffocating me. I’d had four years of people either questioning whether I was real or authentic, or loving me to the point of suffocation. You walk in a pub and you don’t know if people fucking love you or hate you. I needed to take a second and evaluate what I wanted to do.”

He began drinking heavily and bingeing on food to deal with it. The way he explains it, his lifestyle was partly an attempt to reclaim his own life. “I was borderline having an eating disorder: ‘If I’m gonna eat this and do that, at least I can control it.’”

He was approaching 27 at the time, a mythical number in music for obvious reasons. It’s something he wasn’t unaware of. “I think the 27 Club is a load of bollocks, but it’s in the back of your mind,” he says. “People were worried about me. I was not well.”

It didn’t help that he hadn’t really wanted to make the Yungblud album, either. “After Weird!, I went, ‘Cool, I’ve been on this beautiful journey, now the evil eye of the mainstream is looking at us, let’s make something fucking mental, let’s really create an adventure.’ I was at a turning point.”

Harrison grew up loving the music his guitar shop-owner dad listened to: Bowie, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd. He wanted to make an album that could stand alongside those – not a period piece, he says, but a living, breathing modern version.

He began writing songs that would eventually end up on Idols: the psychedelic Britpop of Lovesick Lullaby, phones-in-the-air anthem to body positivity Zombie, the self-deconstructing Idols. He played them for his American label, expecting them to be as excited as he was.

“And they did not get it,” he says. “‘Time changes? Fucking harmonies? What?! We’ve just had a Number 1 album.’ So I was dissuaded from doing it.”

Instead, he found himself in London and LA, working with other songwriters on Yungblud, an album whose arena-pop ambitions were tattooed all over it. Commercially it was a success. Yungblud became his second No.1 and breached the Billboard Top 50. Artistically? Less so.

“I was repeating myself in the name of listening to other people,” he says. “I’d really lost who I was.”

He wouldn’t make the same mistake next time. After he’d done with Yungblud, he took control of his drinking and his eating, began boxing training and picked up where he’d left off a couple of years earlier with Idols.

This reset wasn’t just mental, it was geographical. He recorded Idols at a converted Tetley brewery in Leeds, 30 miles from where he grew up in Doncaster. He says the old foreman’s house where he worked on the album was haunted by the spirits of two men who had died there. “I like the ghosts,” he insists. “I talk to the ghosts. It was, like, ‘This fucking feels right.’”

There was more than paranormal activity behind the decision to work in Leeds. It was a chance to reconnect with the person he was in danger of losing.

“I needed to be in the north,” he says. “Timothy Taylor’s ale and my best mates and the smell you get in northern England when the rain bounces off the gravel because the roads haven’t been tarmacked properly for years. I needed all that just to be, like: ‘Who the fuck are you, man, as a human?’, without anybody else’s opinion, good or bad.”

This kind of self-searching is all over the new album. The reason he called it Idols, he says, is because he decided to stop looking to other people for answers. He’s not embracing his own idols, he’s pushing them away. And he wants other people to do the same with theirs, up to and including Yungblud himself.

“It’s about self-reclamation,” he says. ”It’s a concept album about relinquishing your idols and finding the answers to your own life. You look at a photograph on a wall, you want to be that photograph. In my case, you end up as that photograph. But then you realise the photograph never had any answers, it’s me who had the answers all the time.”

A video that went viral on social media illustrates this idea better than Harrison can. It was filmed in Amsterdam in March 2025, just a couple of weeks before we speak, and features an impromptu interaction with a fan.

“You saved my life,” the fan tells him, teary with emotion.

“No you saved your own life, I didn’t save your life,” Harrison replies. “Maybe the music was the soundtrack, but you saved your own life OK?” He gives her a hug. “I love you. Don’t be sad, be happy.”

@dailymailshowbiz ♬ original sound – Daily Mail Entertainment

“And I got back to the hotel and I really digested that,” he says. “Like, this is the fundamental thing that I want to say on this album. The answers are within us all. When you relinquish the glorification of something, it all comes down to what’s inside you.”

Self-awareness is the lyrical engine that drives Idols. This is Yungblud breaking down not just what it means to be famous, but what it means to be Yungblud. The choice to deliver it as a modern day rock concept album at a time when rock’s cultural power is diminished makes is a bold-verging-on-insane one. Weird!: The Sequel it isn’t.

“The thing about rock is that it’s got such a fucking turned-up nose,” he says, with the passion of someone who knows the subject well enough to draw attention to its flaws. “Fuck the comments sections, fuck the people that will hate on it. I want to inspire young kids in bands. Make it, say it, do it, fucking live it. Bollocks, it doesn’t matter.”

That kind of talk makes for great copy but there’s another dimension to this. Viewed from one angle, Harrison has had it easy so far. Yes, his music and natural ebullience has attracted a lot of very vocal detractors, which in turn hasn’t done much for his mental health. But he’s built the kind of devoted fanbase that rarely happens these days.

There’s a danger that Idols could baffle or even alienate some of those fans. Part of the pull of Yungblud is that he’s the relatable outsider, the wild guy doing the crazy things that most people never get a chance to do. Releasing an album that is so obviously his shot at becoming one of the all-time greats is one of the least outsidery things he could do.

“No, because I’m not trying to be like them,” he counters, meaning his own heroes. “I’m doing what I want, with my best friends, going ‘Fuck the people who love me, fuck the people who hate me, fuck the journalists, fuck everyone!’”

What if people don’t get it?

He laughs. “Fuck it! You’re all idiots! I love it!”

No, seriously. What if it falls flat on its arse?

“No, that’s my point. If I have to leave everyone behind, can I honestly stand behind this album and say, ‘Yep, this is my statement, this is my truth’? And I can. I believe that if it falls flat on its arse right now, people will get where I was at someday.”

Whether Harrison would be as bullish if Idols doesn’t live up to expectations is hypothetical at this stage, though in his defence he probably would be. But it would also be hugely unfair if that happens. Idols deserves an audience that appreciates its ambition. This isn’t an album that’s bowing before the greats that Harrison worships. It’s an album that wants to elbow its way among them and say, ‘Listen to this.”

He’s certainly confident enough in it to be releasing a second half, Idols Pt 2, next year. “I see Idols Pt 1 as the light and Idols Pt 2 as the darkness,” he says. “I’d say Idols Pt 2 is a little heavier musically.”

He toyed with the idea of releasing the whole thing as an old-school double album, but figured that might be overwhelming. “I want to prolong the journey, as opposed to being: ‘Here it is, all now! Fucking stimulate yourselves and then forgot about it, like every other song on the radio!’”

Idols is released on June 20, the day before the second Bludfest at Milton Keynes Bowl. He plans to play a good chunk of the new album at the festival, but he’ll be airing it in full on his own tour later in the year.

“My vibe is I’m going to play the album from start to finish with an orchestra, have an interval, then come on and play some hits,” he says of the latter. “It’s gonna be an adventure when you see it live. One minute you‘re going mental, one minute you’re crying, one minute you’re turning to your mate and telling them you love them, one minute you’re moshing. I want it to be like a religious experience.”

He could carry on like this for days, but the whirring wheel of colour and noise that’s constantly spinning in his head needs to temporarily take a back seat to the practicalities of being a musician with a new album on the horizon. There are meetings to be had, decisions to be made. Grown-up stuff, basically.

“I didn’t write this album because I need to grow up,” he says. “I wrote it because I was changing, I am changing.

“I’m going to a different place in terms of my security within myself and my confidence. I wanted to make an album for myself again.”

Idols Pt 1 is out on June 20 via Locomotion/Island Records. Bludfest 2025 takes place June 21 at the Milton Keynes Bowl. Check out our exclusive Yungblud T-shirt featuring hand-drawn lyrics, only at the Louder store.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

French keyboard wizard Jean-Michel Jarre has announced that he will release a new live album, Live In Bratislava, through Sony Music Enetertainment on September 5.

It’s a recoding of his historic open-air Bridge From The Future concert, performed on May 12, 2024 in Slovakia, along the banks of the Danube, to over 100,000 people, where he was joined by Queen guitarist Brian May.

The full 22-track performance is available across a range of deluxe formats, including an unseen Director’s Cut of the concert film, remastered audio, exclusive vinyl, and a 40-page coffee table photo book documenting this once-in-a-lifetime production.

“Since that very special night in Bratislava, we’ve worked with a brilliant creative team to bring together the most complete, cinematic version of the concert possible,” Jarre says. “The sound on this release comes from the live TV broadcast of the concert, capturing the raw, in-the-moment energy of the performance. I’m proud to finally share this with everyone. Not only those who joined us in Slovakia or watched online, but all who want to relive the experience.”

It was Jarre’s first ever collaboration with Brian May, who joined him on stage for a new arrangement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony as well as newly adapted works Bratislava Time and Rendez-vous Bratislava.

Live In Bratislava will be released as a 2 CD set, a Blu-ray featuring the unseen Director’s Cut and the Ultimate Colector’s Box, which features the 2 x CD, Blu-ray and a 10″ blue vinyl featuring the unreleased track Bridge From The Future, performed as the audience arrived, as well as a deluxe 40-page coffee table photo book with behind-the-scenes and performance images.

Jarre recently announced his very first European tour for nine years for June and July 2026.

Pre-order Live In Bratislava.

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.

In 2009, Alice In Chains released their first album since the death of founding frontman Layne Staley seven years earlier. To mark the release of Black Gives Way To Blue, the band sat down with Classic Rock to reflect on the long, difficult road back to the light.

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“Classic Rock magazine, eh? Oh man, I knew this was going to happen!”

Right now, Alice In Chains drummer Sean Kinney is throwing his hands up in the air in a show of mock defeat.

“It’s all right, they can Photoshop out the colostomy bag,” laughs Jerry Cantrell. The guitarist turns to our photographer, and, with a throatily exhalation of laughter and Lucky Strike, says: “Just put a lot of Vaseline on the lens, okay? Thanks.”

This is not what we expected. Alice In Chains – that growling, mournful monster of a band, masters of melancholy; a group besieged by the demons of huge loss and the weight of years spent in a swirling vortex of substance abuse and successful trappings – actually seem happy to be here.

Cantrell and Kinney are sitting in a cavernous studio in downtown LA with fellow chain smokers bassist Mike Inez and new AIC frontman William DuVall. This is the first time they’ve saddled themselves with an interview of this kind on the cusp of a new release that no one saw coming, least of all them.

It is, dare we say it, a jovial atmosphere – a combination of childlike anticipation and an overriding hunger to define themselves in the aftermath of the death of Layne Staley, their former singer who died a recluse of a cocaine and heroin overdose in 2002, years after the band unofficially dissolved.

You only had to witness the exuberant reception that met the reunited Alice In Chains on the live circuit a few years ago to understand that survival is possible, that life does go on.

If you’re wondering whether Alice In Chains are feeling a little insecure about how they’re remembered, how their music fits into the grand scheme of things and how to move forward, then consider this: until this month they hadn’t released a record since 1995. It’s a whopping 22 years since Seattle cohorts Jerry Cantrell and singer Layne Staley formed the band, 19 years since their We Die Young EP and then Facelift took the airwaves by storm and put Alice In Chains – and Seattle – on the map.

Six Grammy nominations, three studio records and eight platinum certifications later, they unofficially disbanded in 1996 because, as they’ll admit today, their associated addictions would have killed them had they continued. But if their de facto reunion in 2005 for a tsunami benefit concert heralded an unabashed return to public view, then their re-formation tour in 2006 with long-time comrade William DuVall upfront was where the next chapter began. Surely they must be surprised to be sitting here as Alice In Chains, with a new album in the can and a new man at the mic?

“Well actually, we’re making it up as we go on,” Cantrell says with a grin. “To put all that weight on Will’s shoulders is unfair. We’re just figuring out how we work as a team. Although the band has changed, we’ve lost Layne, we’ve added Will, and there was no master plan. Playing again in 2005 felt right, so we did the next thing and toured. We did it step by step. It’s more than just making music, and it always has been. We’ve been friends a long time. We’ve been more of a family than most, and it had to be okay from here,” he says, pointing to his heart.

They got back together. They toured again. But, until recently, even the band themselves didn’t see a new Alice In Chains album on even the most distant horizon. And yet here it is: this month sees the release of Black Gives Way To Blue.

The process of songwriting for the new record was handled piecemeal, and Black Gives Way To Blue is very much an amalgamation of riffs and lyrical themes that, as Jerry explains, have been bubbling under in his mind for some time, and the lightning-rod effect of AIC’s three surviving members taking the stage carried with it the spark of creation.

“It all began with the last track,” says Jerry of the album’s show stopper, a homage to their fallen brother that served as both catharsis and catalyst. “It took the wind out of me, I got really sick afterward.”

“It was when Jerry played that down the phone to me that I knew we had something,” adds Sean.

And, more than the album, the loss of Layne Staley still haunts the conversation, and the band’s decision to re-enter the studio in October 2008 with William DuVall wearing Staley’s shoes brought about mixed reactions. To some it was met with jubilation – a band who traded in searing distortion, colossally heavy riffs and even weightier lyrics were returning to the fray with new material. To others it was as if they’d just seen an ex-partner out with someone new. The latter is a sensation that isn’t lost on Alice In Chains themselves.

“Look, it’s a big move to fucking stand up and move on,” says Sean. “Some people, the music connected with them so strongly, their opinions, how they feel about it… It’s amazing that they have such a connection but they seem to act like it happened to them. This happened to us and Layne’s family, not them. This is actually our lives. If we’re okay with it, why can’t you be? This happened to us, this didn’t happen to you.

“But this album isn’t about that, it’s a bigger universal point. We’re all going to fucking die, we’re all going to lose somebody, and it fucking hurts. How do you move on? This record is us moving on, and hurting. That, to me, is a victory. I already feel like I’ve won.”

There’s a pregnant pause in the conversation, a gap where Sean’s own bandmates seem a little taken aback by what he’s just said. A beat passes, then two, and a smile spreads across Jerry’s face. “Well said,” he confirms.

Of course, regardless of AIC’s intentions in the studio, DuVall has some very big shoes to fill. The combined titanic force of Cantrell’s tortured guitar wail and ghostly harmonies with Layne Staley’s booming croon are the essence of their mesmerising sound. So it’s impressive that William DuVall – striking in appearance, and at 41 looks 15 years younger – has stepped in. Formerly frontman/guitarist with Atlanta rockers Comes With The Fall, he’s not without his own musical pedigree. Most notably he became a collaborator with Cantrell in the tail-end of the 90s when – due to Layne Staley’s increasing reclusiveness – the guitarist needed someone to resonate with creatively.

DuVall has a vastly different stage presence to Staley, and strides confidently through AIC’s back catalogue, but the decision to make him a fully-fledged member of the band and to resurrect themselves in the process wasn’t a world away from the conundrum faced by AC/DC after the death of Bon Scott.

“One of my favourite bands was able to continue after their singer died,” Cantrell explains, “and they did that by finding a guy that was unique enough and yet still an individual who could really play those songs. William isn’t trying to sound like Layne, but Alice sounds a certain way and I write a certain way, that’s just the way it is.”

This was no Metallica auditioning a legion of would-be bassists. And soft-spoken William is quick to set the record straight. “It’s not like this thing was glued together and we met on a street three years ago,” he says. “There’s a long story to get to this point. I’ve known these guys almost 10 years now, there’s a lot to get to this. As step-by-step as this has gone, as manic as it has been over the last three years, seven years prior to that our lives converged, and now here we are. We were friends together when Layne was living; he passed while we were on the road.”

What became Black Gives Way To Blue was an idea that the band grew into, as Alice In Chains were under no compulsion to release an album. It was – as Jerry explains – more a drive to experience catharsis. As recently as 2007 Sean Kinney revealed that he would like to write a new record – but not as Alice In Chains. This, however, was an idea that was quickly overridden as the energy of those shows – 86 in all and covering 22 countries – signalled to all concerned that they were ready to head back into the studio.

“During the whole time we were touring, we went out and we did, like, our own type of thing. It was more a celebration of the music, and we felt really dedicated to it,” Cantrell recalls. “We were kind of playing that and thanking all the people that were supporting us. So we did all that stuff. But you get together for any length of time, and there’s a drum set, somebody’s always rocking on something.

“If it’s good you record it. And after two years you get a lot of good shit. We started putting our shit together in December 2007. By March we started writing and talking about getting together and working more and starting to mould this shit. But it’s not like we decided to make an album, we just wanted to write. The music became Alice In Chains because that’s who we were again.”

“We just wanted to hear what the shit sounded like,” Kinney says. “We were in Carmen Miranda’s old studio. It’s a very musical place. And everything was so good we decided to record it. It’s a tremendous undertaking, but at the end of it I haven’t felt this good about something since we were kids.”

Whether that jubilance translates to record is another matter. In fact, it sounds more like a sonic exorcism in the wake of Layne’s loss that, more than a tribute, is summed up by the album’s final, show-stopping title track which addresses that tragedy directly, both lyrically and with the simple elegy ‘I don’t want to feel no more/It’s easier to keep falling…’

As a statement on Layne, it works on two levels – his final predicament, and the band’s decision to move on.

“Just the fact that we’re sitting at this table, that’s a testament to how solidified we really are together,” comments Mike. “It’s harder for us than people realise. We had to bury our brother.”

At its heart, the new album is a summation of everything the band have recorded up to this point. It’s the best epitaph and story of survival you’ll hear. As Sean says, rightly: “Everybody will experience loss. Lay down, it hurts, but stand up someday and move on. You miss people and you think about them, but you still have to live.”

This article originally appeared in Classic Rock 137 (October 2009)

Alexander Milas is an erstwhile archaeologist, broadcaster, music journalist and award-winning decade-long ex-editor-in-chief of Metal Hammer magazine. In 2017 he founded Twin V, a creative solutions and production company.  In 2019 he launched the World Metal Congress, a celebration of heavy metal’s global impact and an exploration of the issues affecting its community. His other projects include Space Rocks, a festival space exploration in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Heavy Metal Truants, a charity cycle ride which has raised over a million pounds for four children’s charities which he co-founded with Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood. He is Eddietor of the official Iron Maiden Fan Club, head of the Heavy Metal Cycling Club, and works closely with Earth Percent, a climate action group. He has a cat named Angus. 

Yungblud has announced a week of intimate UK club shows to take place in July.

Following on from the June 20 release of his forthcoming record Idols, part one of what will be a double album, the Yorkshire-born star will play a series of shows in England and Scotland in intimate venues he has long since outgrown.

The singer, real name Dominic Harrison, will visit Kingston Pryzm (July 8), Dundee Live House (July 10), Liverpool Dome (July 11), Bristol Prospect Building (July 13) and Southampton’s Engine Rooms (July 15) on what’s he calling the Idols – Up Close And Personal tour.

Go here to purchase any tickets that may remain.

The singer is also teasing the release of a new single, Zombie, with a video starring English actress Florence Pugh. The video will be released tomorrow, May 30.

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Tickets for Yungblud’s world tour are on sale now.

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.