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June is upon us! Well, almost, anyway. European festival season is about to kick off in a big way and it seems we can barely move for new tour and album announcements. But then, isn’t that just the way we love it?

First, let’s get the results of last week’s vote out the way! It was a diverse showing from across the metal spectrum with metalcore, black metal, hardcore, death metal, punk and more all in the running, but ultimately there could be only one winner. That said, it was a tight finish for third place, with Ukraine’s Death Pill nabbing bronze by just one vote. They were only shortly behind returning death metal troupe Sinsaenum, who announced their first new album since the death of former drummer Joey Jordison. But our overall winner – and with little surprise given just how much of a phenomenon they’ve turned out to be – were Germany’s Electric Callboy. Prost!

This week we’ve got a stacked roster to offer. There’s new music from Babymetal, Halestorm, Lord Of The Lost and Avatar – all previous winners of these weekly polls – as well as fresh cuts from the likes of Urne, Margarita Witch Cult and Calva Louise representing a wonderfully diverse selection of metal brilliance.

As ever, we need you to tell us which song excites you most, so don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll below. And have an excellent weekend!

Halestorm – Everest

Halestorm have a proven track record when it comes to writing massive rock tunes. Even by their lofty standards, Everest feels like a gloriously theatrical and showy tune. With some of the best lead guitar lines you’ll hear this year, the title-track of the band’s new album – due August 8 – has us plenty excited for what Halestorm have in store.

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Avatar – Captain Goat

Speaking of theatrical, it seldom gets more outlandish than the harlequin antics of Sweden’s Avatar. Johannes Eckerström and co try their hand at a sea shanty on Captain Goat, the first glimpse of a possible follow-up to 2023’s Dance Devil Dance. Delivered with a sense of bombastic and thumping, steady beat, it’s certainly piqued our curiosity; are they working on a new concept album, a la Avatar Country? We’ll find out in due course, we’re sure.

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Heaviest Babymetal song ever? There’s definitely an argument to be made for Song 3, the Japanese metal sensation drafting in deathcore stars Slaughter To Prevail for a track that swings from grunting, stomping death metal to hale, breakout melodies. Much like with their other collabs, Babymetal find ways to strengthen their sound with outside influences whilst not losing their own undeniable uniqueness, and even if Metal Forth is still a way off with an August 8 release date there’s plenty to be excited about – especially with their biggest UK show to date happening tonight (May 30) at The O2.

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Lord Of The Lost – I Will Die In It

After the colourful flamboyance of Blood And Glitter, Germany’s Lord Of The Lost are back on more familiar footing in the realms of thumping, symphonically-underpinned industrial goth on I Will Die In It. Vocalist Chris Harms’ baritone intonations of “I was not born in love/but I will die in it” offer a bridge between Till Lindemann and Peter Steele, spelling out exciting things for new album Opvs Noir Vol. 1 when it arrives August 8.

Margarita Witch Cult – Scream Bloody Murder

There’s plenty of love for Sabbath to be found at the moment as we round in to the final weeks before the big gig. How appropriate then, that Birmingham’s own Sabbath-worshipping doomsters Margarita Witch Cult are rumbling back with Scream Bloody Murder, the first single from their upcoming second album Strung Out In Hell, due July 18. If you can’t get enough of those Iommi style riffs and hooks over a fuzzy bed of dread, MWC are exactly what you need to go into the weekend.

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Urne – Harken The Waves (ft. Troy Sanders)

Riffs, you say? With their first two albums, Urne showed they’d mastered the art, and now return with a new prog metal flavoured epic in the form of Harken The Waves. Drafting in Mastodon’s Troy Sanders, the nine-and-a-half-minute track feels like another colossal leap forward for the band as they gear up for their third album, crafting something gorgeously expansive, heavy and utterly exhilarating. Set to tour with Orange Goblin on the latter’s farewell tour in December, you’d be mad to miss this.

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The Narrator – Unbind Me

Freshly signed to Nuclear Blast, German metalcore troupe The Narrator have wasted no time in putting out new music. Unbind Me goes big on atmospherics with a sense of scope that betrays some seriously big ambitions, calling to mind the likes of Architects and Bury Tomorrow with clanging riffs and hefty beatdowns. Considering the band only released their debut last year, there’s no word if a follow-up is imminent, but either way it seems they’re setting their sights high.

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Hanabie – Spicy Queen

Hanabie might be a fresh force this side of the world, but they’ve been building up steam in their native Japan for a decade. To celebrate that fact, the band worked on a counterpoint to their breakthrough track We Love Sweets, a hyperactive, impossible to duplicate blast of riffs, snarls and techno-enhanced guitar tones that lend some real credence to the idea of this being the future of metal.

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257ers – Unicorns (ft. Electric Callboy)

Electric Callboy might not have announced a follow-up to Tekkno yet, but they’re certainly getting around by this point. After popping up with Babymetal and releasing a new single of their own last week, now they’re featured as guests with German comedy hip-hop duo 257ers. The resulting track – Unicorns – sounds exactly like an EC song should, and comes with a typically brilliant, bonkers video.

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Stain The Canvas – 554th

Prepare for sonic whiplash. It’s impossible to tell exactly where Italians Stain The Canvas fit in; one minute they’re shrieking, high-speed deathcore style brutes, only to break out into electro rave underpinned metalcore choruses. It’s wild to watch them switching gears so effortlessly across the track, marking them as a band to watch out for going forward.

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Calva Louise – Impeccable

Calva Louise’s Impeccable might be the danciest metal tune since Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl. Lofty praise, but well earned by the UK-based group who blend styles together with impressive panache, swinging from howling metalcore to twinkling dancefloor fillers with ease. Though Impeccable fits squarely in the latter category, there’s so many different facets to new album Edge Of The Abyss that you’re sure to find something to tickle your fancy.

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Flesh Parade – Repercussions

NOLA grindcore with added spice, Flesh Parade’s Repercussions is all fangs and rabid nastiness. From its sludgy, lurching bass to the high-speed, punkish breakouts, it’s pure underground filth – glorious and ‘orrible in equal measure.

Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token. 

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.