Written: 11th October 2026To fans of progressive rock and indeed many music fans in general, keyboardist Rick Wakeman requires little introduction. The charismatic Englishman played with Yes for many years as well as working with artists as renowned as David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Brian May. In 2020, Wakeman – with a band featuring Lee Pomeroy, Dave Colquhoun and Ash Soan – released The Red Planet. An album dedicated to Mars, it was hailed as one of the best progressive rock albums he has made s

Written: 10th October 2026Few bands captured the exuberance, swagger and immediacy of 1970s glam rock quite like Sweet, whose catalogue of hit singles ensured their place amongst the era's defining names. Following the band's dissolution in 1981, guitarist Andy Scott revived the name in 1985 and continues to lead his own incarnation of Sweet, featuring vocalist Paul Manzi, bassist Lee Small, guitarist and keyboardist Tom Cory, and drummer Adam Booth. While 2024's Full Circle – the band’s first s

Written: 7th October 2026Faroe Islander Eivør is one of the most beguiling and bewitching artists of the last twenty years. Across eleven previous solo albums, numerous collaborations and soundtrack w...

Written: 5th October 2026Having previously fronted rock band I Divide, UK singer-songwriter and producer Thomas Kavanagh has spent the last decade releasing a steady string of singles alongside his EP...

Written: 4th October 2026Approaching the thirtieth anniversary of their formation and the twenty-fifth anniversary of their debut album, In The Halls of Awaiting, Insomnium can truly be considered vet...

Written: 3rd October 2026Hailing from Southampton, Black Water Redemption have been building their reputation since emerging under their current name in 2022. Known in a previous incarnation as Wester...

Written: September 2026My introduction to David Gilmour came, inevitably, through Pink Floyd. Shortly after my sixteenth birthday, I bought my first Floyd album, Delicate Sound of Thunder, during the ...

28th September 2026Little Angels confirm brand new material to coincide with Big Bad & Back Tour this November. The ‘Big Bad & Back EP’ (due for release 6th Nov, 2026) will be the band’s first new mat...

Written: 27th September 2026Let us get the obvious out of the way first. Asomvel look like Motörhead and they often sound like Motörhead. However, there are worse bands to be compared to and since the...

Written: 22nd September 2026At eighty-one years old, Robin Trower is a man on a mission. In the past decade his output has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down and has yielded eight studio albums...

September 2026UK’s emerging rock & alternative showcase completes its year-two lineup for Sheffield’s Corporation on Saturday 28th November 2026.SHEFFIELD, UK — Novacaine Festival has officially unvei...

Interview: 20th September 2026During the weekend of the release of their latest single, Shadows Fall (review here), Hotel Hobbies spent some time in the company of all four members of King Kraken. We ...

17th September 2026Sparrows Eat Crows are a three-piece from Orange County, California, comprising Aden Mackness on vocals and guitar, Ben Taylor on bass and Omar Ruiz on drums. The band cite Soundgar...

September 2026Seeing its original release in 1996, ‘Dusk…and Her Embrace’ is stalwartly evergreen as an indelible etch on both sonic and cultural extremes. Their first major release following signing ...

15th September 2026200 STAB WOUNDS return in 2027 with Lowest Form, set for release on February 19th via Metal Blade Records.The highly anticipated follow-up to their acclaimed Manual Manic Procedures...

Written: 13th September 2026During 2026, King Kraken has been steadily releasing a string of standalone songs with Call To War and I Am The Apocalypse already furthering their burgeoning reputation. S...

Written: 6th September 2026It has been a little under a year since charismatic Canadian cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne released his second solo album, the excellent Lifeblood (review here). During th...

Written: 26th August 2026It has only been a little over a year since Behemoth released The Shit Ov God (review here), a solid release which I thought was a good if not great album. Therefore, it was w...

Written: 22nd / 23rd August 2026This is a ranking I had intended to write for some time. The recent passing of Frank Beard prompted me to immerse myself in the ZZ Top catalogue and to reflect upon the...

Interview: 21st August 2026Ahead of the release of their third album, The Dying Hunt (review here), Hotel Hobbies spent some time with Chris Reifert of Static Abyss. We discussed the origins of the ba...

Written: 20th August 2026Kamelot have long since established themselves as one of the most enduring names in symphonic metal. Fourteen studio albums into their career, the band's reputation is secure, with the Roy Khan era in particular producing several albums that I continue to hold in especially high regard. Tommy Karevik's tenure also began in impressive fashion with Silverthorn, but while Haven, The Shadow Theory and The Awakening all contained moments of genuine quality, none quite matched

Written 18th August 2026As someone based about ten miles from Maidenhead, in Berkshire, England, seeing the name attached to a thrash/death metal band certainly raised an eyebrow. This Maidenhead, how...

Written: 16th August 2026It is hard to remember a time when Flotsam and Jetsam were not part of the heavy metal landscape. From their debut Doomsday For The Deceiver (which featured in my look back at...

Written: 13th August 2026Italian progressive power metal band Noveria return with their fifth studio album, Becoming After. The record marks a significant shift in personnel, with vocalist Francesco M...

Written: 11th August 2026As a fan of both Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery since the mid-eighties, the news of a collaborative album with two of the foremost guitarists in progressive rock – which was ...

Written: August 2026Motörhead occupy a somewhat unique position in my music collection. While I would never claim that every album is of the same standard, I also believe the band never released a tru...

4th August 2026Two titans of progressive music, Steve Hackett (Genesis) and Steve Rothery (Marillion), come together on 'The Roaring Waves' - a striking and deeply atmospheric instrumental album shape...

Written: 2nd August 2026Swedish melodic rockers Grand have enjoyed a steady rise since the release of their self-titled debut in 2022, following it with the well-received Second To None (review here) ...

Written: July 20261986 was a remarkable year for rock and metal, producing a wealth of albums that have stood the test of time. This is neither a ranking nor a series of conventional album reviews. In...

Written: 26th July 2026More than twenty years into their career, Finsterforst have carved out a unique place within the German metal scene. Describing their music as Black Forest Metal, the band have ...

Written: July 2026On my 14th birthday in July 1986, I received Invisible Touch – my first Genesis album. As I discussed in my article My Top 20 Genesis Songs (1978 – 1991), that era of the band will a...

24th July 2026“How could I have held you?How could I have kept you mine?The fairest light of allA gleam in the black”Finland's undisputed masters of melancholy, INSOMNIUM, are unveiling their latest s...

Written: 23rd July 2026Back in 2014, blackgaze band Cairiss released their landmark demo Disgraced, which amassed over two million streams. Now, more than ten years later, they return with their debut...

Written: 21st July 2026Formed in 2023, Victoria Lies are a Canadian metalcore band from Calgary, Alberta, featuring vocalist Brett Hetherington, drummer James Cuncannon, guitarists Chris Koehler and R...

July 2026What Will You Give? (feat. Josh Middleton of Sylosis) is the stunning third single taken from Burner's forthcoming album 'No One Is Coming to Save Us', which is slated for release 25th Septem...

Written: 19th July 2026Frontiers Music has built a reputation for bringing well-known musicians together to form supergroups and all-star studio projects within the melodic rock and hard rock genres. ...

Written: 12th July 2026Approaching fifteen years since their formation in Athens, Caelestia have steadily built a reputation within the European extreme metal scene through a combination of melodic bl...

Written: 11th July 2026For more than two decades, Tasmania's Psycroptic have occupied a rare position within extreme metal. Universally respected for their musicianship, they have nevertheless avoided...

Written: 11th July 2026Wales’s King Kraken continue their run of new material with I Am The Apocalypse, the second in a series of singles scheduled for release during 2026. The first, Call To War (rev...

Written: 4th July 2026ExtremeDef Leppard have a history of choosing some excellent bands as their support acts and Extreme are no exception. The venue is filling up as they take to the stage and conti...

30th June 2026Today, legendary Christian metal pioneers STRYPER return with a commanding new chapter in their storied career, their 18th studio album: ‘Throne Of Thorns,’ set for release on September ...

Written: 28th June 2026The Tirith began as a school band in the 1970s under the name Minas Tirith, when Tim Cox and Dick Cory first started writing together, before going their separate ways for more ...

27th June 2026Delve into the chaos of the cosmos with "Limitless", the new single release from the US and Mexico based melodic death metal band FALSIMONIAN. The quartet's dynamic heavy sound is influe...

Written: 27th June 2026For almost thirty-five years, Portugal’s Moonspell have been casting their alluring gothic shadow over the world of metal. Emerging in the early 1990s, the band quickly became p...

Written: 21st June 2026On an extremely warm summer’s evening, I made my way to The Northcourt in Abingdon, a compact grassroots venue with an established reputation on the local live circuit. Taking t...

June 2026Two titans of progressive music, Steve Hackett (Genesis) and Steve Rothery (Marillion), come together for the first time on The Roaring Waves - seven instrumental tracks that range from the d...

Written: 15th June 2026Based in Hannover and Leipzig, Nitrochaos describe themselves as the bastard child of underground rock band Hound. Hound’s last release was the excellent 2021 album I Know My En...

Interview: 7th June 2026Ahead of the release of a complete reimagining (read my review here) of Nine Stones Close's debut album St Lo, I spent some time in the company of their guitarist, lyricist, so...

Written: 6th June 2026It has been almost twenty years since the release of St Lo, the first album from Nine Stones Close. At that time, the band consisted solely of Adrian Jones who played all the ins...

Written: 28th May 2026Opensight have never been a band to stand still. Since their earliest material they have worked through ideas patiently, refining rather than completely changing, allowing their ...