------------------------------------------------------- APRIL 1, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1449094,00.html In Prog We Trust By Adam Sweeting Epic songs. Symphonic key changes. Psychedelic cover art. Get used to it - because prog is the rock that just won't die. "How can any innovative, forward-thinking art or music not be progressive?" asks Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist with the Mars Volta. "We are really tired of those labels." If you want to describe Frances the Mute, the Mars Volta's recently released second album, only the terms "progressive rock" and "concept album" will do. It has been designed as a pseudo-symphony, with evolving themes and interlocking movements. There are dramatic leaps from doomy blues to ferocious nu-metal, punctuated by cacophonous free jazz and mariachi trumpets. Tracks last as long as 13 minutes and have names like Umbilical Syllables, Pour Another Icepick and Plant a Nail in the Navel Stream - titles that recall Genesis albums from the era when vocalist Peter Gabriel dressed up as a giant dandelion. Even the sleeve is in prog's great tradition, since it was designed by Storm Thorgerson, whose Hipgnosis team created artwork for Yes, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. For the past couple of decades, few people have been able to speak the words "prog rock" without collapsing in tears of helpless mirth. Suddenly, however, there's a change in the wind. Fabled 1970s progressivists Van Der Graaf Generator have reformed for a new album, Present (a double-disc set, naturally). It's due for release later this month, 28 years after their last studio collaboration. The Generator's arcane lyrics, bewildering time signatures and extended jazzy extemporisations have never been a mass-market taste, but their comeback has provoked seething anticipation: tickets for the band's concert at the Royal Festival Hall on May 6 sold out before the show was officially announced. Their timing is propitious. Music of a progressive bent is gaining a momentum unseen since in the mid-1970s, before punk rock decreed that using as many as two chords per song was considered poncey and decadent (though Sex Pistol John Lydon later owned up to being a Van Der Graaf Generator fan). Unmistakable prog-like noises are emanating from Porcupine Tree, who are hailed as natural heirs to Yes and Pink Floyd, while Muse have demonstrated the commercial potency of mixing grunge with classical flourishes plundered from Rachmaninov. The Darkness have proved that prog can be funny (intentionally, that is). Spock's Beard, Pain of Salvation, Cryptic Vision, Lacuna Coil, Karnataka and Meshuggah are developing their own variations on the progressive theme. There are even enough bands to mount their own ProgAID effort to benefit tsunami victims. Members of Pendragon, IQ, Pallas, Strangefish, the Flower Kings, Galahad and others joined forces to record All Around the World, written by Rob Reed from British prog band Magenta. "It was in about 1995 that I discovered there was sort of an underground movement," says Roine Stolt, of Swedish prog-rockers the Flower Kings. "A guy called me from America saying they were thinking of setting up a prog rock festival. I thought, 'What! About 25 people will turn up.' But the same guy organised the festival we played in Los Angeles in 1997, and we got an incredible crowd. It seems there are more prog record labels and new bands coming up, and magazines are starting to write about progressive rock." In the original golden dawn of prog, bands such as Yes, King Crimson and Emerson Lake & Palmer exploited the then-new technology of electronic synthesizers and innovations in studio techniques. Recently, the spread of broadband internet connections has galvanised interest in the genre. "It's a godsend, because you can have a website that's just as good as a site by any major band," says Stuart Nicholson, vocalist with Brit-proggers Galahad. "People can find out about us, and that might lead them to Magenta or Mostly Autumn or other groups. You can sell merchandise online. The irony is that a band like ours is more punk than punk was, because we're totally independent and we operate outside the major music industry." Galahad formed in Dorset 20 years ago. Having survived a period when "it was like you were suffering from some kind of disease you couldn't let people know about", they are now hailed as gurus of the neo-prog underground. The band are starting work on a new album (their 12th) for Rob Ayling's Voiceprint label, and they are sensing a gradual shift in audience tastes. "The major labels are pushing all these mainstream rock bands who don't rock," Nicholson complains. "It's all a bit boring. The younger audience wants something apart from prefabricated boy bands. Dance music is dying, and people want to see live music and a bit of a show." What all prog practitioners agree on is that the music offers huge scope. "We're building on progressive music, rock and pop in general, some Swedish folk music, classical and jazz," explains Stolt. "You can build a song around anything - African rhythms, Indian scales or Japanese music. It's this freedom to create that attracted me in the beginning." By contrast, the first coming of prog was defined by a batch of English bands with a set of shared tastes and values. As Bill Bruford, the original drummer with Yes, points out: "Half the main protagonists had come from the church - a lot of organists and choirboys. Chris Squire from Yes sang in a choir. The Rick Wakemans and Keith Emersons were organists. So the church had quite a lot to do with it. There wasn't a note of jazz in it. Completely white. Completely pertaining to south-eastern, middle-class nice boys like myself. The classical influence came from the fact that classical was the only music being taught in school." Today, Bruford plays jazz and teaches a course on the history of popular music. "When I describe those years with Yes to my students, they all say, 'Wow, that sounds fantastic.' The music industry was trebling in size each year, so there was plenty of money. We could be adventurous and take our time in the studio, and nobody ever showed us a bill. There was a great sense that anything could happen in the music. It's all but impossible to re-create those circumstances now." Maybe, but new factors have come into play. Recording equipment has become cheap and accessible to an extent unforeseeable 30 years ago, while the globalisation of music makes it easy for musicians to soak themselves in a multiplicity of sources. Several of the new acts have female singers, in a  departure from prog's all-male tradition. Bands from South America or eastern Europe inevitably bring their own perspectives, and even the home-grown ones don't conform to the popular cliches. "We all come from working-class backgrounds - we didn't go to public school," says Galahad's Nicholson. "Our original members were from a council estate, but that doesn't mean you can only be into the Sex Pistols." Anything seems possible, and while there's little likelihood of prog re-establishing its 1970s dominance, the music has proved that it is capable of adapting to survive. "Despite what the industry says music should or should not be, these people beg to differ," adds Bruford. "There are pools of enthusiasts all round the world. In fact, it's only the British who sneered at prog. Everybody else thought it was great." Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com