The award-winning ProgBlog
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Most people have heard of progressive rock (or prog rock, or simply prog) but the great majority of them treat it with mild disdain (at best) or outright hatred (at worst). Most of the criticism is a mindless rejection based on current trends and a misunderstanding of the genre; “dinosaur” is a common term of abuse, neatly parodied by Adrian Belew on King Crimson’s 1994 album Thrak.
There is an increasing quantity of literature on the subject, ranging from the analytical or academic (Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics; Kevin Holme-Hudson, Progressive Rock Revisited) to the fairly straightforward lists (Charles Snider, The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock.) There are also thousands of fans out there who not only continue to attend concerts, but also contribute to a growing network of fanzines and on-line forums. Fans are even served by Prog, a glossy magazine from Future Publishing entirely devoted to prog in all its forms founded in 2009 and still going strong.
The ProgBlog has been put together to encourage discussion about progressive rock music illustrated by personal observation.
New Blog
Orchestral interpretations of prog
(published 29th July 2026)
My interest in European art music was largely derived from listening to works by The Nice and Emerson Lake & Palmer, as symphonic prog was the first form of progressive rock I listened to, whether in the form of electronic instruments used to emulate the timbral range of an orchestra or, in roughly the order of discovery, listening to a group with an orchestra: The Nice, Pink Floyd, Continuum, The Moody Blues, Procol Harum and Fruupp.
Despite attending concerts by the Northern Sinfonia when they visited my corner of the north west of England during the 70s, it took me over 50 years as a London resident before I attended one of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, an evening centred around Holst’s The Planets in 2022; and I’ve just been to this year’s Prog Rock: A Fanfare for the Common Man, a celebration of ‘the pioneering, British-driven movement in a concert featuring classic tracks on an orchestral scale, with brand new arrangements…’
These are my thoughts on orchestral arrangements of prog songs.
Latest album review
Delirium IPG – Sesta strada lungo il tempo (2026)
Delirium's debut album Dolce acqua remains one of the best and most loved Italian pop albums of the 1970s thanks to an uncanny combination of experimentation and marketability, and has cemented its place as one of the most extraordinary and important albums in the annals of progressivo italiano, so any new release by the band deserves close attention.
Sesta strada lungo il tempo is only their sixth album in 55 years but it's a modern classic built on the band's trademark DNA
Latest posts from the archive
A continuing project to restore lost blogs and gig reviews unavailable since the migration of the site to a new webhost in 2021
Blog: Dark prog
Prompted by a post on the r/progrockmusic subreddit with the title 'Dark and scary recommendations?' 'followed by the explanatory text "I love [the] dark side of prog music. Makes me feel like i'm watching some horror movie. For example: Red, Godbluff, two albums of Comus. Any other album or song recommendations?", I retrieved a blog from July 2018 which covered the topic of dark prog and included an album review of the Una Stagione all'Inferno album Il mostro di Firenze. That review has since been posted here and the remaining text has been edited and updated and can be found in the blogs.
Gig review: Porto Antico Prog Fest - Genova
5th - 6th August 2023
It's always worth a trip to Genoa for the Porto Antico Prog Fest but the headline acts on the two nights, Änglagård marking the 30th anniversary of their debut Hybris and Area Open Project, celebrating the 50 years of Arbeit Mach Frei, made it even more special
Archive ProgBlog playlists can be found here:
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