Ahead of the release of their new album, We Are Legend (which came out Friday, Apr 27), Magenta released a free EP through their Bandcamp page. Entitled Trojan, the EP features an edited version of "Trojan" (the album version is 26-minutes long) as well as "two remixes in the style of keyboardist and founding member Rob Reed’s Chimpan A project."

Also announcing that pre-orders are now being taken for a new release is Mistheria, whose new instrumental metal album Gemini will be released later this year - exact date still to be determined. In addition, the lineup has been announced, including guests:

Roger Staffelbach (Artension, Artlantica) - Guitar; Leonardo Porcheddu (Vitalij Kuprij) - Guitar; Ivan Mihaljevic (Side Effects) - Guitar; Steve Di Giorgio (Testament, Death) - Bass; Dino Fiorenza (Metatrone) - Bass; John Macaluso (Ark, Symphony X, Malmsteen) - Drums, and Mistheria (Bruce Dickinson, Rob Rock, Vivaldi Metal Project) - Keyboards. Special guests - Chris Caffery (Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Savatage) - Guitar and Roy Z (Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Tribe Of Gypsies) - Guitar.

Since September Stewart Bell, of Citizen Cain, has been taking pre-orders for the second chapter of his trilogy The Antechamber Of Being. TAOB Part 2 will be released in February - exact date still to be determined. You can watch a promotional video below.

Guests helping Bell are Simone Rossetti from The Watch, Ayreon's Arjen Lucassen, Bekah Comrie from Grace & Legend and Citizen Cain's Phil Allen. The album will come out in various formats: Limited Special Edition Hardback Art-Book – 38 page full colour book containing art, concepts, lyrics, song intros plus your name included in a 'special thanks to' section in the book plus a CD of the album (2CD, £20).

As we shared in November, Arjen Lucassen will release a new Ayreon album this year. On Thursday, he released the title - The Source - and album artwork (see small at left; larger below). Over a period time, the guest artists were revealed where Lucassen did so as a guessing game.

All the players - vocalists and instrumentalists - have now been revealed, so here, too, is the list of whom you will hear on this new opus:

When I saw this news item from Century Media, and a link to the video for Horisont's third single "About Time" (below, from their upcoming album of the same name, due out Feb 3), I expected to be overwhelmed by death vocals and skull-crushing drums and bass (which, in today's political climate might just match my internal rage...). Instead, well, no. Rather it's a mix of bluesy psychedelic rock, that one might grudgingly call progressive - but prog or not, likeable and appealing to the same areas of the musical brain that prog does, me thinks. It mellows out my current state of mind with some really sharp and to the point guitar soloing and a groovy musical refrain that is lingerng in my head even as I've unmuted the news again (just to torture myself, I suppose).

Tim Bowness has launched the second track taken from his forthcoming album Lost In The Ghost Light out 17th February, titled "Distant Summers." This track features Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. The album is now available to pre-order from Burning Shed. All orders will receive a signed artwork postcard. Pre-order now here: Burning Shed :: Amazon

You can also pre-order the album digitally from iTunes & Amazon MP3 and receive the tracks "Distant Summers" & "You Wanted To Be Seen" immediately: Amazon MP3 :: iTunes.

In keeping with the recent tradition, Echo Us is releasing its 4th animated music video called "It’s Time For Winter," on the winter solstice. The single is the first Echo Us work to see release after the three-album "Trilogy Memoriam" concluded in 2014. As the project's founder, Ethan Matthews is also celebrating his 15th year of creating and releasing music as Echo Us.

"It’s Time For Winter" embraces the season with its light to dark metaphorical stanzas wrapped in quick-paced percussive bravado and guitar atmospheres. Echo Us as a musical project was conceived of during a two week commitment of it's founder in a mental hospital 2001, and although the music has grown much brighter since that time there is also a tinge of unquiet in the new single.

Young British progressive rockers Maschine recently announced the release of their second studio album Naturalis on November 18th, 2016 on InsideOut Music. Now they are pleased to reveal the first track to be taken from the album, and you can watch the lyric video for "Night & Day" below.

Lead guitarist & vocalist Luke Machin had this to say: "We are hugely proud to share this piece with you all as it's a true gripping story of one man's natural instinct to fight on night and day. The combined creation of the music and visuals has brought this story to life and we are really excited for you to hear it."

Firstly, who are Sunpilots? I had to ask myself - it was a sponsored post in my personal FB feed (vs the PW FB feed); I played the video and... decided to share their post here. Not sure if they consider themselves prog, they aren't in the classic sence (e.g., not Yes, ELP, etc., imitators), but... there was something modern prog about them to me.

So, hailing from Australia, the band now lives on the road, with no fixed location. You can read their bio and you'll see I'm not exagerating. They've released 2 albums already - Living Receiver and King Of The Sugarcoated Tongues, and are now crowdfunding for their third; here's the post:

"We're excited to bring you guys another new album preview! 'Fireflies' filmed live in the studio. We're independent and need your help to make this record. Head to pledge.thesunpilots.com if you want to support our crowdfunding campaign. Share and spread the word!"

"Lifesigns are proud to announce the official launch of the pledge camapaign for our new CD Cardington. We hope you will join us in making Cardington the next step in the world of Lifesigns. [...] For those about to pledge ...we salute you :-) xx"

In researching more info on this, we learned from their website that they have already met 100% of their goal! In two days! But, that doesn't mean you can't still contribute. Go to www.pledgemusic.com/projects/lifesignsalbum. The album is due Spring 2017.