1977-1982

Who was at the top of the British album charts in the first and second weeks of May 1980? The Cure, Iron Maiden, maybe Boney M? Not even close. All three of those names did appear in the top 30, but at the summit sat Sky.

Who? They're hardly the most fondly remembered band of the era. But they were a decent commercial phenomenon, scoring four consecutive top ten albums from their 1979 debut "Sky" through to 1982's "Sky 4 – Forthcoming…". The reason for their obscurity today is easily explained: they played progressive rock. And not just any kind, but the optimistic, ultra-melodic sort steeped in classical references. Precisely the kind of music that, according to the alternative narrative of later decades, was supposed to have vanished into thin air at dawn on 28 October 1977, with the release of the incendiary "Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols". Instead, in that same year straddling the Seventies and Eighties, it kept turning up again and again on the British album charts, undeterred: with Yes (runner-up with "Drama"), Alan Parsons Project ("The Turn Of A Friendly Card"), Jethro Tull ("A"), Genesis ("Duke"), Mike Rutherford ("Smallcreep's Day"), Mike Oldfield ("QE2"), Steve Hackett ("Defector"). Proof that, far from being dead and buried, the genre still had real vitality and drawing power with audiences.

If it's not much remembered today, it's partly down to the distorted narratives that took hold over the years around the supposed clash between prog and punk, and partly to the reductive view that nothing progressive appeared in Britain until the much-derided "resurrection" of the genre by Marillion, with 1982/1983's "Market Square Heroes" and "Script For A Jester's Tears". Even at the time, though, the period spanning the Seventies and Eighties was marked by a transition that left both artists and fans disoriented: having been accused of stagnation and self-indulgence ever since 1971-72, an increasing number of musicians who had made their name through versatility went off in search of new directions. Progressive, the meta-genre par excellence, absorbed new influences and reshuffled the conventions listeners had grown used to, convincing some of them that a "betrayal" of the genre's musical ideals was underway (the case of Genesis is almost legendary in this regard, and was recently the subject of an in-depth feature). The music press and record labels did their part too, showing substantial disinterest in newcomers to the field. Very few new artists managed to land deals with major labels from 1976 onward: aside from supergroups and projects fronted by already-established names, like Alan Parsons Project or Phil Collins's Brand X, the only acts that managed to debut on labels of any standing were Sky (on the important German label Ariola), The Enid (EMI), and two bands signed to Arista: England and Chorale.

Plenty of other artists were active in the field, but the fragmented nature of their audiences makes it hard to speak of a genuine scene: the progressive "diaspora" is made up of a multitude of centrifugal paths, some prominent and others less so, at times easily traceable back to the genre's cornerstones, at other times far less so, mostly due to the eclecticism of the approaches and the strong overlap with other genres. In trying to map out the directions explored by progressive-minded musicians, this article and the accompanying selections of artists and tracks will focus in particular on four areas, which frequently overlap: the evolution of the symphonic approach and its pull towards American AOR, the developments of the Canterbury Sound and avant-prog, art-pop paths (often launched by solo artists), and the encounters with post-punk and new wave. Another significant territory, tied to the emerging new age scene, has already been explored in a dedicated playlist.

Between America and the provinces

Much loved by audiences, far less so by critics, the artists most commonly associated with the term "progressive rock" in the mid-Seventies were the exponents of the symphonic strand, also known under labels such as art-rock, flash-rock or techno-rock. Their lavish style had already allowed some of them to break through in the US market in the first half of the decade; later on, the strong American showing of bands like Kansas and Styx pointed to the bombastic character of AOR as a possible model for anyone chasing success on the other side of the Atlantic.

Among British acts, it was above all those who had already played a few American stages that leaned towards a punchier, more radio-friendly sound, one able to make room for virtuosic flourishes and grandiose arrangements while still pushing hard on catchiness and rock impact. Yes and Gentle Giant, particularly beloved by American audiences, were among the first to explore this route, but other names soon joined the fray. UK, a supergroup featuring former members of Yes, King Crimson, Curved Air and Soft Machine, approached AOR from a more jazz-inflected angle; by contrast, the newly formed Magnum debuted with a hybrid of symphonic prog, hard rock and AOR, a formula that would blossom in the mid-Eighties into a highly influential style with decent commercial success.

Other names, both established acts and more recent debutants, kept their style closer to the symphonic sound of the early Seventies. Among them were the already mentioned England, Sky and The Enid, but also the two ex-Genesis members Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford (before the pop success of the Mike And The Mechanics project). Widening the lens to include some truly obscure, small-time acts, one also finds hybrid formulas that, in hindsight, can be classed as transitional elements towards the neo-prog of the following decade. Even though it's unlikely that Marillion and IQ were directly influenced by bands often confined to local circuits, the examples of Grace, After The Fire and Gizmo show how the debt owed to the Gabriel-era Genesis was starting to combine with simpler compositional structures (partly due to a lack of resources, partly to lesser technical skill) and sounds related to new wave. The results are epic yet unfussy, ever-shifting yet strongly melodic; even in their most carefree moments, their music remains steeped in an elusive nostalgic aura.

The alternative goes hybrid

Suspended between electric jazz, wry pop and rock, the sound of the "Canterbury school" made far less of a splash in the first half of the Seventies compared to names like Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, but thanks to its more measured approach it managed to hold onto both critical favour and the attention of a devoted audience. The constant churn of new bands and swapping of musicians typical of the scene carried on undiminished through the second half of the Seventies, bringing to the fore in particular Dave Stewart's National Health (Egg, Hatfield And The North) and the various offshoots of the Gong galaxy (Pierre Moerlen's Gong, Paragong, New York Gong, Mother Gong and so on). These latter are closely tied to the world of free festivals, a scene that also includes the rough-edged, spaced-out Here&Now (effectively Daevid Allen's backing band in Planet Gong), the solo work of Steve Hillage, the unclassifiable The Astronauts and – in a more marginal position – the ill-fated Skywhale.

The evolution of the Canterbury Sound intertwines with that of the avant-prog strand spearheaded by Henry Cow, who in 1978 signed the "Rock In Opposition" manifesto alongside other European bands and that same year changed their name to Art Bears (following a shake-up of the line-up). Of all the branches of progressive rock, this is the one most resolutely opposed to market logic and to the grandiose tones typical of symphonic rock: indeed, more than one artist associated with the movement showed, and still shows, a marked reluctance to consider their music related to that of Genesis, ELP, Yes, or even King Crimson. Always at ease being compared to Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart or Faust, the musicians tied to Henry Cow found in the dissonance and social critique of post-punk a point of continuity with their own artistic vision. At the same time, contacts with the jazz avant-garde first led to one-off explorations such as the album "Kew.Rhone" (with Carla Bley and Michael Mantler), then – once they'd crossed the ocean – to more stable collaborations within the no wave scene (e.g. Material, Massacre, Golden Palominos – left out of this article's selections as they were based in the United States).

The art-pop legacy

While the continuation of the symphonic strand in new guises won over no critical favour, and that of Canterbury and avant-prog lost none, there were artists who, initially given little consideration, gained growing appreciation from music journalists from the second half of the Seventies onward, and in some cases from audiences too. These were mostly musicians who, partly or entirely moving beyond the progressive styles of the early Seventies, managed to carve out their own path towards new wave sounds.

The stylistic range covered was wide-ranging, but if we try to group things together, singer-songwriter-driven art-pop stands out as an important outlet for names like Peter Gabriel, Peter Hammill, Kate Bush. The artists of this strand, at times quite resolute in their wish to leave the past behind, carried the evocative power, breadth of vision and formal care of early-Seventies progressive rock into new territory, in some cases even converging with musicians of a very different background (John Cale, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson). While the link between the former frontmen of Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator and progressive rock is clear enough, that of the eclectic Kate Bush is perhaps less obvious, given that she only debuted in 1978 with backing from David Gilmour. And yet, among genre devotees her name has over time become an unavoidable reference point, with extensive coverage in the prog "bibles" ProgArchives and Prog Magazine, and a central role in books devoted to the evolution of progressive music after the mid-Seventies ("Beyond And Before: Progressive Rock Since The 1960s" by Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell, "The Billboard Guide To Progressive Music" by Bradley Smith, "Le ceneri del prog" by Mattia Merlini).

Also comparable to Kate Bush, albeit more punk and dark in spirit, is the eccentric figure of Toyah Wilcox, future wife of Robert Fripp and author of records straddling woozy prog-pop and the nascent goth aesthetic. Without straying too far from this colourful art-pop field, one can also find idiosyncratic projects tied to seasoned producers: the pioneering Landscape and the Scottish Café Jacques (somewhere between 10cc and late-Seventies Genesis, with more than a few premonitions of sophisti-pop).

Progressive and the “new wave”

Then there are those who enter new wave territory with both feet: the reborn King Crimson are an essential mention, but the lesser-known After The Fire and Bill MacCormick's Random Hold (Matching Mole, Quiet Sun and 801) also produced an intriguing synthesis. Another artist who belongs in this group is Jakko M. Jakszyk, who would go on to appear in numerous progressive-leaning projects across the decades (from ex-Van Der Graaf Generator member David Jackson's Long Hello, all the way to The Tangent and King Crimson). His 1982 debut is a blend of funk, oblique jazz-rock and Talking Heads-style flourishes that seems to build a bridge between Canterbury and Japan.

It is, however, above all the complementary territory – that of wave and post-punk artists whose style echoed progressive rock – that proves particularly rich. As music journalist Simon Reynolds once observed, a significant part of this strand amounted to a kind of “reissue” of progressive rock, though built on styles and values updated to the British context of the latter half of the Seventies. The foundation of the sound was thus not beat and psychedelia, but punk; and the genres it “absorbed” were not established forms like jazz, classical and folk, but new arrivals such as dub, funk and ska. The beacon of virtuosity was often replaced by the pursuit of a personal sound.

To name a few examples, the devotion to Steve Howe of Pil's cacophonous guitarist Keith Levene is well known, but even sticking to bigger names one can find more conspicuous affinities: Magazine display blatant Genesis-esque echoes, while the baroque flourishes of the Stranglers stem from keyboardist Dave Greenfield's passion for Rick Wakeman and Jon Lord. Even Colin Moulding and Andy Partridge's Xtc, who over the years would become a pillar of progressive pop with works like “English Settlement” and “Skylarking”, showed from their very beginnings, through their interlocking parts and time changes, their debts to artists who were at the time “unmentionable” in interviews. Wire's Colin Newman would go so far, much later, as to claim that the band's “real” records are the ones from “Chairs Missing” onward, precisely because they're progressive (the remark appears in an interview quoted in Mike Barnes's “A New Day Yesterday”).

Moving into more underground territory, one runs into a teeming web of prog/post-punk intersections. Around This Heat and the various offshoots of the usual Henry Cow, a series of acts operated between styles, some with a dark, suburban sound, others with a lush yet lopsided flair that the cataloguing obsession of the internet era would eventually label Zolo. The Work, Ludus, Flying Lizards, Family Fodder are a few examples of this underbrush: the latter resemble Stereolab so closely that it's tempting to assume a direct influence.

Even the nascent goth aesthetic owed something to progressive rock: not only for its dark atmospheres, already refined by various dark-prog acts in some cases as far back as the very end of the Sixties, but also for the occasional guitar illuminations that, often via the bridge of John McGeoch (Magazine, Siouxsie And The Banshees), link directly back to Steve Howe. Pieces such as the aforementioned “Beyond And Before” insist on the “progressiveness” of Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie's Cocteau Twins; perhaps even more explicit are the parallels in the dream-pop of Chameleons and Sad Lovers And Giants, whose Lp debuts fall outside this article's selection since they came after 1982, the cut-off point chosen for this survey.

The end of the amnesia

Between the late Seventies and early Eighties, progressive music underwent multiple transformations on British soil, both out of the spotlight and in plain view on the charts and on the fledgling Mtv. But it's to the 1982-1983 period that fans and detractors alike most often attribute the genre's “rebirth”. As should be clear by now, that judgement is misleading, but something new did indeed happen in those years. The symphonic side, which even in the early Seventies had been the genre's commercial engine, once again drew the interest of labels and attracted a new audience. Only a few years earlier, young musicians drawn to the revival had been condemned to virtual invisibility: the bands found neither stages nor contracts, and enjoyed only scattered, local fanbases. It is also documented (in Chris Anderton's 2016 paper “Fire In Harmony: The 1980s Uk British Progressive Rock Revival”) that in many cases these groups were unaware of each other's existence. In short, it wasn't possible to speak of a “scene”. With the success of Marillion – and, later and to a lesser extent, Pallas, IQ and Twelfth Night – the perception of a “common front” re-emerged, aware of its own existence and endowed with its own visibility and recognisability. It was a short-lived “flare-up”: within a few years the chart presence of the leading bands evaporated, and no new generation arrived to take their place. Paradoxically, however, the sudden spotlight seized by neo progressive ended up condemning to damnatio memoriae many of the transformations that had characterised the genre in the years immediately before. The listening suggestions that make up the rest of this article are meant as starting points for partially overcoming that amnesia.

Not all forty albums in this selection are masterpieces, or belong to progressive rock in the sense most commonly understood today. Each one, however, is a tile in the highly colourful mosaic this article tries to reconstruct. The titles have been ordered by year of release, and for ease of consultation divided into four categories.

The “milestones” are records already considered crucial by this site, which has long hosted detailed reviews of them in its most prestigious column. We felt no need to add further comment to them. “Dinosaurs” and “newcomers” are ironic labels distinguishing artists whose fame had already been established during progressive rock's most celebrated period from those who instead began their careers once the genre's era of greatest visibility was already behind it. As you'll notice, the two categories are rather porous: the “newcomers” group, in particular, also includes post-1977 projects by already-seasoned artists. All these records are easy to find on the main streaming platforms. In the “rarities” section, on the other hand, are works that are less readily available: for each of these, the date of the last reissue is also given (assuming one ever happened).

The accompanying playlist, besides serving as a “taste” of some of the albums featured, includes a few different choices and devotes particular space to the progressive/post-punk intersections, selecting tracks especially representative of those connections.

Milestones

Alan Parsons Project – I Robot (1977) review by Claudio Fabretti

Kate Bush – The Kick Inside (1978) review by Giuliano Delli Paoli

The Stranglers – The Raven (1979) review by Enrico Parise

Flying Lizards – Flying Lizards (1980) review by Leonardo Di Maio

This Heat – Deceit (1981) review by Marco Sgrignoli

Peter Gabriel – IV (1982) review by Marco Sgrignoli

“Dinosaurs”

Camel – Rain Dances (1977)

Last Camel album to crack the top 20, and the last with Andrew Latimer and Peter Bardens co-writing every track. "Rain Dances" closes out one phase of the band's career while at the same time flinging open the door to the next: it's the first without longtime bassist Doug Ferguson, replaced by ex-Caravan man Richard Sinclair, and the first with a full-time horn player in the lineup – Mel Collins, already a veteran of King Crimson, Bad Company and Uriah Heep. But it would be a mistake to file this record away as mere transitional work. Always skilled at carving out atmospheres through their interplay, on "Rain Dances" Camel seem intent on building a whole gallery of moods. The songs, melodically rock-solid, are bubbles suspended between light and melancholy, miniature worlds enclosing nameless emotions. As if to confirm this inclination, one track features Brian Eno, who not long after would be busy shaping the ambient landmark "Music For Airports". The band's career would carry on for a long time, with valuable albums increasingly straddling progressive rock and new wave: the liquid tones and introspective streak of "Rain Dances" are thus at once a preview of what's to come and a one-off within the group's trajectory.

John Greaves, Peter Blegvad, Lisa Herman – Kew.Rhone (1977)

After Henry Cow and Slapp Happy went their separate ways, John Greaves of the former stayed in touch with Peter Blegvad of the latter, and in 1976 followed him to New York, where Blegvad had in the meantime found work at an animation studio. The two set to work on a concept album, with music by Greaves and lyrics by Blegvad, based on illustrations Blegvad himself had drawn (and on the painting that appears on the cover, "Exhuming The First American Mastodon" by the nineteenth-century painter Charles Willson Peale). Packed with surreal imagery, proverbs, palindromes and anagrams, the lyrics are matched by the moonstruck tone of the music, performed by Greaves, Blegvad and singer Lisa Herman alongside two heavyweights of New York avant-jazz, Carla Bley and Michael Mantler. The resulting formula, poised between Brechtian solemnity and singer-songwriter craft, Canterbury-style playfulness and experimental darkness, is a one-of-a-kind within the landscape of its era.

Pink Floyd – Animals (1977)

When "Animals" came out, it was without question the darkest record in the Pink Floyd catalogue. Given the rest of the band's career, that description may no longer hold true today, but the album certainly marks a curious double peak: it's the most punk record the band ever released, and at the same time also the most progressive – at least going by the meaning that word is commonly given nowadays. If the psychedelic haze of the early years and the studio sophistication of "The Dark Side Of The Moon" bear little resemblance to symphonic sound, the Rhodes chords of "Sheep" and the shape-shifting structure of "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" mark, in all likelihood, the closest the quartet ever came to progressive-rock conventions. The bleak atmospheres, the modern sound and the angry edge of the performances nonetheless push the album toward the upheavals of the Thatcher era, making it not only the preamble to the psychoanalytic epic "The Wall", but also a litmus test of how, by the close of the Seventies, disillusionment had by then replaced the last hopes of the hippie era.

Bruford – One Of A Kind (1979)

The second album from the jazz-rock outfit led by one of prog's quintessential drummers, "One Of A Kind", like its predecessor, sits at the crossroads of virtuoso fusion and the Canterbury sound. The lineup says it all: on guitar and bass, two top-tier session players such as Allan Holdsworth and Jeff Berlin (though that label undersells them, obviously); on keyboards, the founder of Egg, Hatfield And The North and National Health, Dave Stewart. And then there's Bill Bruford, who wrote every track (bar one credited to Holdsworth) and is the pivot around which the music's balance turns. It's thanks to his energetic yet composed style, full of invention but never overplayed, that the tracks sound kaleidoscopic without showmanship ever overwhelming their playfulness and evocative qualities. The shifting moods and constant rhythmic and melodic surprises make this an ideal listen even for those who love symphonic bands but sometimes find instrumental fusion a touch too austere.

Hawkwind – Levitation (1980)

A pillar of the free-festival circuit since its earliest days in 1970, Dave Brock's Hawkwind are a crucial name in the British underground, and among the very first acts whose music was ever dubbed space-rock. Their reputation among progressive rock fans rests mainly on the first half of the Seventies, but the band's subsequent phase reveals a curious phenomenon: respected even by punk critics and musicians for their thunderous sound, in the studio they began smoothing out their rowdier edges and drawing closer to other progressive acts. "Levitation", released at the turn of the decade, is emblematic of this process: trance-rock grooves and synthetic burbling, a staple of their overwhelming live shows, are here arranged with discipline and melodic sharpness – with a flavour that at times verges on wave. Constant lineup changes had left Brock as the sole survivor from the "Doremi Fasol Latido" era, and rounding out the lineup on this album is a surprising Ginger Baker, whose sprawling yet always well-balanced drumming proves an invaluable asset across much of the record.

Jethro Tull – A (1980)

Without ever overturning their own formula, from the mid-Seventies onward Jethro Tull explored, album after album, the possible variations on their sound, steering it now toward hard rock, now toward folk. "A", initially conceived as leader Ian Anderson's solo debut, marks the arrival of yet another path, more electronic yet still able to combine power and grace. For the occasion, UK keyboardist and violinist Eddy Jobson is recruited, and he's chiefly responsible for the record's new colourings. The songs are direct and modern in sound, with Jobson's synthetic inventions effectively complementing Martin Barre's slashing guitar work, made even more jarring here by the rhythmic instability of the tracks. The album gathers no great commercial results (the band won't earn a gold record until 1987's "Crest Of A Knave"), but it testifies to how the group's dynamism hadn't run aground after the fortunate 1977 of "Songs From The Wood".

Manfred Mann's Earth Band – Chance (1980)

Anglo-South African Manfred Mann may not be the most celebrated keyboard wizard of his era, but he's certainly among those who managed to reshape their keyboard sound most convincingly, making full use of the innovations of the late Seventies. The progressive pop of his Earth Band, active since 1971, hits a successful streak with 1976's "The Roaring Silence", and the following LPs consolidate their strength in the North American and German markets. With a very American sound that's nonetheless still clearly rooted in British experiences, the first album of the Eighties is a galvanizing blend of Aor and Alan Parsons-style experimentation, with power-pop forays and synthetic passages that wouldn't look out of place on Gary Numan or John Foxx tracks.

Yes – Drama (1980)

Few progressive bands can boast a capacity for reinvention comparable to that of Yes during the period of the genre's supposed evaporation. Almost every album from 1977 to 1983 experiments with new paths for the band's trademark celestial, sci-fi atmospheres. Of them all, the furthest from the early-Seventies canon is perhaps "Drama", which sees the Howe-Squire-White core joined by the two Buggles, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. This lineup would set the stage — once Howe departed and Jon Anderson returned home — for the Aor boom of "90125", but already on this first record it carries the Yessound into exceptionally modern, cutting-edge territory. The songs are as dazzling and shapeshifting as the Yes playbook demands, but guitar and bass sound sharper-edged, and the driving drums underpin a melodic streak that's more radio-friendly than ever. Having abandoned any classical leanings, the keyboards revel in polyphonic layering and the plastic, Fairlight CMI-style tones. With one foot in Seventies symphonic rock and the other in the Eighties of synth-pop and Aor, "Drama" is perhaps the album that best sums up the past and future souls of the band that came to symbolize progressive rock at a mainstream level.

Gordon Giltrap – Live (1981)

Almost erased from later rock narratives, acoustic guitar hero Gordon Giltrap enjoyed solid standing with British audiences throughout the second half of the Seventies, which in 1977 translated into a top-30 placing for his LP "Perilous Journey". Glimmers of his glittering virtuosity were already visible early in the decade on his two albums with Accolade, but it's above all in his solo career that his instrumental skill gains melodic muscle and takes on a symphonic character. His most interesting studio albums from a progressive standpoint are probably "Visionary" (1976) and "The Peacock Party" (1979), but it's above all the live dimension that fuels the cult around the artist. The recording of the concert in Oxford on 9 March 1979 is a fine compendium of Giltrap's style, one that will certainly satisfy fans of Gryphon, Michael Hedges and Alan Stivell. Trivia: as on other albums of the period, drums are handled by Ian Mosley, future Marillion member from 1984 onward.

Nick Mason – Fictitious Sports (1981)

A fish out of water in a landscape already rich in exceptions, the solo debut of the Pink Floyd drummer is filed under progressive rock only for lack of a more convincing alternative. It shares precious little with either the pomp of the symphonic bands or the sprawl of his parent group, or with the genre's many peripheral branches, from Canterbury to the harder-edged underground. The lineup and style place the album in jazz-rock territory, but even here the comparisons would be misleading: the credits give plenty of room to Chris Spedding's guitar (Nucleus), Gary Windo's horns (Centipede, New York Gong), Robert Wyatt's voice, and contributions from Americans Carla Bley (keyboardist and also author of all the tracks), Michael Mantler (trumpet) and Steve Swallow (bass); Wright's drumming, though, is anything but jazz, and the tracks' attitude is not remotely psychedelic. Only the lyrical openings of "Hot River" and the minimalist sections of the closing "I'm A Mineralist" tie the mood back to the seemingly distant British Seventies; for the rest, the album is almost a window onto the hybrid sound that would come to define New York's downtown scene in the years to follow.

Peter Hammill – Enter K (1982)

The sound and mood of new wave, the articulation of progressive rock. And then the unmistakable songwriting and voice of Peter Hammill, a symbol of rock expressionism revered even by the punk generation. His third album of the Eighties marks the start of a new phase for the former Van Der Graaf Generator member who, after the transformations that followed the band's split, feels the need for some stability. "Enter K" thus sees the debut of the K Group, made up of "K" (Peter Hammill himself), "Fury" (John Ellis of the Vibrators), "Mozart" and "Brain" (former VDGG members Nic Potter and Guy Evans). The presence of David Jackson's sax on two tracks brings the band even closer to Hammill's parent project, but despite the stylistic similarities the songs stand out for their variety, weaving together the urban funk of Talking Heads with synthetic darkness worthy of "Peter Gabriel IV" and even the Yamaha CP-70 electric piano so typical of Aor.

King Crimson – Beat (1982)

Robert Fripp has said it time and again: the reborn King Crimson of the Eighties have nothing to do with the "prison" that progressive rock represented. Truth be told, he was saying roughly the same thing back in the days of "Starless" and "Red", and yet both those albums and the eighties trilogy – "Discipline", "Beat", "Three Of A Perfect Pair" – are regarded by artists, fans and much of the critical establishment as a crucial stage in the evolution of prog. If the genre is now seen as the natural home of every kind of rhythmic interlocking or instrumental abstraction, that's largely thanks to the recalibration driven by Fripp and co. Granted, the urban atmospheres and wave-like edge of the band's new course have little of the fairy-tale about them, but especially on this "Beat", it's not hard to detect, beneath the surface, the same leaning towards guitar lyricism and shifting moods. Robert Fripp, in other words, was both right and wrong: what he, Bruford, Levin and Belew were making wasn't Seventies prog-rock – it was uncharted territory, distant yet adjoining, destined to give the genre fresh lifeblood and possibilities that would inspire many over the years, and still do today.

"Debutants"

England – Garden Shed (1977)

An album that has earned a cult following among fans over the decades, "Garden Shed" is one of the very few debuts released after 1975 on a major label (Arista, in this case) by musicians mostly making their first recording. The sound is a deftly played blend of Yes, Gentle Giant and, above all, Genesis, a band with which the Kent quartet shared some of their equipment as well as numerous stylistic traits: according to the Planet Mellotron website, one of the Mellotron MkIIs featured on the record is the first one ever owned by Tony Banks. Lively and full of twists and turns, the album's six tracks are a triumph of keyboards and ingenious synthetic sound design. Tracks like the opening "Midnight Madness" offer a taste of the chordal layering that would become standard practice for many artists in the years that followed: lacking a polyphonic synthesizer, however, keyboardist Robert Webb had to achieve the effect with an ordinary Minimoog and painstaking multitracking.

Skywhale – The World At Mind’s End (1977)

Released late and on a minor label, Bristol's own Skywhale found neither audience nor critical acclaim. A shame, because their melodious, intricate jazz-rock is among the most imaginative of the period. Their fully instrumental formula boasts tight yet airy interplay, blending Canterbury-style ideas with virtuosity that never tips into frivolity. Zappa-esque flourishes, chases between horns and clean guitar, and occasional funky injections are among the elements of their kaleidoscopic compositions, poorly served by striking cover art that's inappropriately unsettling for such a buoyant record. After playing Glastonbury in the year their sole album came out and appearing at a handful of other festivals, they split up in 1979 and the musicians involved went their separate ways: guitarist Steve Robshaw would go on to accompany Peter Hammill in his solo career, drummer Roy Dodds would play with Korgis and k.d. lang, while keyboardist Howard Scarr (aka Gwyo Zepix) would join composer Hans Zimmer's stable many years later, also serving time in Gong, Here & Now and Zorch.

UK – UK (1978)

With his acclaimed run in King Crimson over and the far more lucrative Asia venture not yet begun, bassist and singer John Wetton went looking for a new musical project. He teamed up with drummer and former Crimson bandmate Bill Bruford, and the two agreed each would recruit one further musician: Wetton brought in keyboardist and violinist Eddie Jobson (Curved Air, Roxy Music, future Jethro Tull), while Bruford enlisted dazzling guitarist Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine, Pierre Moerlen's Gong) to form UK. The sheer calibre of its members gave the band maximum versatility, but also one of the most distinctive sounds of the era: Aor and jazz-rock, energetic pop and dark synth surges combine into dynamic, futuristic atmospheres that rough up smooth melodicism and make the most abstract fusion interlocking irresistible.

National Health – Of Queues And Cures (1978)

National Health are the most prominent of the projects tied to the Canterbury sound in the second half of the Seventies, born essentially out of the merger of two major names on the scene, Hatfield And The North and Gilgamesh. After a first album in 1978, the group welcomed ex-Henry Cow members John Greaves and Georgie Born and released a second LP, which then as now stands as the fans' favorite. Compared with other fruits of that scene, the sound here is fierier and bolder, with few pop openings but a great deal of care lavished on both the melodies and the instrumental interlocking. In several passages, alongside the quintessential fuzz organ, the experimental attitude that had defined Egg resurfaces too. A must for fans: the story of the transition from Hatfield And The North to National Health, told through their live shows, is recounted in Jonathan Coe's novel "The Rotters' Club".

Jeff Wayne – The War Of The Worlds (1978)

Already a keyboardist and arranger for David Essex, in 1974 Jeff Wayne set his mind on orchestrating a musical version of H.G. Wells's science-fiction classic, which sees humanity locked in a desperate struggle against Martian invaders. The project caught the interest of Cbs and led to over a year of recording, between 1976 and 1977, with a star-studded cast including musicians from Moody Blues, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Thin Lizzy, as well as David Essex himself, guitarist Chris Spedding and film star Richard Burton as narrator. The resulting double album, rarely mentioned today, is one of the biggest-selling records of the Seventies in Britain, and still ranks among the fifty best-selling albums of all time in the UK (in progressive rock terms, it's second only to "The Dark Side Of The Moon"). Undeniably a bit démodé today with its synth-orchestra dialogues and spoken-word passages, it's a stylistically wide-ranging work with excellent instrumental ideas and intriguing disco flourishes.

Magnum – Kingdom Of Madness (1978)

In the very years when the British music press was worshipping the artists of New York's Cbgb scene as demigods, a band from Birmingham looked to other American models to carve out their own path into Aor. The heartfelt grandiosity of Kansas and the boogie-rock obsession of Boston are, together with a dash of Rush, the key ingredients that Magnum reworked alongside Yes, Led Zeppelin and the nascent New Wave Of British Heavy Metal on their debut album: the resulting sound is sharp and direct, yet imaginative and capable of real polish. The songs retain a distinctly progressive flavor, even as they pave the way for the epic hi-tech symphonism that would come to fruition in later years (see "On A Storyteller's Night", from 1985). The first example of "progressive metal"?

Magazine – Secondhand Daylight (1979)

Perhaps no band shows quite as clearly as Magazine how much a strand of post-punk was really a continuation of progressive rock under different premises. Even more than the debut "Real Life", the follow-up album feels set in an elseworld where rock's entire progressive evolution had begun deep into the Seventies. Those looking for direct nods to symphonic conventions should look elsewhere: aside from a few particularly Genesis-like keyboard passages, the connections with the earlier progressive wave are subliminal. Shifting, evocative atmospheres (though often tinted dark), a strong instrumental presence, epic momentum and stylistic leaps abound. Some magazines turned their noses up at the time, but the piercing tone of ex-Buzzcocks man Howard Devoto and John McGeoch's light-and-shadow guitar would prove crucial to the evolution of goth aesthetics, carrying this new progressive vision's influence forward into the following decades.

Punishment Of Luxury – Laughing Academy (1979)

Hailing from Newcastle and taking their name from a Segantini painting housed in Liverpool, the band formed in 1977, drawing on a kaleidoscopic pantheon that included King Crimson and Sex Pistols, Sparks and 10cc, Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren. Punishment Of Luxury (PuniLux to their friends) are among the most eccentric outfits to emerge from the punk/prog frontier. Devotees of experimental theatre, they performed in masks and puppet-like movements, building caustic songs that revel in oddball flourishes and jagged edges. Schizoid funk-punk with plenty of common ground with Cardiacs and Devo.

The Enid – Six Pieces (1980)

A conservatory graduate and longtime collaborator with Barclay James Harvest, in 1973 Robert John Godfrey formed his own group, The Enid, destined to become the ultimate nerd-band for young Brits in the latter half of the Seventies. His bandmates were all close friends of Godfrey's, with whom he'd lived for several years at Finchden Manor, a "community for delinquent, disturbed or disturbing boys." The band built a cult following among a wildly varied audience, drawn in particular by their bizarre live shows, where classical reinventions rubbed shoulders with covers of the Troggs and Sex Pistols. Among their many sharply-focused albums, the fourth, "Six Pieces", stands out especially for its opener "The Punch and Judy Man", which fuses Gentle Giant with Debussy-esque harmonies in a genuinely chameleonic tour de force.

Sky – 2 (1980)

The band led by Anglo-Australian guitarist John Williams topped British and European charts at the turn of the decade with a classical-crossover style that spilled well into easy-listening territory: a clear sign of how strong public interest in classical/pop fusions still was. A double, entirely instrumental album, "Sky 2" reached platinum status in record time, propelled by the Bach-derived reworking "Toccata", released as a single. The band had plenty of other tricks up its sleeve too, counting among its ranks Herbie Flowers (T. Rex, bassist on Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side") and former Curved Air man Francis Monkman. Traditional pieces, classical guitar numbers, reworkings of Vivaldi and Rameau, plus a 17-minute suite, all ensure a varied tracklist, one still capable of satisfying listeners unfazed by the odd brush with kitsch.

The Astronauts – Peter Pan Hits The Suburbs (1981)

A band associated with the anarcho-punk scene, Mark Wilkins's Astronauts are proof (one of many) of how porous musical categories were at the turn of the Eighties. Their debut LP presents a hybrid folk/avant/post-punk sound that, alongside Crass, Stranglers and perhaps Fall, might remind Italian listeners of our own Franti. There are plenty of nods to the early Seventies, and to progressive artists in particular: amid decadent ballads that swell into spirited surges, tempo shifts and Floyd-like echoes, the musicians' fondness for the shifting moods of symphonic rock is plain to hear. Thornier sections built around piano, violin and flute (with ex-Hawkwind man Nik Turner guesting) also reveal a familiarity with the radical paths trodden by Henry Cow and co. The band's career continued through the Eighties, and from the mid-decade onward multi-instrumentalist Phil Thornton launched a prolific run of new age/space-ambient output, later joining the neo-psychedelic Mandragora in the Nineties.

Landscape – From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars…. ….To The Hell Holes Of Uranus (1981)

Definitely a borderline inclusion, Landscape's second album is a techno-art-pop record that has more in common with Yellow Magic Orchestra and the alien inventions of Godley & Creme than with any other artist mentioned in this piece. But the project's mastermind, Richard James Burgess, has a jazz background with Nucleus and Neil Ardley and worked with Kate Bush: he's very much "one of the crowd", and a listen to the record reveals a striking familiarity with the classic tricks of prog proper. Atmospheres that gradually build their own grandeur, flash-rock about-turns, darting synth diagonals that sound like guitars. The playful single "Einstein A Go-Go" did well enough to push the album to number sixteen on the charts, but Burgess's finest achievements came elsewhere: as producer, the year before, of the debut album by Spandau Ballet, he played a key role in ferrying the new romantic phenomenon from London clubs to commercial success.

Rarities

Planet Gong – Live At Floating Anarchy 1977 (1978)

By the mid-Seventies, the Gong lineup had splintered, giving rise to a tangle of personal trajectories and crossovers. Drummer Pierre Moerlen retained rights to the original name, pursuing a more disciplined jazz-rock/fusion path with a cast of excellent musicians compared to the first half of the decade. Steve Hillage, Gilli Smyth and Daevid Allen, meanwhile, went their own ways, and between 1977 and 1978 the latter two's paths crossed with Here & Now, a prog/punk/space-rock outfit that played an increasingly prominent role on the free-festival circuit. The sole recorded document of Planet Gong (the name given to their shared creature) is a live album that pairs Allen's usual unhinged spirit with a rougher, tighter sound, made all the more intoxicating by psychedelic electronics and krautrock-style repetition. Reissued on CD in 1996.

Arthur Brown & Vincent Crane – Faster Than The Speed Of Life (1980)

One of the guiding lights of the London underground in the late Sixties, Arthur Brown made his mark with the grand guignol theatre-rock of his Crazy World and Kingdom Come, paving the way for artists like Alice Cooper and Peter Gabriel, David Bowie and King Diamond. In 1979 he teamed up with former Atomic Rooster keyboardist Vincent Crane, betting on a heavily symphonic formula for an album that saw Klaus Schulze serve as executive producer. Amid plentiful Hammond organ passages and sweeping strings and brass, the result is dark and stately but never overblown, despite Brown's characteristically emphatic delivery. Reissued on CD in 2011.

Mike Rutherford – Smallcreep’s Day (1980)

The Genesis bassist and guitarist is hardly an unknown, but despite reissues, his debut solo album remains little celebrated and is absent from the major streaming platforms. Fans of the band's more prog-leaning period will appreciate its ties to Seventies textures and atmospheres, but the record is also notable for brilliant performances from singer Noel McCalla and drummer Simon Phillips, as well as the luminously melancholy mood of several tracks — a new-age touch perhaps brought to the table by ex-Genesis man Anthony Phillips, on keyboards here. Reissued on CD in 2022.

The Edge – Square 1 (1980)

A rather surprising outfit, London's The Edge released a single album that, amid the era's many progressive rock/new wave fusions, is probably the most evenly balanced of the lot. Boasting two ex-Damned members (guitar and drums) and a Jade Warrior alumnus (vocals and bass), the band had strong credentials on both fronts; yet it's the darting keyboard parts, courtesy of newcomer Gavin Povey, that prove the record's real trump card. Thirteen tracks of electrifying power-pop, somewhere between Stranglers, Genesis and Xtc. A shame it flopped and has never been reissued (release on the ramshackle Hurricane Records can't have helped on either front).

Walkie Talkies – Surveillance (1980)

Somewhere between Canterbury, Police and King Crimson's "Discipline" era, a hard-to-classify formula that's decidedly wave in cut and, at the same time, unmistakably jazz-rock. The masterminds behind the project, which for good measure also carries a few Godley & Creme inflections, are two otherwise unknown residents of Guernsey, Dave Fuller and Rob Spensley. For the occasion, though, they also enlisted Dave Stewart and Amanda Parsons of Hatfield And The North, as well as Stuart Elliott of Cockney Rebel. The result is a sharply focused, one-of-a-kind album, sadly never reissued.

Gizmo – Victims (1981)

Almost a combination of Genesis and Ultravox, the Canterbury outfit Gizmo fuse the tones of Peter Gabriel's band (clearly evoked by singer Dave Radford) with decadent electronic atmospheres, often verging on a creeping darkness. The synthesizers of keyboardist Brian Gould (already active a few years earlier with Seventh Wave) rarely linger on classical-tinged motifs, favouring instead a robotic gait that in its most cyberpunk moments recalls Gary Numan. The abundant presence of violin on some tracks enriches the palette of a record with a decidedly hybrid and surprising character, whose only reissue dates back to 1991 (on the neo-prog label UGUM Productions).

Grace – Grace (1981)

Shamelessly Genesis-esque, but with a pop, earthy attitude that will easily bring to mind early Marillion. Formed in 1977 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, Grace fail to make their mark with their sole album from the era, which nonetheless remains a significant testimony to the "intermediate" styles between Seventies symphonic prog and Eighties neo-prog. An influence on the bands of the revivalist wave that would break into the charts from late 1982 onward seems unlikely, but the similarities are notable, as are the parallels with other formulas being proposed elsewhere in Europe in those years (for instance by Germany's Neuschwanstein). Having missed out on success in the progressive field, the singer and wind player would return in 1983 with a new romantic project, White Door, with a bit more commercial fortune but no hit single. Never reissued.

The Work – Slow Crimes (1982)

Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow) and Bill Gilonis's The Work are easily the most anti-prog band in this selection. Amid clattering guitars, deliberately off-key vocals and noisy fragments, the disciplined experimentalism usually associated with the term "progressive" seems truly distant. Then again, back in the early Seventies Hodgkinson and co. already saw themselves as radically opposed not just to Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, but to King Crimson too. Both then and a decade later, though, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and it's not hard to detect a Frippian flavour (sorry, Frithian) in the electric diagonals of "Like This", or the typically progressive obsession with rhythmic interlocking in the (odd) offbeats of "Cain & Abel". Not an easy listen for everyone, but fans of This Heat and Family Fodder will find plenty to sink their teeth into here. Reissued on CD in 2019.

The Ghoulies – Dogged By Dogma (1982)

By the early Eighties the hype around the Canterbury scene had all but dissipated, and this project passed largely unnoticed despite featuring Dave Stewart and Pip Pyle of Hatfield And The North/National Health. The architect of the operation is Welshman Charlie Summers, who got in touch with the pair through a mutual acquaintance (Green Gartside of Scritti Politti). The tracks, all written and sung by Summers, combine the scene's trademark jazzy obliqueness with more recent influences, from dub to the funkier fringes of post-punk. An album recommended to all fans of the Canterbury mood and its evolutions. Never reissued.

Mazlyn Jones – Breaking Cover (1982)

After two folk-rock albums built heavily around the twelve-string, guitarist Nigel Mazlyn Jones decided to make room for the ambient textures and electronic treatments he had begun experimenting with on his second LP. Recruiting Guy Evans of Van Der Graaf Generator on drums, he focused on delay and layering, arriving at a highly personal formula, equidistant from new wave, new age and echoes of Gilmour, Fripp and John Martyn. "Breaking Cover" is a one-of-a-kind album, clearly rooted in Seventies sounds yet somehow already projected toward the textural path that would lead from Durutti Column to Dif Juz, Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis, and post-rock. Reissued on CD in 2012.

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08/03/2026