LONELY ROBOT – announce new album ‘Feelings Are Good’

Lonely Robot, the project masterminded by producer, guitarist and singer/songwriter John Mitchell (Kino, Frost*, Arena, It Bites), is set to release its fourth album ‘Feelings Are Good’ on July 17th, 2020, a fresh start following the conclusion of the ‘The Astronaut Trilogy’.
 
John comments: “‘Feelings Are Good’ is a bit of a departure from the first three Lonely Robot albums or ‘The Astronaut Trilogy’ as it has now lovingly become known.  On ‘Feelings Are Good’, I wanted to explore more personal themes and the songs are very much about individual experiences and narratives that I believe had been the cornerstones, good and bad, to my life. The long tall and short of it is that we’re back on planet Earth, and I have a personal lyrical axe to grind!”
 
‘Feelings Are Good’ will be available as a Limited Edition CD Digipak, Gatefold 2LP+CD and as Digital Album in both 16 & 24 bit versions (all including 2 bonus tracks). The artwork is once again by Paul Tippett / Vitamin P (Black Star Riders, Frost*), and John says of the cover: “The artwork is meant to be a little disturbing. The closed eyes and taped over mouth are supposed to represent how people are very guarded with their emotions and what better way of emoting them than through the windows to the soul and the smile?”
 
The full track-listing is as follows:
1.Feelings Are Good
2.Into The Lo-Fi
3.Spiders
4.Crystalline
5.Life Is A Sine Wave
6.Armour For My Heart
7.Suburbia
8.The Silent Life
9.Keeping People As Pets
10.Army Of One
11.Grief Is The Price Of Love
12.The Silent Life (Orchestral Version)
13.Crystalline (Orchestral Version)
 
Lonely Robot will hit the road in December 2020 for some select headline dates, and you can find a list of those below:
Dec 13th  Islington Assembly Hall, London, UK
Dec 16th  Riff, Bochum, GER
Dec 17th  Das Rind, Rüsselsheim, GER
Dec 18th  Muziekgieterij, Maastricht, NL
Dec 20th  De Boerderij, Zoetermeer, NL
 
During the campaign for their acclaimed previous album ‘Under Stars’, a full animated film was created by Crystal Spotlight and screened at two very special cinema events in the UK. Now the full visual accompaniment is available to stream, and you can watch it now here: https://youtu.be/slyM9ZUzr6U
 
John comments: “It has always been an ambition of mine to have a full length visual accompaniment alongside an album of music I have written. With Under Stars and the help of Miles at Crystal Spotlight, this dream was finally realised last year. I’m very proud of the results and I’d like to thank Miles for all his hard work and patience in bringing this to fruition. I hope you enjoy it.”
 
John Mitchell is a man with a rich musical heritage and history – from musician and vocalist, to songwriter and producer. With bands like Arena, Frost*, Kino, It Bites and Lonely Robot, to name but a few, Mitchell has left his mark on the current progressive rock scene and has been involved in dozens of recordings. He is also a respected producer & mixer, running Outhouse Studios in the UK and working with artists as diverse as You Me At Six, Enter Shikari, Alter Bridge, Asia, Don Broco, Funeral For A Friend, McFly & much more.

The Prog Report to host All-Star ‘Prog From Home’ concert featuring Mike Portnoy, Jordan Rudess, Steve Hackett, Neal Morse and more.

Prog Rock news outlet The Prog Report is pleased to announce an All-Star event featuring some of the biggest names in the Progressive Rock.  The event titled ‘Prog From Home’ will premiere on The Prog Report YouTube channel on Saturday, May 9th at 11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm UK / 8pm CET.

Prog Report YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/progreportpage

The virtual concert will feature curated at-home performances by 
Mike Portnoy (Sons of Apollo/Neal Morse Band), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Steve Hackett, Neal Morse, Michael Sadler (Saga), Ray Wilson (ex-Genesis), Nick Barrett (Pendragon), Oliver Wakeman, Nick D’Virgilio (Big Big Train), Bruce Soord (The Pineapple Thief), Casey McPherson (Flying Colors), Haken, Enchant, Magenta, The Reign of Kindo, John Wesley (ex-Porcupine Tree), Paul Beilatowicz (Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy), John Mitchell (Lonely Robot), Eric Gillette (Neal Morse Band), Novena, Moron Police, Dave Kerzner & Fernando Perdomo, Randy McStine & Adam Holzman, The Fierce and the Dead, Randy and Pamela George, Dani Rabin (Marbin).  Also included are some guest performers and presenters.

The show is in support and celebration of doctors, nurses, first responders and all health-care workers.
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The Prog Report is one of the premiere destinations for progressive rock news, interviews, reviews, and more. The Prog Report podcast is ranked as one of the Top Ranked Music Commentary podcasts on Apple, with various programming including Prog Report Top 5, Artist and album profiles, and interviews with the biggest artists in Prog.  Launched in 2013, The Prog Report has a worldwide audience with an extremely passionate social media following.

Haken launch video for ‘Canary Yellow’ / Second single taken from ‘Virus’

Progressive rockers Haken recently revealed their new studio album ‘Virus’, the follow-up to 2018’s acclaimed album ‘Vector’, will be released 5th June 2020. Now they are pleased to launch the video for the album’s second single ‘Canary Yellow’, a striking animated clip created by Crystal Spotlight. Watch it now here: 

The band comments: “For Canary Yellow, we went in a more alternative direction, since we’re all big fans of bands like Radiohead, Elbow and Peter Gabriel. Those are artists who can portray quite dark subject matter through really beautiful music. Since the ‘Virus’ album is intended to be a metaphor for various negative tropes of society, we wanted to explore this idea in a variety of ways.

Canary Yellow deals with the suppression of physical and mentally abusive relationships; something that can often remain hidden behind a seemingly happy facade. 

We once again returned to long time visual collaborators ‘Crystal Spotlight’ for this ambitious animation and we’re absolutely thrilled with how well the visuals complement and enhance the atmosphere of the song. The video shows a seemingly idyllic family environment, but with a sense of sadness beneath the surface and absolute devastation looming on the horizon. They go about their day oblivious to the fact that they are mannequins living in a 1950s style ‘Doom Town‘ experiment.”

he video for the album’s first single, ‘Prosthetic’, has reached over 200,000 views so far and the song has over 300,000 streams. You can watch the video now here: 

The band recently started broadcasting from their new Twitch channel, and they will be going in-depth on how ‘Canary Yellow’ was written and produced on the 8th May at 6pm UK time. Watch here: 

https://www.twitch.tv/hakenofficial/

By way of introduction, the band recorded a special video message to give some background to the new record: 

Since releasing ‘Vector’ in October 2018, Haken have completed headline tours the world over, played sold-out shows across Europe and North America as support for Devin Townsend and picked up a Prog award for their efforts too! All the while, they have been quietly, secretly working on the follow-up album, entitled ‘Virus’.

Drummer Ray Hearne reveals, “since releasing ‘The Mountain’ in 2013, one question has been asked of us time and time again, ‘who is the Cockroach King?’. This is something we were interested in exploring more deeply too, so we essentially did that through our music; elaborating and expanding upon the intervallic, harmonic, rhythmic and lyrical themes of that song. The end result is in an arc which spans across two albums: ‘Vector’ and ‘Virus’”.

Once again, Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood has mixed what is perhaps the most eclectic Haken album to date, with the 7 tracks revealing hints of influences from multiple genres, all intertwined with Haken’s own recognisable sound. Guitarist Richard Henshall had this to say about the production, “Using Nolly again was a no-brainer, as we wanted the two albums to be sonically connected. But having just spent a day mixing with him in his studio, it’s obvious that this album will be an evolution of the ‘Vector’ sound. These songs seem to allow a lot more freedom of creativity with the production, so we’re excited to see where it leads”.

Longtime Haken collaborators, Blacklake, have designed the visuals and artwork and the album will be available as a Limited 2CD, Standard CD, Gatefold 2LP + CD & as Digital Album. Pre-order now here: https://haken.lnk.to/Virus

The track-listing is as follows:

1.     Prosthetic

2.     Invasion

3.     Carousel

4.     The Strain

5.     Canary Yellow

6.     Messiah Complex i: Ivory Tower

7.     Messiah Complex ii: A Glutton for Punishment

8.     Messiah Complex iii: Marigold

9.     Messiah Complex iv: The Sect

10.  Messiah Complex v: Ectobius Rex

11.  Only Stars

‘Virus’ is the culmination of a musical thought experiment which started with the ‘Vector’ writing sessions in 2017 and holds intriguing potential for the band’s future, as vocalist Ross Jennings explains, “whilst ‘Virus’ can absolutely be enjoyed as a stand-alone work, it is thematically and conceptually linked with ‘Vector’, so our intention is to perform both albums back to back for a special performance someday”. 

HAKEN are:

Ross Jennings

Richard Henshall

Charlie Griffiths

Diego Tejeida

Conner Green

Ray Hearne