"Pawn Hearts" is considered the opus magnum of one of the greatest prog bands of the 70s. It was a groundbreaking album in many respects - with its mixture of melodiousness and aggression, a long track covering an entire LP side, dark, psychedelic passages and, last but not least, Peter Hammill's expressive vocals, which still fascinate, but also disturb music lovers worldwide. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the work, eclipsed spoke with the musician about an exciting but also exhausting time in the history of England's most uncompromising prog formation.

The Styx saga continues: Four years after the concept album "The Mission", the band from Chicago reports back with the no less ambitious work "Crash Of The Crown". Even after about five decades in rock orbit, they continue to evolve without losing their identity. Founding member, guitarist and vocalist James "J. Y." Young has his very own take on things and chats candidly about his relationship with Chuck Panozzo, who still occasionally plays bass, and former keyboard leader and vocalist Dennis DeYoung.

For decades he was a kind of showcase songwriter of West Coast rock: a beau with catchy songs, famous musician friends, dapper playmates and hippie lifestyle and an exemplary political and environmental activist. But at the age of 72, even Jackson Browne has to shift down a few gears. This manifests itself in increasingly rare albums, tours and interviews. With "Downhill From Everywhere" he releases his first sign of life in seven years - an ambitious late work that comes across as versatile and gentle at the same time

Level Pi is the one-man-project of Uwe Cremer from Cologne. The man is a Krautrock and Pink Floyd fan through and through. So it's no surprise that the new album "Electronic Philosophy" also tries to combine the stylistic means of the Berlin electronic school and the British art rock icon.

When Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister died on December 28, 2015, it was automatically the end of Motörhead: Ultimately, all the remaining members of the group, no matter how long they were around and how much musical input they provided, were always just "sidekicks" to the band's founder. But not only Lemmy himself, Motörhead also became a legend, especially in the last 20 years of their existence, when the group managed to captivate an increasingly diverse audience that ended up being far larger than is the norm in the hard rock and heavy metal cosmos

Already the sensational album title challenges the question. Who is the singer of the New York prog rock band IZZ talking about? Is "The Most Dangerous Woman In America" Laura Meade herself? Or which woman(s) is she thinking of? Musically, the second solo album is also convincing. An electronic soundscape has swept away the rest of the tender folk in her Kate Bush/Tori Amos brand of artpop

Strong women are muzzled in society

The covid pandemic has thrown most bands' plans into disarray, but few acts have used the inability to tour as creatively as King Buffalo, who have three albums coming out in 2021. Of course, this wasn't planned, as singer/guitarist Sean McVay explains, "I don't think we would have been able to tackle three albums if it wasn't for the pandemic. We would have spent a considerable amount of time on the road if everything had gone according to plan, and not been able to spend as much time writing."

The first of the three albums, "The Burden Of Restlessness", sounds typically like the psychedelic stoner sound of the Americans, but the lyrics seem more thoughtful and personal than in the past. "I've been struggling with my mental health for quite a while. There were some difficult family situations that came to light. Coupled with the circumstances of the pandemic and an increasingly frightening social and political environment, I got myself into a hell of a situation ..."

Wolfgang Becker and his two comrades-in-arms of the trio Schwarzbrenner, based in Ratingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, are seasoned blues men. Especially idols like Cream or Rory Gallagher have taken a liking to the formation around the 65-year-old mastermind. At the same time, the singer and guitarist is a "fine spirit", as he describes himself, "a passionate follower of the classical romanticism of Novalis or Hölderlin".

But on the band's current twelfth album after two and a half decades of existence, entitled "Zauberworte" ("Magic Words"), there are now lyrical settings by rather more unknown Romantics such as Achim von Arnim (1781-1831) and Clemens Brentano (1778-1842) as well as by the "house poet" Georg Heym, who worked a century later. Lyrically, one is transported to an enchanted magic garden, entirely in the tradition of "Des Knaben Wunderhorn".