The write stuff

A 20-PAGE CELEBRATION

Buckle up and prepare to be taken on the ride of a lifetime. Steven Wilson is back with The Overview , an album that even he admits is prog. Comprising two tracks, the conceptual suite includes lyrics from XTC’s Andy Partridge and visuals that are out of this world. Prog visits the musician at home to get the lowdown.

With Iron Maiden celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, we talk to all the members of the band and look back over the successes, trials, tribulations, thrills, spills and genre-defining records of the longest-running and arguably greatest heavy metal band of them all.

After INXS’s first four albums, the band were ready to step up – but they were acutely aware that nobody knew quite what to make of them. They’d had one Top 30 hit in the US, 1982’s The One Thing, and

For SMALL FACES , 1968 was a year of extremes, from hit singles and a career-defining album to a final, onstage bust-up. But while the bonds between them were strained by internal tensions and external dramas, the music they made in their last months together pointed tantalisingly in bold new directions. As an expanded version of their posthumous The Autumn Stone set reveals fresh treasures, Rob Hughes discovers what really transpired during the band’s final, tumultuous 12 months. “We were splitting up,” says Kenney Jones. “But we sounded so great.”

Fierce, tender and defiantly independent, The Pretenders are rock’s rebels without a clause in the contract. Four decades and dozens of huge hits into their career, they still do exactly – and only – what they want. Chrissie Hynde ’s high-wattage charisma and breathtaking voice are part of the equation. But so are a fistful of effortless, irresistible guitar hooks that make you reach for rewind every time a Pretenders track plays to the fade. With a stripped-down, rock ’n’ roll live album, Kick ’Em Where It Hurts , set for release in the coming weeks, we join Chrissie and guitarist James Walbourne to find out why ‘holding the fort for bands’ remains their mission