GuideConcept & Special

The Best Prog Rock Comeback Albums

A comeback album is defined by a number: the years between the last studio record and this one. That number is the only thing this page will assert. Why a band stopped, why it started again, whether anyone was ready — those are stories other people tell, usually without evidence, and they are not here. What is here is the interval, what the band did with it, and what the record sounds like it knows. The best prog rock comeback albums are the ones that make the gap audible, and the six below run from a seven-year silence to a twenty-year one.

King Crimson — Discipline (1981)

Seven years after the previous studio album, and the shortest gap on this page. It was recorded in May and June 1981 at Island Studios in Notting Hill and released on 2 October by E.G. in Britain and Warner Bros. in America, running 38:15 on the original LP. The line-up is the point: two guitarists both doubling on guitar synthesiser, one of them also singing, a player on Chapman Stick and bass, and a drummer — an instrumentation the band had never had before and which nothing in the back catalogue predicts. It reached number 41 on the UK Official Albums Chart across four weeks on the chart. AllMusic wrote that the pairing of the two guitarists “worked out magically”.

Camel — Dust and Dreams (1991)

Seven years after the previous album, and released on 10 September 1991 on the guitarist’s own new label, which is the fact that matters more than the gap: the band came back by leaving the record industry rather than by re-entering it. Sixteen short pieces, 47:56 on the original CD, recorded at a home-built studio with one track cut at Abbey Road and the album mixed at AIR in London. The playing line-up is four, with guest singers and orchestral players around it. Every Camel record after this one came out the same way, which makes this the moment the band changed shape rather than merely returned.

Focus — Focus 8 (2002)

The messiest interval here, and worth stating carefully: the last album under the Focus name had appeared in 1978, though a 1985 record credited to two of its members is sometimes counted in the run, so the gap is either twenty-four years or seventeen depending on whose discography you use. The album was recorded between February and July 2002 and first appeared as a self-issued Dutch CD limited to five hundred numbered copies, with a French label picking it up the following year. Eleven tracks, 59:07 on that edition. The founding keyboardist and flautist is the only original member; the drummer changed during the making, leaving one track by the earlier player.

Kaipa — Notes from the Past (2002)

Billed as the band’s first release in twenty years, which holds if you set aside a 1993 title that survives only as unofficial pressings — a caveat worth carrying, because the twenty-year figure is doing the work here. Inside Out released it in 2002. Eleven tracks on the original CD, two of them past thirteen minutes. The founding keyboard player brought back the guitarist who had left in 1979, and built a new rhythm section and a new singer around the pair of them, which is the model half the Scandinavian scene has used since. Running times differ by several minutes between sources, so this page gives none.

Magma — K.A (2004)

Twenty years after the previous full-length studio album, and released on 8 November 2004 by the band’s own label. The recording ran from February 2003 to October 2004, which is longer than most bands take to make three records. The work is in three movements of 11:13, 15:54 and 21:51 on the original CD, performed by a group of nine: the founding drummer and vocalist, four more singers, guitar, bass and two players on Fender Rhodes and piano. The founder is the only documented link to the 1970s band, which makes this a return of an idea rather than of a line-up.

Änglagård — Viljans Öga (2012)

Eighteen years after the previous album, released on 31 July 2012 on the band’s own label as a CD digisleeve and a limited 45rpm double LP. Four tracks, none shorter than 12:06 and the longest 16:15, running about 57 minutes on the CD edition. The band had broken up in 1994, come briefly back in 2002 and 2003, and become active again from 2009, so the return took three attempts. The instrumentation is unchanged from the early records — guitar, Mellotron and piano, flute and saxophone, bass with Taurus pedals, drums — with guests adding cello, clarinets and low brass.

Where to start

Discipline is the first stop and the least like a comeback: it sounds like a band that has decided to be something else. Dust and Dreams is the warmest record here. Viljans Öga is the one for anyone who loved the 1990s Swedish sound and assumed it had ended. K.A asks the most patience and gives the most back. Focus 8 and Notes from the Past suit listeners already inside those catalogues rather than newcomers.