Great Wide Nothing

When you hear the term “progressive rock”, it likely brings to mind associations with the musically arcane and over-the-top; the distinctively nerdy and - for better or worse - unrepentantly weird. And well…that’s not inaccurate (this is the genre that gave us nearly half-hour opuses about giant, weaponized cyborg Armadillos and the struggle between reason and sentiment as personified by Greek gods). But Great Wide Nothing turns many of these tropes on their head, infusing prog with emotional immediacy and the vital energy of the rock underground. This gritty, decidedly more down-to-earth approach yields something more akin to a kind of retrofuturist punk than the fantastical escapism & esoteric musings of the genre’s 70’s forebears. A staple of the Atlanta music scene, Great Wide Nothing - comprising bassist/frontman and primary songwriter Daniel Graham, keyboardist Dylan Porper and drummer Jeff Matthews - has spent nearly a decade in the trenches, gradually amassing a cult following with their expansive, wide-screen arrangements and pop-friendly hooks, counterbalanced by bombastic, balls-out musicianship and earnest, often existential and socio-politically minded lyrics.