Don't Look Now . .

But progressive rock is surging on the charts! In Europe, at least:

Observant chart watchers may have noticed an unfamiliar - and unusual - name in the UK top 30 album chart this week.

Among a flurry of new entries from Peter Andre, Jay-Z, Pixie Lott and David Gray is an album by a band that has been around longer than any of them: Porcupine Tree.

Porcupine who?

Although largely unknown to mainstream audiences, the Grammy-nominated band's 10th studio album The Incident went straight in at number 23.

Not bad for an album with a 55-minute hunk of music on disc one.

And that's not all. Muse's new album (which, admittedly, has gotten mixed vibes on the prog forums) debuted at number one. It's not just the UK, either. According to this review, Polish proggers Riverside (who sound just a bit like PT, honestly) hit number one in their home country with their new album, too.

Prog even has its own eponymous monthly magazine, too, albeit a British import (available at your nearest Borders, however!).

But perhaps the most positive sign in that article:

'I have less on an issue with the word 'progressive' than I did even five years ago,' says Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree's founder and frontman.

Yay! There's a long tradition of prog musicians slagging off the genre in general or proclaiming they're band isn't really a prog band (really Mr. Fripp? C'mon!). Nice to see someone embrace it, for once.