Raw, atmospheric and emotionally unguarded: this week’s rock bops move between Singapore cinematic pop-rock and Milanese post-punk, two artists working entirely on their own terms and arriving somewhere genuinely distinctive.
ProgAtom – In Every Heartbeat
ProgAtom serve up a wonderful Norwegian symphonic rock piece: a piano ballad that genuinely soars with a full orchestral crescendo and a whole lot of heart
“In Every Heartbeat” opens as an intimate piano ballad and expands into dramatic symphonic rock, tracing the growth and transformation of love through shifts in instrumentation and intensity. ProgAtom’s approach to the form keeps the arrangement purposeful rather than decorative: the semi-orchestral textures and atmospheric passages earn their scale by staying in service to the song. Which is something that stuff in this genre can definitely get wrong. Not ProgAtom though; this one’s great. The guitar work is brilliant, I love the backing vocals, and the whole thing genuinely soars in the chorus.
ProgAtom are a five-piece Norwegian progressive rock band built around Mattis Sørum on guitars, Arild Sveum on keyboards, Rune Ulen on drums, Åsmund Mjelva on bass and Tore Christer Storlid on vocals. Their sound blends melodic symphonic rock with ambient textures, uneven time signatures and classic 70s progressive arrangements, and their catalogue spans two albums, Sagittarius A in 2015 and Spiral in 2018. We’ll be digging into those, because this is a brilliant introduction to this band’s work, and we’re itching for more.
Seema Farswani – Evolved
Seema Farswani stuns with an essential cinematic pop-rock banger: built on a strong emotional core and a warm-hearted message about personal growth
“Evolved” was built with producer Rish at Level Music in Mumbai, whose guitars and backing vocals shape the track’s emotional arc from vulnerability through tension to release, and then finished by a UK team who understood the heart of the record. And it’s an incredibly compelling one, as the song builds into a pop rock masterclass. A great blend of languages, a hint of poetism with the ‘I’m alive’ and ‘I’m torn’ lyrics, and a whole lot of song craft. This one should be all over radio, it’s very, very hooky.
Farswani is an Indian-American singer-songwriter, composer and producer based in Singapore, an ICMA Finalist in 2025 and Berklee Summer Alumni whose music has been shaped by life across Dubai, Chicago, Singapore and beyond. Her debut EP Got My Mojo introduced songs in English, Spanish, Arabic, French and Algerian Rai, and earned coverage from Muse Chronicle and Indie Dock. Her approach to songwriting is wonderfully atmospheric, textured and emotional. We’ve featured a couple of her tracks, but this one is definitely the best yet. A great single. More of this please, Seema.
Silent Zero – Maths of Life
Silent Zero’s “Maths of Life” is an excellent piece of Milan post-punk: haunting guitars, hypnotic rhythm and a track about facing illness that earns every second of its dark atmosphere.
“Maths of Life” is the lead single from Silent Zero’s debut album, and it opens with a premise that refuses consolation. Nature is perfect, but your life is not, and there is no satisfying explanation for why you received an illness that will not leave. It’s a compelling concept that the track delivers in style, with the post punk stylings, haunting guitars and dark vibes matching it all up incredibly well. I love the driving bass, drum production and distant guitars, bringing to mind White Lies, but it’s the vocal that’s the standout here. You can feel the emotion in every word.
Silent Zero is a solo artist based in Milan who works entirely independently from a home studio, drawing from the post-punk legacy of The Cure and Joy Division and the modern atmospheric sensibility of Placebo and Editors. The project represents a genuinely personal approach to songwriting: raw emotion and lived experience translated directly into sound without the mediation of a band or a producer’s commercial instincts. “Maths of Life” is a brilliant single, and I will be digging into the album this week. An essential listen this week.