Rick Wakeman & The English Rock Ensemble will release Return to the Red Planet on 16 October through Madfish Music. The review on Echoes and Dust, published today, revisits the cosmic terrain of Wakeman's 2020 album The Red Planet and finds the new work expanding the journey with recent planetary data, dust-storm imagery and geological history.

Wakeman is joined by the current English Rock Ensemble line-up: Lee Pomeroy on bass, Dave Colquhoun on guitar, Adam Falkner on drums, and vocalist Mollie Marriott, daughter of the late Steve Marriott. The nine-track suite opens with The Jezero Crater, a fanfare-like epic that moves from dust-storm ambience into Mellotron textures and a Gilmour-esque guitar passage on Bowie's Vision, a tribute to Wakeman's former collaborator David Bowie. Noctis Labyrinthus evokes the dramatic intensity of Italian progressive rock, while Martian Dust Devils nods to Isao Tomita's electronic orchestrations.

The review notes that Wakeman immersed himself in mission reports before writing, giving the album a strong sense of place. Pre-orders are open via Madfish and Burning Shed. An official album trailer is available on Wakeman's YouTube channel.