After two decades of silence, progressive rock trio Cheat the Prophet has returned with Redemption, an album that fuses the depth of their early sound with modern influences spanning EDM, ambient, and metal. Released on February 7, 2025, Redemption is a testament to the band’s evolution, creative resilience, and refusal to compromise. Among its standout tracks is “Chaos,” featured on Progotronics 51, a song that encapsulates the band’s renewed energy and fearless approach to songwriting. In this interview, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Matt Mizenko takes us through the band’s reunion, the inspiration behind Redemption, and the creative process that shaped their boldest work yet.
After two decades apart as a band, what was the moment that made you say, “It’s time to do this again”?
The feeling had kind of been there percolating under the surface for a while, but I think logistically, we couldn’t really figure it out. Then COVID happened, and we saw how much could be done virtually, which was probably the big push we needed. From there, it just needed a couple of us – in this case, Jamie (Boruch, drums and percussion) and I – to get together to actually have the conversation. Getting Todd (Mizenko, guitars, keyboards, programming, vocals) onboard after that was a no-brainer.
What was it like reconnecting musically after such a long time? Did it feel natural, or were there growing pains?
Pretty natural, honestly. Though we weren’t playing, we did see each other with some regularity and were always trading jokes and things online. The three of us have always had a pretty strong and natural connection. We all have each other’s backs, it’s never really been an issue, thankfully.
You mentioned that life moved you in different directions. What were you all up to musically and personally during that hiatus?
Work and family, for the most part. Buying houses, boring stuff like that. Jamie was the most active of us musically, as he kept playing formally in a local band, The Collingwood. Though I was still picking up my bass with some regularity, I don’t think I even had a formal studio for many of those years. I did a lot of work on my fretless playing and got my guitar chops to a point where they were slightly better than embarrassing.
How did working remotely influence the creative process compared to when you were together in the same space?
It certainly slowed things down, but not necessarily in a bad way. It gave us time and space to be more thoughtful, not necessarily rush to judgment on anything, which we might have done in the past. There were a lot of messages, for example, from Todd, where he was like, “I was thinking about this or that idea,” and it was quite easy to say, “Well, sure, try it out, let’s see what we think. Why not?” Worst case, we’d roll it back. We were doing that quite literally up until mastering, I think.
Redemption pulls influences from EDM, metal, ambient, and alt-rock—how did those elements find their way into your sound?
In many ways, those are influences that have been there all along, but we finally managed to get out of our own way and let those bubble up to the surface. Previously, we did way too much gatekeeping of our own opinions, trying to fit some sort of mold that we thought people wanted to hear or would like, versus making music that we wanted to hear or would like. You know, “Is this ‘prog’ enough?”—that sort of thing. With Redemption, we really tried to stop doing that, let some of the many other influences we have creep in, and I think we were successful.
Were there any specific artists or albums that inspired you during the writing and recording of Redemption?
Speaking for myself, I was listening to a lot of Frost* and Anathema, though to what extent those crept in is hard to say. Currently, I am listening to a lot of Spiritbox, Poppy, and Sleep Token, which may tell you a bit about the direction the next album is headed in—at least from my perspective.
Your roots trace back to Ars Nova and Nepenthe. In what ways does Cheat the Prophet carry on that legacy, and in what ways does it break away from it?
It’s interesting in that this most recent line-up is exactly the same as the original Ars Nova line-up with just the three of us, and the songwriting is certainly reflective of that. Also, we were fortunate to be able to get contributions from people like Dan Vitco, who were a key part of that initial lineup as well though sadly he was not on the original Ars Nova recording. In some sense then, this is almost like what the first Ars Nova recording should have been but wasn’t, and it’s probably closer to the core than anything else we did. Also, on Redemption, I once again wrote all the lyrics, which also hadn’t happened since the Turning the Tide album.
The theme of redemption is powerful. Was there a specific event or feeling that shaped the lyrical and conceptual direction of the album?
Most definitely. I think in the intervening time period each of us went through some pretty heavy “adult” shit; we weren’t kids anymore, you know? Relationships dissolving, losing friends and family, things like that. For me personally, that heavily influenced the lyrics on the first three songs. But also, there was optimism. We saw this as a unique opportunity to do our best work yet without having to worry about timing, or critical expectations, or funding it, or whatever. Just give it 100% and leave it all out on the pitch.
You mentioned feeling like your last recordings and shows didn’t do you justice. What did you want to prove with Redemption?
We wanted to do something with absolutely zero compromise. That meant a few things, first and foremost of which was that we’d do absolutely as much of it as possible as a trio. In the past, Todd and I may have been thought of as a bit, critical, shall we say, and that is probably a fair statement. Our standards are pretty high. However, there were also people not holding up their end of the bargain. By keeping it to the core three members, we knew that wouldn’t be a problem. When we did bring in other musicians, they were all people we already knew and were confident would bring the same mentality and musicianship. Whether it was in our respective home studios or at Catapult with Brett Kull, we were all pretty exacting and unrelenting in terms of demanding the most of ourselves.
Can you walk us through the songwriting process for one of the tracks—maybe one that went through the biggest transformation?
Sure, let’s talk about “Bad Bitch.” “Bad Bitch” was basically written in three phases. It started out as a 20-plus-year-old track from the vault with a different name and time signature. I ran with it for a few weeks, basically writing the entire first half soup-to-nuts, minus a couple of key pieces, which we’ll get to in a moment. The original demo worked well enough that we kept some of the scratch tracks in the final mix, plus I used some pedals that Todd doesn’t have!
We really liked how it shaped up, but Todd felt there was potential to blow the doors off with a still-to-be-written second half. The first half of the track is based around a descending chromatic line, so Todd used that to create the start of the second half, only based around completely different chords, which provided a great bed for some guitar arpeggios and classic prog sounds. From that point on, things start to get heavy again, building with heavy chromatic power chords and some measured and pushed tension intertwined with guitar leads, and ultimately coming back to a reprise of the end of the first half.
At this point, Bad Bitch was basically considered “done” and sat for while in the same state. But upon repeated listens – and compared to some of the other tracks, which had grown much more – it began to dawn on us that there were some holes to fill. And one day, I had some free time and decided to fill those holes. First, I ran my DarkRay (bass) distorted as all hell through EFX Fragments and added a JD-800 synth lead. Then I wrote the keyboard solo at the start of the second half. Finally, I came up with the idea to duplicate the ending guitar leads on keyboard, not unlike something John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess might do. Fill in the final hole with a tasty guitar solo from our good friend Mike Zaffarese, and the track took on a whole new life as what you hear today.
With only six songs making the cut, how did you decide which material to include and which to leave out?
We started out with a slew of ideas from previous iterations of the band, probably double what ended up on the album. We put all the audio files online so we could review them and then had a shared noteboard where we’d go back and forth with ideas about all of them—what we liked, what we didn’t, what bits may work together, what maybe we could change, and so on. From there, we started putting things into Logic, turning them into the beginnings of actual songs, and iterating on those. As we went on, some of those ideas turned out to be pretty strong and others not so much. Given that we wanted the best possible songs on the album, anything we had even a slight hesitation about got dropped in favor of the things we were unanimous on. Quality over quantity for sure. Had we been closer geographically or creating together in the studio, we may have been able to pull some of those tracks back up above the line, but it is what it is.
How did the recording process differ from your earlier days? Did the advancements in technology make things easier, or did they bring new challenges?
Oh, they absolutely made things much easier. Virtual instruments, being able to work completely non-linear, having project variations in Logic Pro where we could easily iterate on an idea in multiple ways and just “try shit” as they say – it was all incredibly liberating and I think absolutely had a hand in getting us to the best possible final product. Where in the past the technology could sometimes get in the way in terms of the songwriting process, here the songwriting and the tech were both highly complementary to one another. It has kind of become a cliche, but a lot of the initial ideas from what perhaps used to be called the “demo” stage made it to the final album untouched. That’s a nice luxury to have.
Also, while we all continued to have our own roles and expertise, we also allowed ourselves to drift away from those in many ways. For example, though I am primarily a bassist, if I had an idea for an interesting guitar part, I’d just throw that into Logic and send it over. Todd had an idea for a B3 solo? Done! There was no sense of that “territory” that can get in the way sometimes, where I play my instruments and you play yours and stay in your lane and all that.
What was the most rewarding part of making this album, and what was the most difficult?
It was really having the time to enjoy the process, watching how the different tracks came together over time, how they evolved, and ultimately ended up. The three of us being back in the studio making music after so many years, but with so many of the same shenanigans, inside jokes, and craziness, was truly a joy.
I’m not sure I’d say any part of it was particularly difficult, but I do think all of us would’ve preferred to have had it done probably a year earlier than it was.
Since you all live in different locations, how did you manage recording logistics? Were there any unique workarounds you had to implement?
Probably the smartest thing we did was sync up front on how we would do everything in Logic—setting up a project template, making sure we had the same plug-ins and virtual instruments, how we’d label tracks, things like that. Todd also set up a centralized repo on Google Drive so we could manage version control and keep things in sync. From there, we knew that we wanted to get live bass and drums together, and later, vocals. And, we knew that we wouldn’t have a lot of time to do that, basically a day to rehearse together and then straight into the studio. In my case, that also meant flying across the country each way with my basses in tow. The onus was really on each of us individually to show up well-rehearsed to make sure we made the best use of the time; fortunately, that professionalism was still there, everyone showed up ready, and it didn’t take long for everything performance-wise to lock back in. And, in terms of engineering and production, Brett’s contribution cannot be understated. He was absolutely immense in terms of understanding the vision and getting the album to where it ended up.
Do you see Redemption as a one-time project, or could this be the start of a new chapter for Cheat the Prophet?
Given that we already have six or seven new tracks, some of which are fully written, I’d say there will definitely be more from Cheat the Prophet. While Todd and Jamie were making final touches on the recording back at Catapult with Brett, I was having a strong creative spell, so I was really busy putting a lot of new ideas down. Some of them were actually close enough to done that we briefly considered them for Redemption, but ultimately decided we didn’t want to delay the release any further. So far, they’re all a bit heavier, and largely character-driven, versus personal, which is a refreshing change for me. We’ll see what happens after the boys get hold of them, though.
What’s next for the band? Any plans for live performances or another album down the line?
We’d really love to get some amount of this performed live, but with families and distance and so on, it’s not nearly as easy to do as it was twenty years ago. So, we’re looking at what I guess you’d call strategic opportunities like weekend festivals, one-off performances, things like that. We’ve also discussed maybe doing the whole album end-to-end live in the studio as a sort-of showcase, filming it, and putting it out there.
If you could go back 20 years and give your younger selves advice about the music industry, what would you say?
Stop worrying about what other people will think, and make the music YOU want to hear. Believe in yourselves. Practice even more. Keep the faith.
