Press Kit

Paradigm Blue is a progressive rock power trio from Raleigh, North Carolina. Band members Juan Mantilla (guitars), Ruben Moreno (bass, vocals, keyboards), and Steve Laur (drums) crafted their 2021 double-album Transist to combine memorable melodies with a sprawling sci-fi epic of self-realization and winding destiny.

With Transist, the band pays respect to the influences of their youth, assembling an album intended not only as an homage to the prog epics of the late 1970s, but also as a fresh, forward-looking take that blends legacy with modern prog aesthetics.

The band’s 2022 single, Gravity, brings back an old fan favorite, while their 2023 instrumental single, Solstice, celebrates the spirit of summers gone all too quickly.

The Frontiers EP (2025) finds the trio brandishing a meaner, grittier sound to relate the tale of an aging lawman coming to terms with his place in the world. The opening track, The Gunslinger, sets the album against the backdrop of an outlandish sci-fi western, with the sprawling follow-up, Off This Rock, taking the listener away from the confines of a dusty planet and soaring toward the stars on a journey of uncertainty and intrigue. The stark and angular Snakebit tackles themes of inner fear, courage and sacrifice, while the instrumentals Gold on the Wind and The Antaran Gambit offer up an introspective moment of rest and a raucous sci-fi free-for-all, respectively. An optimistic finale, One More Round, offers the album a satisfying sense of closure as the band turns to their next project.

For the three of us, Transist represented an opportunity to revisit the musical loves of our youth. With our first release now long behind us, and having spent too much time away from writing and recording, it was with no shortage of blind enthusiasm that we threw ourselves into making this record.

Over the course of many months, what began as six or seven songs ballooned into fourteen tracks, the latter nine composing a love letter to the late seventies Rush records that shaped so much of our musical beginnings.

Though there are thematic threads that span the entire album, The Möbius Trip in particular is dedicated, with the utmost respect and appreciation, to Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and the late Neil Peart, whose untimely passing in early 2020 made our work on this album more than bittersweet.

Thank you for decades of inspiration.

And to our families—whose tireless support and superhuman patience have wholly enabled this bizarre and deeply rewarding enterprise—we can only offer our unending gratitude and love.

—Steve, Juan, and Ruben