Progressive Rock vs. Progressive Metal

Most progressive rock doesn't do it for me. Never cared for Rush or Pink Floyd.

Although progressive metal is saturated with technical wankery a la Symphony X, I'm voting for the sake of the power/progressive metal hybrid. Fates Warning and Crimson Glory were ace bands.

I really don't know that I can vote for either of them because there are examples of both that are anything but "progressive."

There's the disease of the modern prog band where they assume that just throwing in fast noodly bits and weird time signatures is progressive, but they forget to pack songs. The thing that made the best pioneers of the genre awesome is that they had "conventional rock songs" and then $#@%ed them up with jazz and classical influences your average R&B or blues band wouldn't have had any concept of. But, at the end of the day, the song had to be good.

That's my love/hate with Dream Theater. Sometimes, they're ace players AND writers and other times they forget how to write and it torques me off something fierce because they CAN be so damn good.

I guess this means that I'm technically on the "prog rock" side since I tend to favor the pioneers over the offspring, but I'm not opposed to proggy metal bands. I just think an example of prog metal is "Angel Dust" by Faith No More over something by Fates Warning or what have you.

I love CRIMSON GLORY but don't consider them progressive hardly at all.

I prefer Progressive metal like FATES WARNING, WATCHTOWER, CYNIC, DREAM THEATER, PSYCHOTIC WALTZ, SPIRAL ARCHITECT, etc. but there is a lot of great prog rock stuff out there:

UK - In the Dead of Night
Rush - a lot of filler but a lot of amazing stuff too
Yes - see Rush
King Crimson - the first album is brilliant
ELP - Karn Evil 9

Rock. Bands like Rush, King Crimson, Camel, Yes, and so forth have had much greater staying power and memorability with me. I also find most Prog Metal to be nothing more than flashy showmanship, whereas Prog Rock has the greater tendency to layer arrangements with various styles, instruments, and genres to result in an emphasis on texture rather than, as you say, technical wankery. The latter becomes extremely boring. There are exceptions, of course--Opeth being one of them.

I also believe that Steven Wilson is the most important artist of the 21st Century.

What are the 3 best Steven Wilson songs that you would recommend? That Raven one did nothing for me at all.

Temple of Blood wrote:

I love CRIMSON GLORY but don't consider them progressive hardly at all.

Transcendence isn't progressive metal, then?

Temple of Blood wrote:

What are the 3 best Steven Wilson songs that you would recommend?  That Raven one did nothing for me at all.

That's a tough one, though some of my favorites are from Raven. But I'll throw these three out there...

Progressive rock by far. Gentle Giant, ELP, Yes, Genesis, Magma, Pink Floyd, Curved Air, Renaissance, King Crimson, The Moody Blues, Camel, Caravan, The Soft Machine, The Strawbs, Jethro Tull....... None of those bands sound alike.

Temple of Blood wrote:

What are the 3 best Steven Wilson songs that you would recommend?  That Raven one did nothing for me at all.

Have you heard any of his Porcupine Tree stuff?

Rock, not really close at all.

Definitely progressive rock. Really not a fan of most progressive metal. I don't mind metal being used as one of several ingredients in prog, but I'm not interested in that being the main course.

Asking for "3" Steven Wilson songs isn't even going to scratch the surface because he's done so many different styles throughout his career. Electronic, drum & bass, pop, ambient, space rock, acoustic folk, jazz fusion, progressive rock, metal, etc.

You can't beat progressive metal.

S.D. wrote:

Definitely progressive rock.  Really not a fan of most progressive metal.  I don't mind metal being used as one of several ingredients in prog, but I'm not interested in that being the main course.  

Asking for "3" Steven Wilson songs isn't even going to scratch the surface because he's done so many different styles throughout his career.  Electronic, drum & bass, pop, ambient, space rock, acoustic folk, jazz fusion, progressive rock, metal, etc.  

What are his electronic/drum & bass albums?

Boris2008 wrote:

What are his electronic/drum & bass albums?

No-Man and Bass Communion

Neither.

Metal, since I only love Pink Floyd honestly.

I like whichever is less progressive.

It feels like a curse word to me.

I'm not good with categories, but three of my favorite bands of all time are Genesis, Jethro Tull, and Kansas. If they are considered progressive rock, then that is my choice.

Painkiller wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

I love CRIMSON GLORY but don't consider them progressive hardly at all.

Transcendence isn't progressive metal, then?

Right. No more progressive than most any other metal band. Certainly nowhere near the ones I listed before.

And I'm a huge fan too.

I listen to both but I find that Progressive Rock has a little more to offer.

Progressive Rock by far.

I like more prog rock bands than I do prog metal ones, so I vote prog rock.

corplhicks wrote:

 There are exceptions, of course--Opeth being one of them.

Opeth are pretty much prog rock these days. So are Voivod at their best.

Progressive rock for me. I like the idea of prog metal, and Threshold are my favourite band, but I'm finding very few new prog metal bands that actually interest me these days as all too often they fall into one of two groups.

The first is bands who have the requisite ability on their instruments but struggle to write decent songs.

The other group consists of "progressive power" bands who I don't find all that progressive. An album full of songs in the 5-8 minute range that stick to standard verse/chorus structures just doesn't cut it for me. Not to mention that many of those bands could also fall into the first group as well.

That's not to say that progressive rock bands can't be guilty of the same things, but it just seems more prevalent in prog metal. So while there exceptions, in general my metal tends not to be progressive and my prog tends not to be metal.