Prog Metal topic

Let us share our knowlege about this so unpopular style .



Also , I have some technical questions about the board : what do I need to do to not receive e-mail notifications of replies ? Also , I´d like to know how to add a pic to my profile . thanks .

I love a lot of prog rock and metal bands but I'm not sure I would call myself a proghead! In the late 90s early 2000s I was into bands like Dream Theatre, Symphony X, Vanden Plas, Kamelot among others. While musically it takes you on a journey it's easy to get burned out on the Genre. I still listen to Symphony X regularly but Dreams Theatre lost me after scenes from a memory. A little of their later stuff goes over my head

This would be my favorite genre of metal if it went in the Fates Warning/Queensryche direction in the early 90s (not sure those two actually knew the direction themselves, but whatever) instead of Dream Theater-esque way. So I like everything from like 1985 with proto-prog-power-something-something-metal like Heir Apparent and Fates up until early 90s when this type of music died, for the most part.
Thankfully somewhat of a rebirth came as of recent, with Voyager, Protest the Hero, Caligula's Horse, Tesseract and many others creating greatness in this genre again.

anthrax_fan wrote:

Also , I have some technical questions about the board : what do I need to do to not receive e-mail notifications of replies ? Also , I´d like to know how to add a pic to my profile . thanks .

In the text box where you'd type a reply, in the upper right corner, it says "Watch this topic for replys". Click on that so it says "Stop watching this topic". That should eliminate the emails.

For a pic, click on the red PROFILE link up top, then avatar. You can link a pic through there.

I've dropped off the prog metal bandwagon.

It seemed like the coolest thing in the late 90s to be labeled prog metal. Well, at least among the true metal crowd, if we shall ignore the trendy MTV metal sub-genres. What I mean is everyone incorporated progressive elements to their music, technical parts to their songs and non-repetitive epic tracks to their albums. Bands didn't just play power metal. It was progressive power.

But was there as much direction as what metal bands had in the 80s? What the music gained in technical proficiency, it lost in attitude and honesty. Music was less infectious. More intelligent and more pretentious, somehow forgetting it's a form of entertainment.

A few years later it kind of got exposed and people stopped buying/going to shows of those bands, and then symphonic metal became the new "it" thing to add to your generic power metal. Until that thing got oversaturated as well.

Anyway, I still do like the earlier prog metal bands like Queensryche and Fates Warning. But even then, I kind of don't as much as I used to.

I wouldn't say that prog metal is "so unpopular". Dream Theater and Opeth have been pretty successful, so there is an audience for it, even if maybe people tend not to look beyond a handful of bands.

I discovered Dream Theater and prog metal in the mid-90s, and did my best to get hold of as many prog metal albums as I could. That wasn't the easiest of tasks as local music stores didn't always stock that much and it could be on the expensive side, but I did manage to amass a decent enough collection.

Over the years my tastes in music have shifted somewhat, and while I still like the idea of prog metal, I'm now less interested in instrumental prowess and more interested in good songwriting. While I don't expect prog song to be laden with catchy poppy choruses, if I'm struggling to remember songs on an album even after multiple listens then it's not the sort of thing I'm after anymore.

There are prog metal bands that I like, although they tend to be established ones like Threshold, Ayreon, Nightingale, and Voyager, and it's been a while since a new band really caught my attention.

I think the biggest problem with Prog Metal lately is that many bands tend to sound like nothing more than Dream Theater clones , but threre are still a lot of good stuff to check , I am currently researching about good Prog Metal bands that peaked on the 90´s ...

some prog faves: Spock's Beard, Flying Colors, Halcyon Way, Chimp Spanner, Anacrusis, Haken, Crimson Glory, Neil Morse, Kamelot, Opeth.....

http://www.heartofmetal.net/t18074p375-prog-metal?highlight=Prog

moonspell67 wrote:

some prog faves: Spock's Beard, Flying Colors, Halcyon Way, Chimp Spanner, Anacrusis, Haken, Crimson Glory, Neil Morse, Kamelot, Opeth.....

Somehow I never got into Crimson Glory. I don't know if it's the helium vocals or the face mask gimmick. I'm pretty sure if I put in the effort to listen to full albums, I'd probably like 'em.

Lari wrote:

moonspell67 wrote:

some prog faves: Spock's Beard, Flying Colors, Halcyon Way, Chimp Spanner, Anacrusis, Haken, Crimson Glory, Neil Morse, Kamelot, Opeth.....

Somehow I never got into Crimson Glory. I don't know if it's the helium vocals or the face mask gimmick. I'm pretty sure if I put in the effort to listen to full albums, I'd probably like 'em.

Newer Crimson Glory does not have Midnight singing. Therefore, CG doesn't always rely on schtick. But I see what you mean.

I think Crimson Glory is great stuff , altought I tend to consider them closer to USPM than "Prog Metal" per se .