Merkaba (Prog Metal/Heavy?)

From USA (Oklahoma). Difficult to categorize. Thoughts of Porcupine Tree.

From their MySpace page

Band Members:
Joshua Adams-Vox, 2nd vibrating strings
Carl Robota- 1st vibrating strings, midi interface
Jaron Stewart-Percussive implements
Jay Roe - Bass guitar.

Influences:
Progressive thinkers of all sorts. Music that cannot be classified or contained by feeble labels assigned at the time of release. I.E. NOT NICKELBACK!

Sounds Like:
Progress... loud, heavy, progress.

www.myspace.com/merkaba
www.merkababand.com

Edited by ComfortablyNumb - June 14 2007 at 16:11

So I was just looking through all the pages here in the Unsigned Band section, and I saw this thread by ComfortablyNumb, who I know for having a good record of finding good bands with releases.  Well these guys don't disappoint. 

Merkaba have a sound that is a mix of Tool and Porcupine Tree in my eyes, although it reminds me mostly of Tool (a lot like Tool).  The songs here are pretty cool and enjoyable for fans of Tool-like metal.  My only problem with the band is that they seem to be a little bit of extreme elitists towards progressive music, even though (not to bash the band) their music isn't extremely progressive, for example the way Frank Zappa changed music.  I guess my point is maybe they could cool down on the whole Progressive idea and just make some music that's their own (to see what I'm talking about, just read their description and influences on their page).

Anyways, they do have an album out called "Seven", which is what most of the songs on the Myspace page are from.  They're also in the production of a 3 song EP that is due this Spring/Summer.  I think the PMT should have a look first at them and if not them than Heavy Prog can.

However, if they were to be added to PM I think they might fit in well in the experimental/post metal sub (that is where Tool is), as a lot of bands there don't seem to be too heavy. 

I listen to the samples ... as far as I am concerned they would fit better in Heavy Prog than in Prog Metal. I can't really hear the similarities to Tool, at least not as far as *metal* elements are concerned.