What makes Progressive Metal progressive?

HughesJB4 wrote:  (...) no doubt to my mind Rhoads was one of the great pioneering metal soloists of his time, and Kirk was perhaps sometimes just going through the motions. (...)

Edited by Certif1ed - June 17 2008 at 09:37

Elements Part II
You mention Ride The Lightning, and I agree with some of what you say about it. Solos? Randy Rhoads is a prime example of a metal soloist who was definitely in the virtuoso field of metal soloing technique at the time, definitely head and shoulders above in technical ability to the average NWOBHM guitarist of the time.
His solos were more meticulous than Kirk's for sure, and just in general a more skilled and fluent soloist than Kirk. You get that sense many of Kirks solos, even some of the ones one RTL, are somewhat improvisational in nature, wheras Rhoads' solos always seemed more composed and perhaps more "harmonically correct" for a lack of a better phrase, in the musical context. Take into account Kirk's admittedly terrible and almost complete lack of vibrato ability and control at the time and perhaps even worse now, there is no doubt to my mind Rhoads was one of the great pioneering metal soloists of his time, and Kirk was perhaps sometimes just going through the motions.
Megadeth? Archaic sounding compared to Metallica? Yes, I would say Peace Sells... as an album was definitely less complex in structure to Metallica's release in the same year, Master Of Puppets. The same went for the two band's 1988 releases, Megadeth's So Far So Good...So What? and Metallica's ... And Justice For All.
But archaic compared to Metallica? No way. Megadeth's work sounded just as modern, and to me some of SFSGSW has actually aged a lot better than some of AJFA.
Now for the next two studio albums the bands would release, Metallica's self titled and Megadeth's Rust In Peace. The self titled album, is just regressive and to be honest I can't listen to the album at all anymore, especially when you consider what a musically exciting path Metallica was heading on until Bob Rock came into the perspective.
Rust In Peace, on the other hand, while still not as structurally progressive as either MoP or AJFA, was easily more technically challenging than anything Metallica had and has so far ever done.
One of the reasons why, is the introduction of Marty Friedman into the band.
While one could nail the feel of Kirk Hammetts solos in a matter of months (I used to be able to play the Fade To Black solo perfectly, but I no longer practice that song), you would have to spend perhaps years to really nail all the subtleties in Marty's playing. His intense and incredibly well controlled vibrato technique, superb bending technique, exotic phrasing, mastery of the sweep picking technique, and the way he could dig the pick into the strings to give certain phrases more bite, were all really part of what makes Marty a true virtuoso compared to Kirk whom I would say was certainly skilled but not particularly challenging.
The guitarists that came into the band after Marty left couldn't nail Marty's style on RIP, proof of how of unique Marty's style was to him, yet I've heard many that could easily sound like Kirk.
The Tornado of souls solo is one of the benchmark solos people have used to compare Marty and post Marty guitarists with, and so far Chris Broderick has the more accurate emulation of that solo, but Broderick himself is incredily unique anyway and still will never sound like Marty.
Given the amount of people that cite RIP as the best thrash metal album of all time, including myself, there is not a doubt in my mind that album played a part in shaping technical metal to come and prog metal. While MoP was clearly more influential on bands like Dream Theater and late 80s/early 90s prog metal, I'm now starting to really hear the Rust In Peace influence in some of the more modern prog metal bands
Also, albums like Dragon's Kiss, Marty's first solo album, was at the time IMO, at least close to MoP in progressiveness. While I wouldn't call Dragon's Kiss prog in any strict sense, if you look at the extended composition Forbidden City, which has many twists and turns and is fairly complex, and the album closer, Thunder March with it's use of counterpoint with the electric guitar, it was obviously not a radio friendly poppy glam metal affair. And as it's happened, many prog metal guitarists cite that album as being influential on their musical development.

Metallica
Now for the Metallica debate that has sprung up in this page, I agree with a lot of what Cert had to say.
While Kill 'Em All is not prog in the way many of us have come to know it as, I'd be hard pressed to find many bands doing what Metallica had done for metal music in general in 1981 to their release of Kill 'Em All. This is where Dave Mustaine being a hugely influential musician gains even more strength IMO, as he was helping to pioneer the thrash genre before he had even started up Megadeth, which itself was massively influential on the thrash movement.
And of course RTL was a step up in compositional complexity and musicanship, and MoP even more so. AJA was a step up again, although the bass work not quite so, due to Newsted not even being heard, and he was known to not possess the skill Burton had.

DT
As for the Dream Theater argument, I think if were just to look at like Cert has, perhaps DT weren't that amazing.
But to have simply gotten the keyboard player, and Petrucci not just using Hammett as his lead guitar model, but instead looking to true virtuosos like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Steve Morse for inspiration (to name a few anyway) and to come up with these compositions that weren't NWOBHM, and weren't just jumping on the Thrash metal bandwagon (thrash was a genre that had become over saturated with too many bands that were no longer being innovative like the earlier bands), is to my mind something that took a lot of testicular fortitude to do.
It would be easy to just do the NWOBHM or thrash metal thing again, but what DT did wasn't easy, in terms of reaching commericial sucess with it, and not easy in the literal musical sense of raising the bar of musicianship and compositional complexity for metal.


Edited by HughesJB4 - June 17 2008 at 06:10

CCVP wrote: The T wrote: And your little-advertised website's  inclusion of Metallica's MOP as prog metal just requires a MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ In fact opinion is divided on the subject ... you're welcome to help cement the prog status. Why only Master of Puppets? From Ride the Lightning  to . . .And Justice for All they sure made some kind of "progressive thrash metal" and DO deserve a place among the progressive metal bands. BRING METALLICA TO PA NOW!!!!!! (fist in the air) (or at least a place at the prog related because of their importance to the genre)

Why only Master of Puppets? Well, submit your opinion at RF (in the form of ratings and tags) and you'll help setting things straight.

CCVP wrote: The T wrote: And your little-advertised website's  inclusion of Metallica's MOP as prog metal just requires a MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ In fact opinion is divided on the subject ... you're welcome to help cement the prog status. Why only Master of Puppets? From Ride the Lightning  to . . .And Justice for All they sure made some kind of "progressive thrash metal" and DO deserve a place among the progressive metal bands. BRING METALLICA TO PA NOW!!!!!! (fist in the air) (or at least a place at the prog related because of their importance to the genre)

The T wrote: And your little-advertised website's  inclusion of Metallica's MOP as prog metal just requires a

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ In fact opinion is divided on the subject ... you're welcome to help cement the prog status.

Why only Master of Puppets? From Ride the Lightning  to . . .And Justice for All they sure made some kind of "progressive thrash metal" and DO deserve a place among the progressive metal bands. BRING METALLICA TO PA NOW!!!!!! (fist in the air) (or at least a place at the prog related because of their importance to the genre)



Edited by CCVP - June 16 2008 at 21:57

Certif1ed wrote:   MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^^ there are many more prog metal albums which are both progressive and innovative ... each in its own unique way. An obvious example would be Cynic - Focus. Psychotic Waltz - Into the Everflow is a hidden gem, and from the more melodic albums I could mention Ice Age - The Great Divide and Heaven's Cry - Primal Power Addiction. Actually the list is endless ... you only need to look past the obvious examples. Even some of the "big names" hold some pleasant surprises ... for example Queensryche - Promised Land.   Much about Prog *seems* to be contradictory - your responses to my article are very revealing, and I think you answer many of your own questions. You need to see the bigger picture, rather than focus on the elements   I will check out all of those albums - thanks!

In a way we're both wrong and right ... it all depends on how you define things. But in all these discussions it should be noted that for most intents and purposes Dream Theater remain the defining band for Progressive Metal. I know that you don't consider their approach to be truly progressive ... but no matter whether you're right or not about that, you won't change the fact that for almost 20 years Dream Theater have been known as a Progressive Metal band. In other words: The label "Progressive Metal" is simply not being used how you think it should be used. If a prog fan was frozen in 1973 and he awoke today, he would probably follow your definition ... but that's simply not how things took place. 

I agree that the key Prog Rock bands had a really unique way of expanding the confinements of Rock music in mind blowing, spontaneous and creative ways ... very few Progressive Metal bands actually manage to repeat this, or even try in the first place. But that's a problem which is not limited to Metal ... the other Prog "offsprings" have similar problems (Flower Kings, anyone?). Like I said in the other thread: The more truly progressive a modern band is, the more they are moving away from what is - for most people - appropriately called "Prog". The question is: If something "sounds like prog", shouldn't it be called "prog" ... regardless of whether they are truly progressive or merely mimicking the style?


I hope you'll enjoy listening to the albums I mentioned ... I don't think that any of them can compete with the classic prog albums in terms of progressiveness (as you define it), but I certainly think that they do more than just "go through the motions" and simple rehash what others did before.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - June 16 2008 at 06:23

(oops - misposted!)

Edited by Certif1ed - June 16 2008 at 03:59

This guy called "Reality" really told the whole story. I add my signature under his statement with pride. The discussion about the terms "movement" and "genre" is essential to understand the "confusion" that reigns in progressive rock lands. And its consequence - the death of prog rock as a movement - is a logical step that can't be faced for the faint at heart, specially those who weren't born in the golden era (actually the only era). I know it's hard, kids, but "nothing compares 2 that" scene, and as much as I like a lot of post-rock and avant-gard bands, you just can't equal the value, richness and importance to the music of the last century that the "classic" prog groups had. It's not a matter of taste - you can like or dislike anything you want, but in a aesthetichal debate there are some points beyond the "likeness" that are important to consider; some of them can be labeled as "objective" ones. To put in simple terms: I really love Wagner, but it's inapropriate and erroneous to think that his role in music history, as large as it is, is equal or larger than Bach's.

I'm a metal fan, but above all I'm a hard rock fan (classic hard rock, not Bon Jovi's clones or whatever in the eighties except Whitesnake). Even if we accept the points posted after the first "Reality" post by "metalisgood", we can trace the origins of the so-called "prog metal" in the metal reign, not in the prog movement (or "genre", as called by metalisgood). Judas Priest, Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple and Rush (although not a metal band) are the forefathers of the prog metal bands. Iron Maiden was a contemporary influence to these bands, but I can't understand why Judas Priest e.g. isn't included in the far "democratic" list that PA has of non-prog bands that had any influence in the "prog" that is made today. ]

Well, this can lead to another discussion about the pertinence of the "prog related" category (that is absurd, because IMO any music of the last century can be related to prog one way or another, specially with the help of the imagination of some fans and/or pressure from the owners - I read more than once that a band X was added because M@x wanted it), but this one should be initiated by Certified or Reality. It's obvious that they know how to use words better and lightier as me without losing accuracy or strenght.

PS: And, in my metal terms, prog metal isn't even "metal" enough. Too light for my metal tastes, specially contemporary metal bands that I like (Celtic frost, Death, old Metallica, Kreator, Marduk, Sepultura, etc.).

metalisgood wrote: "prog metal" is to metal as "prog rock" is to rock.  never really thought about it too hard because you can hear when something is straightforward or when its more progressive.  DT, and especially Queensryche and Tool never seemed too progressive to me, but usually it isn't too hard to see why a band's listed here... but back to the original thing, just like some prog rock bands have psychedelic roots, some have hard rock roots, some are more jazz rockish, some prog metal bands are closer to death metal, black metal, doom metal, power metal, etc.  the key is that their music is progressively written and at least attempts to transcend the genre... just like prog rock does.  one of the problems I see today with the "prog metal" label is that people say a band plays "prog metal" but prog metal really isnt a genre like black, doom, etc.  its just a characteristic, no matter what kind of metal you play you play music at a certain level of "progressiveness" and thats what makes a metal band prog or not, not if their music sounds like Yes or King Crimson or whatever.

In general I agree with this. Prog has always been a charecteristic and a genre, some bands take it as a chericteristic and run with new ideas whilst others take it as simply a genre with set charecteristics and end up being clones, or at least hevily influenced by an earlier band without adding anything new. Obviously Prog has been around for 40 years now and so the number of "clone" bands is going to be rather high but their is also a good number of bands around that do add something new.

As regards to the original point of the thread, most early Prog metal bands fused at least some of the charecteristics of the early prog bands with standard metal to create Prog metal but their were/are those that do it to a greater and lesser degree and then there are those that dont do it at all, maudlin of the Well come to mind here.

metalisgood wrote: "prog metal" is to metal as "prog rock" is to rock.  never really thought about it too hard because you can hear when something is straightforward or when its more progressive.  DT, and especially Queensryche and Tool never seemed too progressive to me, but usually it isn't too hard to see why a band's listed here...but back to the original thing, just like some prog rock bands have psychedelic roots, some have hard rock roots, some are more jazz rockish, some prog metal bands are closer to death metal, black metal, doom metal, power metal, etc.  the key is that their music is progressively written and at least attempts to transcend the genre... just like prog rock does.  one of the problems I see today with the "prog metal" label is that people say a band plays "prog metal" but prog metal really isnt a genre like black, doom, etc.  its just a characteristic, no matter what kind of metal you play you play music at a certain level of "progressiveness" and thats what makes a metal band prog or not, not if their music sounds like Yes or King Crimson or whatever.

Sorry but that makes no sense. It is pointless, because what is progressive (small p) to someone is not progressive to others. Another problem is no one really knows what progressive (small p) really means when compared to the last 30 years of music. Also we have already established on this site that "Prog" is a noun and a big P, rather than descriptor and small p. Another point you say progressive is a band who "attempts to transcend the genre". Are you kidding me? Prog is clone heaven and is completely stuck in genre, and that is what makes them "Prog". If what you say is true, Genesis' most truly progressive period was when they transcended the genre and started to include Pop influences. I think so, don't you?

Progressive was a movement, not an ongoing description that could be applied to just about any band, not a living genre for intelligent people or those who feel they are intelligent, it was a unique space and time that is now over - move on. Metal is metal, Progressive metal (big P) is the fusion of metal and Classic Prog.