Prog-metal to a non Prog-metal head

ohhh yeah- Ice Age is a great band- not that well known

Ice Age - The Great Divide.

And you rec. BE for a 1st prog album??? Yikes

I would say Symphony X- The Odyssey would be a good 1st choice.

To Threadstarter:

What did you hear from Dream Theater? And what two Tool songs did you hear also?

If you don't like progressive metal that much there are a few directions i think you can go.

The first and most logical direction i see is going with bands that combine more progressive rock elements with progressive metal.  I think Pain Of Salvation's BE is the best example of this.  BE has some very hard songs, but even within those songs they have great soft parts.  They make great use of the orchestra too.  This album has a lot of things that both progressive metal and rock fans can enjoy.

Of course you've heard Dream Theater, but Images and Words and Scenes From A Memory have some songs that many different fans of progressive music can enjoy.  Ok, maybe you won't like how Home is a heavy song, but i think you could still enjoy a song like Finally Free, The Spirit Carries On, Learning To Live, and Another Day.

The other logical route you could go in is Ayreon.  Ayreon isn't as much about the distorted guitars.  Ayreon is considered to be very synth based.  Arjen Lucassen is the mastermind of this project, and he's worked with some great progressive metal vocalists like James LaBrie, Damion Wilson, and well Russell Allen if you consider him great, and also some great progressive rock vocalists like Fish and Neal Morse.  Ayreon combines a lot of genres into this project.  I wouldn't reccomend Universal Migrator because of the second disc being completely metal, but i think you could enjoy Into the Electric Caste and The Human Equation.

Pain of Salvation

Hmm... you don't like distorted guitars? It's going to be tought to find you a prog metal band then! 

Ok, so you like GENESIS, YES, GENTLE GIANT. If you haven't tried it, I'd recommend Spock's Beard, say the V album. It's actually labelled under symphonic prog here on progarchives, but maybe it'll warm you up to metal style distorted guitars while keeping to a similar musical style that you're used to. Then jump right to any prog-metal band, listen to some audio samples here on progarchives, and you might find something that moves you. There's a HUGE difference between different prog metal bands, the genre fits almost anything, so you should't turn away after the first dissapointment!

Good Luck!

Listen to Dream Theater again and again and make a judgement then.

Fantomas...