The Tech/Extreme Prog metal appreciation

mithrandir wrote: avalanchemaster wrote: Gorguts (brilliance, no matter how you slice it) I just noticed they don't have Obscura listed in the archives, man what an utter failure

avalanchemaster wrote: Gorguts (brilliance, no matter how you slice it)

I just noticed they don't have Obscura listed in the archives, man what an utter failure

That's a huge list.

I forgot to say:

Thought Industry

all right, glad I found this thread.......so this is my bread and butter style in metal, and I noticed that quite a few of the essentials are missing from this thread, so I will try to suggest some of my favorites:

7for4 (heavy fusion)
Sieges Even (the best best best technical prog metal band ever!!!)
Abigor (tech industrial avant garde black metal)
Altered Aeon  (tech thrash death metal)
Anacrusis (tech thrash)
Anata  (tech death metal)
Annon Vin (tech prog metal)
Arcturus (avant garde dark metal)
Arsis (tech death)
ATROX!!!!!!! (avant garde greatness!!!)
The Axis of Perdition (great, weird, dark ambient/industrial black metal)
Mick Barr (avant garde flying mosquitoes of death)
Believer (tech thrash)
Blut Aus Nord (awesome dissonant black metal)
Borknagar (progressive extreme)
Cadaver/Cadaver Inc. (tech thrashy black metal)
Carnival In Coal (avant garde greatness)
Coroner (best thrash band ever??)
Covenant (melodic black metal)
Cynic
Deadsoul Tribe (buddy lackey of Psychotic Waltz- new band)
Deathspell Omega (exceptional, progressive, avant garde black metal-  my all-time fave in the genre)
Diabolical Masquerade (tech death, avant garde)
Depressive Age (tech death)
Depresy (tech death)
Disharmonic Orchestra (old school tech death)
Dodheimsgard/DHG (avant garde industrial black metal)
Dog Fashion Disco (avant gumbo metal- a la faith no more/Mr. Bungle)
Electroction 250 (tech thrash- all over the place metal)
Emperor (the godfathers of modern 2nd and 3rd wave black metal)
Enslaved (mid era is essential for progsters who like it heavy- progressive black metal)
Ephel Duath (started as great progressive black metal- turned into jazzy, jarring, dissonant avant garde metalcore????  highly highly highly recommended!)
Extol- (tech black metal to start, tech thrash, newer stuff is very poppy and not as good)
Fleurety (avant garde black metal)
The f**king Champs (tech thrash instrumentals)
Gorguts (brilliance, no matter how you slice it)
Gorod (tech death)
Gory Blister (tech death)
Helstar (tech thrash greatness)
The Human Abstract (melodic tech deathcore)
illogicist (new album feat. Marco Minneman- tech death)
Into The Moat (dillinger escape plan multiplied times crazy)
Kadenzza (plain shred weirdness)
Kreator (tech thrash-to a degree)
Lengsel (black metal progressive)
Luciferion (tech melodic death)
Manes (avant garde black metal/post black metal)
Martyr (the best tech death, post-thrash, heavy fusion band to ever exist!!!!!!)
Mekong Delta (tech progressive thrash- huge fans of Mussgorsky)
Mirrorthrone (prog black metal)
Lux Occulta (avant garde black metal)
Korova/korovakill (avant garde thrashy blackened wierdness)
Mutant (Theory In Practice side project- black metal)
Necrophagist (tech death)
Neglected Fields (tech death)
Non Human Level (darkane side project- tech death)
Obliveon (tech thrashy death)
Oxiplegatz (avant garde death metal)
Peccatum (avant garde post black metal)
Protest The Hero (tech thrashy death)
Psychotic Waltz (the best?)
Psychotogen (tech death)
Psycroptic (tech death)
Psyopus (spazzcore death tech)
Ram-Zet (avant death)
Realm (tech thrash)
Reflux (tech deathcore)
Rope (avant garde dark jazz)
Sadus (tech thrash/death)
Sceptic (tech death)
Scuptured (progressive avant greatness)
Scholomance (awesome tech death with keys)
Sigh (avant black metal/thrash)
Sikth (tech death a la Meshuggah)
Octopus (tech death a la Meshuggah, only much, much, much better)
Solefald (avant garde post black metal)
Spastic Ink/Blotted Science/Ron Jarzombek
Watchtower (tech thrash- one of the best ever)
Tiamat (only Wildhoney- progressive death metal/doom)
Trepalium (tech death)
Devin Townsend (progressive metal)
Ulcerate (tech death a la Gorguts)
Spawn Of possession (tech death)
Virus (avant garde post black metal)
Vuvr (avant garde strangeness that is fantastic)
Winds (progressive avant garde metal)
Wintersun (tech death)


that oughta keep you busy for a while..... 

Demonoid wrote: Should check out zero hour's dark deceiver. Excellent technical  progressive metal Something like spiral architect. Intense vocals too.(not harsh/extreme vocals) Also, i second all the watchtower/Blotted Science/Spastic Ink suggestions in this thread!

Actually, I just heard Dark Deceiver for the first time last week,  the band is really beginning to become more tech prog metal oriented rather than just prog metal.
Excellent album, very heavy, very dark and intense. I love it and I think the band are getting better at their art as time goes on.


Edited by HughesJB4 - July 03 2008 at 05:53

I want to recommend a band I added to the archives in this paricular sub,a band called In Mourning.

I will man.
I gotta get me some Voivod soon too. I find it odd I like thrash so much, but I don't even own any Voivod albums yet.
RIP Piggy It's been several years now since he left us, but I still can't get over it, he was only 45.


Edited by HughesJB4 - June 18 2008 at 11:24

From memory, this is indeed an appreciation thread.
I've went back over the thread, and people have shown nothing but love for the genre and the bands in the genre they like, until this page.
The whole point of an appreciation thread is just that. APPRECIATION.
I might not like some of the bands in the genre and if that's the case, I wont bash them, I'll just move on and let anyone else listen to them, because they are more than entitled do so without having to put up with anyone needlessly bashing them and/or the band.
Some people might not like the genre either, which is more than fair enough, because there was a time when I didn't like it much either, but I've come to love it now. But again, an appreciation thread is to show the for Tech/Extreme Prog Metal.
If people want to voice other opinions on it, it's easy just to make a thread about it.
I'm talking about this in general, it seems to happen in various appreciation threads and frankly, if I have nothing nice to say about a band/genre, I'm not going to voice that opinion in an appreciation because I don't believe it's fair on the others that love it and it can start needless immature flame wars.

I love Tech/Extreme Prog as a genre, for all it's virtuosity, for all it's extreme vocal styles and for the many bands taking metal to new heights and in thread.
There are guys like MikeEnRegalia, Jody, and The T who throw their hearts into the genre and for that, I will show this thread all the respect and love it deserves.

BaldFriede wrote: Well, I have to say that these bands fall into the same pit that some jazz-rock artists fell into before (Al DiMeola, for example). First of all, the mere name "Tech Metal" is already misleading; technique is being confused with speed here. There are lots of other instrumental techniques than mere speed, many of which can NOT be used at high speed, or at least even if they can be used they lose their effect. This seems to be something which many people forget. Listen to an acoustic guitar piece by Steve Hackett; it much more deserves to be named "technical", even if it is a lot slower. Paganini could certainly play breathtakingly fast, but he got the most "awws" when he played slowly and used some other extraordinary techniques then. Read up on him if you don't believe me.

As a rule of thumb, the difficulty of any piece of music increases with speed. Therefore if you try to group pieces by technical difficulty, this group is bound to contain more fast pieces than slow ones. However, of course it is true that slow parts can also be difficult to play. Having said that, most of the bands in Tech Metal don't play fast all the time ...

BaldFriede wrote: The "complex" time signatures are nothing to go "aww" about either, it is all a matter of counting, and compared to Indian rhythms these are still simple ones. But the biggest issue I have with this kind of music is that it seems to be deliberately designed for the "aww" effect and nothing more. As Certif1ed already pointed out, there is no real development; there are just bits and bits put together, like patchwork. The result is a quilt. But it is nothing that impresses me in the least. I can play breathtakingly fast too and will on occasion, but it certainly becomes a bit boring when it continues on and on. I might as well cut out pieces of several fast prog songs and patch them together by sampling to get the same result; it would not be more incoherent in the least. That's my five cents about the genre. Music lives from contrasts.

You're free to ignore all that's good in metal ... fortunately even many "hard to please" critics like Certif1ed acknowledge that some of the bands listed here have true potential, and some albums are even interesting for prog fans.

BTW: It's true that prog metal tends to be a bit more "flashy" than prog rock ... but there are many exceptions, and even when some players are flashy it doesn't necessarily mean that they're arrogant, or that there's not much more to their music than their technical ability.