Bring DEATH in the archives!

vogre wrote: Certif1ed - did you hear any of the last albums except Sound of Perseverance? Try listening to the Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic. Anyway techno thrash like Voivod and Watchtower *is* progressive and included on this site. So a band with close songwriting with growls instead of clean singing should be differently categorized. About your Cradle of Filth comment - I am not that familiar with them but from the songs i heard they seemed like a very generic band with boring thrash like riffs and some synthesizers. Maybe it's catchy but it didn't seem very prog to me.

Nope - "Sound of Perseverence" was recommended to me as one of their most progressive albums. It's enough to let me know that their overall style has changed somewhat, but I doubt very much that anything else they've done will instantly make me think "Hmm. Prog", as the standard of composition is too basic. Riffs that go off at tangents are not progressive - they show a deep non-understanding of how to grow music organically. Gentle Giant are perhaps the best illustration of how this should be done.

There are prog genres that work entirely different than symphonic prog. You can't use Gentle Giant as a blueprint for the perfect prog band. Counterpoint, signature changes, polyphony, polyrhythms ... there are bands which use neither one of these elements and still they are prog.  

Of course - although I don't really recognise "symphonic prog" as a genre. The Enid, perhaps, Barclay James Harvest at a stretch...

You can't use any band as a blueprint for prog - the mould should be broken and the blueprint burned. Gentle Giant are the best illustration I could think of for my point of how music can be grown organically - a founding principle of good prog.

Prog doesn't have to use all the elements to be prog, as you say - I've never claimed otherwise. but all the elements you list are mere technicalities of music generally - there are countless classical and jazz pieces that use all of them that aren't prog (for example).

But music that shows a good understanding of what it is trying to achieve beyond standard rock and pop can be considered to be progressive. And I really don't think that Death are at that level. The whole going off at tangents thing can only really be pulled off by a band that understands the natural balance in a piece of music and can prolong the dramatic build-up or bring things around to a satisfactory resolution. Death seemed to have a better appreciation of this with Chuck at the helm - a man of vision.

I don't think that VoiVod are progressive either - at least, not progressive as in Prog Rock. There is progressive as in Led Zeppelin, and Prog Rock as in King Crimson, and the two have a very fuzzy border.

That's why prog related was created.

So when are we adding Led Zeppelin?

As far as CoF are concerned, I'm not bothered about the catchiness, but the orchestration, the lights and shades, the key and time changes - you know, all the stuff that makes up prog - the elements. I'm not saying I think the band are prog, just more prog than some bands I could mention who are in the archives, and some that are under consideration.

If you look up my posts in the CoF thread you'll realise that I'm with you here. But I think that CoF has the wrong attitude to be classified as prog. These musicians may be good, and their music quite innovative and sufficiently complex, but I don't think they're doing this for the music, to create a work of art ... they're in this for the money, to appeal to their fans.

Ah, haven't revisited that yet...

I'm not concerned at all with their motives - I'm sure that many of the prog bands have money making as a motive at some level. I do get the point about attitude - prog is more about attitude than the music, hence the "less complex" bands exist in the archives. There are bands that don't even stray away from 4/4 - let alone use polyrhythms.

The trouble is, I think that CoF's attitude is what puts most people off (and I'm not really surprised), when they should listen to the music.

And what about Death's attitude?

Isn't it mainly metal?

That's what leaps out of the music at me.

(...)

I hear prog moments on Saxon's debut album.