Therion and Rhapsody =Prog; Death is not?

I don't think that Death are progressive at all - they try to be technical, but there's nothing progressive about the music (I was in a band playing in a similar style nearly 20 years ago).

I don't know the other two bands you mention - but judging from the mp3s on this site, Therion are a pretty vanilla Heavy metal band, with immaculate production, a good taste in Gothic choir sounds and half an eye on the progressive market. The riffing is bog standard metal though. YOu might as well compare them with the Moody Blues "Days of Future Passed"; a bunch of good songs with professional musicians brought in to pep it up a bit. Don't get me wrong - I like it!

Listening to the Rhapsody mp3s, "The Bloody Rage of the Titans" has a nice arrangement, with basic synth/orchestral parts but again is pretty much standard metal and reminds me very much of early Helloween. I find the choir less effective than on the Therion track, and the recorder playing above the power riffs is just silly - reminds me of Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge".

"Symphony of Enchanted Lands" has some great atmospherics and there's that recorder and quasi-Mediaeval sound - but it's all basic stuff. It may be a kind of progressive approach, but it's not really on the same level as "real" prog - prog related, maybe.

As for Death, "Scream Bloody Gore" and "Leprosy" are not prog any more than Slayer are, but pure (fantastic) Death Metal - that's the point of both albums. "Sound of Perseverence" is that kind of "technical" stuff that metal bands seem to play when they want to be known as prog - and it doesn't work as prog, IMO.

But YMMV

Fine, can somebody define me what progressive music roughly?

Edit: In my first post, i mentioned Death as "Progressive Metal" , my mistake i am not sure about it. Buy my point is to compare  with Rhapsody and Therion...

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Certif1ed wrote: I don't know the other two bands you mention - but judging from the mp3s on this site, Therion are a pretty vanilla Heavy metal band.... Don't get me wrong - I like it!  Hmm ... you like Therion? You recently used the term "haphazard", IMO it applies perfectly to the majority of the Therion discography. How would you compare them to Adagio (for example Next Profundis)?

Got any mp3s? (PM me a Megaupload or Yousendit link)

Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Certif1ed wrote: I don't know the other two bands you mention - but judging from the mp3s on this site, Therion are a pretty vanilla Heavy metal band.... Don't get me wrong - I like it!  Hmm ... you like Therion? You recently used the term "haphazard", IMO it applies perfectly to the majority of the Therion discography. How would you compare them to Adagio (for example Next Profundis)? Got any mp3s? (PM me a Megaupload or Yousendit link)

They're in the archives:

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/edit_post.asp?M=Q&PID= 1756593&TPN=1

 they're quite different from Therion and Rhapsody though ... and IMO much better at really combining classical and metal.

MikeEnRegalia wrote:  How would you compare (Therion) to Adagio (for example Next Profundis)?

"The Inner Road" has obvious Helloween influences to start with, and fairly predictable sweep-picked runs. The initial impression is of a big power metal sound. It's quite surprising when they drop into something resembling a bridge after the chorus, and the added keyboard textures that preceed the second verse are interesting. It's also interesting that they choose not to go straight into a second chorus, but instead insert a vocal bridge, and modify some of the music - but the obsession with changing riffs gets very wearying. I'd like the musical material to retain some kind of consistency instead ot this preoccupation with going off at tangents that destroys all sense of flow and creative musicianship. The verse / chorus elements are all still there, so there are no real new approaches to form.

"Next Proundis" is more of the same really - the whole mentality is rooted in the same place. Listening carefully to the piano flurries - it's all fast scales and (early) Beethoven inspired meandering. There's little difference between this and what Renaissance et al were doing over 30 years ago. It's kinda like Spinal Tap with learned technique.

You have to remember that Metal as a genre has always had at least one foot in the Prog camp and much of it has classical pretensions - Deep Purple being an obvious example. One would expect, therefore, that metal would retain progressive elements in the 21st century. Adagio pull out all the stops to try to be progressive, yet end up sounding like the more "out there" versions of technical metal, because to be truly progressive, the ideas in the music should flow from each other and develop, not be a series of pre-constructed modules that are slotted together like a musical jigsaw. That is a fault that some identify in "Supper's Ready", and I'd be tempted to agree were it not for the clever use of leitmotif-like ideas particularly by Tony Banks.

The problem with this approach is that, while the playing is very good from a technical standpoint, and you have to respect the guys for their memories, the ideas chop and change too quickly and never really gel into anything more than a series of "hits". The underlying verse/chorus structures are not blurred - indeed, playing with this kind of precision makes it difficult to blur anything or communicate any kind of spontaneity. This is exactly the issue I have with most "Technical" metal (remember I use terms as precisely as possible, not as subgenres - I try to avoid subgenres where I can).

It's very progressive for metal, but hasn't got the attitude for prog rock, IMO - it tries far too hard to be prog. Good prog sounds like the musicians are somehow playing in their sleep and delivering their dreams to the listener.

If this music does that for you personally, then great, as that's obviously subjective - but to me it sounds like an over elaborate Meccano set pieced together by a heavy metal band.

It's orders of magnitude more prog than Death or any of the two bands under discussion, though - but then, so are Cradle of Filth, IMO.

P.S. - did you check out my track?

Link in this thread http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14820& amp;PN=1

...and no, it's not really prog or metal

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I understand what you're trying to say, but some of your points seem a little premature - how can you know that Adagio don't also use "leitmotifs" when you've only heard one song from each of their albums? Underworld is a concept album, and Next Profundis is a good track of that album - but not the best IMO. I would describe it as a "showcase" song compared to the others which also feature a lot of technical prowess, but don't shift as rapidly. IMO Adagio are not a band who are desperately trying to sound progressive. Bands like Circus Maximus are ... but I don't see that in Adagio. Also, they are not overly technical - Richard Andersson is just a stellar technical musician, and compared to his solo albums Adagio are relatively simple and laid back.

For the first point, you seem to be forgetting that I'm only concentrating on the material I have access to - ie the streams on this site (that you pointed me to ).

As for technical, I use the word in it's strictest sense, ie, it comes across as more about technique than artistic musicality to my ears, for the reasons I highlighted. I could probably come up with some more on repeated listens, but this still sounds like stylised music, rather than truly progressive music.

...and probably requires another thread, as this one isn't concerned with Adagio...