What is so wrong with Prog metal

Some prog metal albums I suggest for those in doubt about the genre:

Pain of Salvation - Entropia
White Willow - Storm Season (yes, it is prog metal to my ears)
Indukti - S.U.S.A.R.
Tool - Lateralus

These albums may need at least 5 listens.  Entropia didn't do much for me the first 2 or 3 listens, but it's clicked with me now and it's one of my favourite prog metal albums.

Get back to me once you've heard them...


Edited by Geck0 - June 03 2006 at 13:39

I agree about Dream Theater being "duh", because I don't find anything exciting about them either.  But Pain of Salvation are a completely different band and not "duh" in any way.

Very inventive, clean vocals and experimental.  Some of their stuff borders on Avant Garde on occasions.

Very enjoyable band.

Which PoS have you tried laplace?

micky wrote: the vast majority have better things to do... like talk things things we DO like.. than talk about what we don't.

Imagine what a boring place this would be if we all liked everything...

You'd get topics filled with: "Oh Selling England is smashing" "It's jolly good" "Superbly widdly" etc

Tristan Mulders wrote: micky wrote: the vast majority have better things to do... like talk things things we DO like.. than talk about what we don't. Imagine what a boring place this would be if we all liked everything... You'd get topics filled with: "Oh Selling England is smashing" "It's jolly good" "Superbly widdly" etc

hahaha I agree... I think slamming other people's tastes is wrong of course... but the best conversations come, when both sides can handle it of course hahah, out of disagreement. I know I've had some that were just down right fun... and actually got into some of them early on here.. and was a large reason why I moved over to this site from another one.  Very smart people who can disagree without it becoming a flame war.  Was nice to see no one take umbrage to my views on prog-metal.  Never said it stinks... it just isn't what I like prog for, and I didn't like the 'sound'  of what I had heard.

How is heavy metal progressive?

imoeng wrote: so this means this thread is over?? huhuu, i love confrontation,, heehehe

hahahha.... there's lot of time and opportunities for that.... try telling Ivan that Kansas is AOR... try telling me that ELO is disco-rock...  or, of course, try telling a Rush fan that there is any fault or imperfection at all in Rush.

imoeng wrote: hey micky... ive got something to tell ya..   ELO IS DISCO ROCK, take it or leave it...

hahahah... wrong thread.... got to PROG RELATED hahahahha

micky wrote: imoeng wrote: so this means this thread is over?? huhuu, i love confrontation,, heehehe hahahha.... there's lot of time and opportunities for that.... try telling Ivan that Kansas is AOR... try telling me that ELO is disco-rock...  or, of course, try telling a Rush fan that there is any fault or imperfection at all in Rush.

This querelle is for some reasons the same as the one between Beatles and Rolling Stones, with the due proportions. The beauty and intrinsic power of music and in general of art is that it goes under the subjective opinion of people, coming from different social, cultural and "political" backgrounds. This is something we should never forget.

So, back to the issue. I'm very proud of being a fan of progressive music, no matter what distinction we make in the sub-genres. Catagories were something Hegel was profundly against, and being a marxist I feel somehow very close to what the great german philosopher said. It may sound pedantic and tautological, but to me what really matters is if the music is full of passion, whether it gives me strong feelings and vibration along my backbone. If some band is doing so, I do not care if it's a prog metal band, electronic, hip-hop or latin.
My first experience with prog music was with "Live at the Marque", I remember that day: I was standing on the bus, heading to high school. A friend of mine passed to me that album the day before and so I put the tape in my portable player and I listened to it. I still remember my reaction: it was like "what the hell are these guys doing?" I was shocked, just paralyzed by "Metropolis". Back then, I had grown up with Depeche Mode and The Cure, Morrissey and Chopin. It's not then so difficult to imagine how shocking for a guy like me listening to that type of music was. After so many years, if I came across prog scene is mainly due to them and I must thank them for that. Yet, in the process of getting more and more in contact with other prog bands, I discovered one element that DT had been missing after the release of Falling into infinity: passion and  "romanticism". Do not misunderstand me: I do not expect DT to become Chopin or  Tchaikovsky, but I haven't felt and experienced the same thrill in listening to them any more since a change of seasons.
There is nothing wrong with Prog metal, it's not the type and style of music which is wrong, it's the way you play it which makes the difference. Why do Symphony X shake me from the very bottom and DT don't, at least not any more? The answer is simple: DT chose to be part of the mainstream, consciuosly and voluntarily: but for any action there is always a reaction equal and opposite in magnitude and verse. My reaction was naturally a profund rejection to that choice of being and so here's my answer to your post

Prog metal is just as good as all the others: the music is what matters to me, the outcome, the result, the actual making of it, not how you define or label it. DT stopped being a very good band for a specific purpose, to become more popular and attract a broader and larger number of people. It always happened this way, it happened to Genesis, to Yes, to Rush, to anybody. Only Fripp has remained honest to himself and that is way he is the most influential man in the world for "out-of-the-mainstream" prog rock, and most probably the poorest of all!!!

as long as people remember that DT (for better or worse) does not represent the entire genre then it's okay :)