Slipknot Are Now Masters of Prog!

First, I like Slipknot, never loved them. Always good for a heavy jolt. Though, this new one has caught me off guard. I just listened to the first five tracks, and it is amazing. Well written, and it even has guitar solos, one in every song so far.

So, as I listened, I noticed that it almost sounded progish. It has some odd time changes, awesome musicianship, so, I figured why not open up a can of worms and ask, is All Hope is Lost (the title of the new album) verging on prog?

At least listen to the first couple of songs.


Edited by ~Rael~ - December 26 2008 at 23:54

It's just a metal album dude. Not a hint of prog to be found.
Odd time signatures and good musicianship is practically found in any decent metal band nowadays.
Time signatures is such a meaningless measure of a band's prog credentials to be honest, because every second non prog death metal band uses odd time signature, thrash metal bands use odd time signatures, Post-Hardcore uses odd time signatures. Basically any band that
It's their best so far (by that I mean, I can actually listen to a whole song without turning it off mid song).
But I still don't like it that much:P


Edited by HughesJB4 - December 26 2008 at 23:58

Oh. I thought time signatures were one of the main attributes for something to be prog. In any case, I still say some of the songs sound a bit progressive. 

But the thing is though, "sounding a bit progressive" "using odd time signatures" is so common among today's metal bands.
Face it, the standard non prog metal band of today, is more complex musically than it was 30 years ago.
I mean, Megadeth sounded a bit progressive.
Testament sounded a bit progressive. Crytopsy sounded a bit progressive. See what I mean?
It's just that a lot of metal nowadays is more intricate and technical than pop music obviously and basically third metal band can sound like prog compared to that.
Slipknot's latest is no different.
Compared to much pop music, it's way more intricate, detailed, technical and a bit more complex too, but it's not even close to the complexity of true progressive metal like Between the Buried and Me, Canvas Solaris or Spastic.
These 3 bands make Slipknot look like pop music in comparison really. The songs on All Hope is Lost, they are just metal songs at the of the day, and not bad ones at that either.

And hey, look at the vast amount of prog metal bands that regularly use simple and compound time and aren't really into odd time signatures.
That tells me that odd time signatures is a pretty superficial and meangingless indicator of prog in the world of progressive metal.
Throwing a few odd time signatures in a verse/chorus/verse/bridge/solo/chorus structured song doesn't make it prog in the slightest.
Progressive metal is about the composition as a whole really and being able to incorporate the odd time signatures to increase the overall complexity of a prog metal composition is really where the use of odd time signatures as a prog element is about, as opposed to sticking them into the aforementioned standard song structure pieces of music.