Guitar Centric Prog Rock?

Metal based artists such as Tool or Karnivool spring to mind.

Quintorigo has no guitar, no keys and no drums.

But this means that you can make good prog regardless the instruments you use, isn't it?

uvtraveler wrote: Hi All, As one who has played guitar and composed for many years now, I'm always interested in seeing how to create "prog rock" material with little to no keyboards.

This is a Japanese trio called Baraka.





Promo video for "The Definition." (Note the comment left by Djam Karet's Gayle Ellett.)

Jade Warrior had next to nothing in the way of keyboards, though they did have flute and sax. Edhel - Oriental Christmas had token contributions from synth (and other instruments). It was heavily guitar driven with a Hackett-like sound. Frank Zappa's guitar parts were certainly never unequal to the other instruments. I'll think of others. Genesis was not all as keyboard dominated as people make it out to be (dominating the song writing is not the same as having more parts to play). Normally, it's just hard to keep track of whether Hackett or Banks was playing any given passage. Hackett was able to vary the timbre (and techniques) of the guitar so successfully that it was hard to tell. The range of effects available to guitarists today is staggering. There are few limits.

Anybody remember Maximum Indifference? Had the pleasure of seeing them live in 2001 (the last time they released an album, I believe). MI was (?) a blistering hi-energy instrumental prog rock trio, influenced (of course) by Rush and other bands.

I've never thought prog as needing any particular instruments to be progressive rock.  That versatility in instruments and expression is part of what being prog means to me.  The symph sound of course is much more likely to have keyboards than other types of prog, but an Italian band such as Cervello with Melos, which I consider on the symph side, uses other means.  In Avant Prog there are many bands that make music regularly without keyboards.

I'm no math rock expert (or post rock for that matter), but I think there are many that are guitar-centric without keyboards.

The first band that came to my mind is Don Cabellero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDzSp5MABl4

Edited for terrible typos.

I'll just add that I'm sure I have heard quote a lot that have a King Crimson sound/ are influenced by KC which don't use extensive keyboards.


Edited by Logan - July 17 2014 at 19:26

David Sancious

The Mars Volta (at least up until their most recent) is an obvious example; although they used a variety of instruments including sound manipulation electronics, their style is very guitar-centric.  Russian Circles is a good example of a guitarist using loops and effects to fill up the space that the keyboard would usually take in a progressive rock band.  Tech/Extreme metal has plenty of guitar-centric material.

The eighties King Crimson and RUSH(much of the time anyway).