Progressive Rock/Metal

Does anyone else in the GB community particularly like these genres of music? I am a big fan. I've been listening to a lot of Haken recently. Any recommendations?

Device

Opeth.

I've heard some Opeth (Watershed and the new one I can't remember the name of).

To be honest I am out of the loop as far as prog and power metal these days but I still have a few bands that blow my mind.

You need to listen to Ayreon

As long as we're posting songs:

@gargantuan: freaking loooove Ayreon

I really like Porcupine Tree and Oceansize. There are other prog-rock groups I like as well but those two come to mind first for me.

Nice! Have you listened to Arjen's other projects? Star One and his solo album Lost in the New Real are really good

i dont know much dude, my knowledge of the genre stops at like king crimson/yes/henry cow. gonna check out some the bands listed in here though.

Besides the obvious ones like Tool, Rush, Dream Theater. I would reccomend Baroness, Intronaut, In Vain, Meshuggah and and even some Mastodon stuff is pretty prog-y. I obviously lean more towards the metal side of prog rock which is quite a bit heavier than the stuff you posted.

@gargantuan: I got a kick out of the intro to E-Police. "He was hot, and he was ON."

Steven Wilson

I don't feel like digging up a bunch of links, but Devin Townsend.

Beautiful 70s prog rock to chill out to:

Prog metal:

Communic

Angra

Exivious

Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson and Opeth are my picks.

I'm more of a symphonic metal guy myself, but I enjoy me some Dream Theater and Opeth. Digging these songs you guys are posting up though!

I had to dig into my old CD collection because of this thread. My poor HDD will be ripping all night.

And for you Opeth fans

The classics are the best. My favorite band of all time is Genesis.

@atramentous: I've listened to that Ne Obliviscaris album so many god damn times.

I have a ton of recommendations since it's been a genre I've been into since I started playing guitar. Lately I've been listening to Riverside a bunch, as far as prog rock goes. I think Second Life Syndrome and their newest one are their best albums. The song below is from neither of those!

For more of a metal slant, Andromeda's pretty cool. Their first album, Extension of the Wish, has some of the most ridiculous instrumental stuff in the genre. Then they proceeded to get more proggy and less metal.

The version above has a studio vocalist, but they got a pretty incredible one after this album. Their live dvd (Playing Off the Board) is on Youtube.

After scrolling through these posts, I can also highly recommend Opeth, Camel, Porcupine Tree, Oceansize, (some) Aryeon, Mastodon's Crack the Skye album, Steven Wilson, Dream Theater, Nevermore (some prog elements there), Tool, Genesis. People seem to like The Dear Hunter a lot more than me. Dudes were cool live.

Oh, and King Crimson are a necessity but there are so many eras (I prefer the very early era, myself.)

And there was a Devin Townsend post. So here's a Devin Townsend song:

Okay, so as I said earlier: Devin Townsend. This guy is my personal hero. Everything he has done from Ocean Machine to Strapping Young Lad to Ziltoid to The Devin Townsend Band/Project is amazing.

Proof:

Enslaved:

The Faceless:

Communic:

Cynic:

Atheist:

Spiral Architect:

Borknagar:

Nachtmystium:

Aryeon was awesome, I wish Arjen would make a new one. His other projects are cool but they don't have that space opera epic goodness.

Obviously I'm a PT fan, although my interest in prog rock has waned greatly since my early undergrad days. After a while it all starts to sound the same, but I guess that's true for any genre.

@jrinswand: Supercrush was the hottest shit from that entire concert. No matter how many times I watch, I still get shivers down my spine.

Wish granted, he's actually working on a new Ayreon album now.

NOICE!!

I have a lovehate relationship with prog rock/metal. I mean, I like the progressive aspect and the long stretched vocals that accompany the journey the music creates, but a lot of the prog vocals sound plain bad.

Listened to half the songs on this thread and something always ruined it for me. Either what I consider "bad" power metal vocals (where the dude sounds all happy and gay.. in the original meaning of the word), or they try too hard and start shrieking ala Dragonforce, or they just start saying meaningless shit and making strange noises, like that Visions song, after I was really enjoying it.

Dream Theater, Tool, Nightwish, Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Ayreon are my favorites because IMO they actually sound serious and talented, they provide quality triple-A sound that consumes me. Led Zeppelin also, they were the first to craft such harmonic sound.

But it's a matter of taste so I'm not dissing any posts :) Just sharing my thoughts.

I can't thank you enough, this is spine shivering I love it.

How could I forget Transatlantic:

Fair to Midland, Animals as Leaders, Devin Townsend Project, and Karnivool are what I've been listening to lately as far as Prog Metal/Rock goes. AAL are an instrumental only group. I might include videos later when I get the chance.

Lot of really good recommendations here already, some folks going the more prog--death route (and tech-death, which could be a whole other yarn in the case of The Faceless) so I'll just throw out some more off the beaten path.

Soen: If you like Tool, you'll probably like Soen. They veer dangerously close to them at times and I have a running joke with some friends that when they put out Cognitive last year they released the best Tool disc since Lateralus.

The Omega Experiment: Some serious Devin Townsend worship going on here, but also goes in a million different directions. Great disc.

Do Shining (NOR) and The Ocean count? Both of their new ones have been pretty good from what has gotten out on the web.

It's my favorite genre. Opeth, Dream Theater, Symphony X, Porcupine Tree, Shadow Gallery, Storm Corrosion... basically what everyone has already suggested.

My 'good' prog metal playlist, in order of my current preferred artists:

1. Ayreon (01011001, Universal Migrator Pt. 1, plus Guilt Machine side project is amazing)

2. Pain of Salvation (Remedy Lane, Road Salt One)

3. Queensrÿche (Operation: Mindcrime, Empire)

4. Threshold (Subsurface, Hypothetical, Critical Mass, Dead Reckoning)

5. Suspyre (When Time Fades..., The Silvery Image)

6. Green Carnation (Light of Day, Day of Darkness)

7. Opeth (Blackwater Park)

8. Devin Townsend (Ocean Machine: Biomech)

9. Therion (Gothic Kabbalah)

10. Dream Theater (Scenes from a Memory)

11. In the Woods... (Omnio)

12. Beyond Twilight (Devil's Hall of Fame)

13. Shadow Gallery (Legacy)

I tried getting into Shadowkeep, Zero Hour, Spock's Beard, Messhugah, Frameshift, Psychotic Waltz, Riverside, etc. but it wasn't happening. Nice to see some prog metal fans though. I'm pleasantly surprised at the Ayreon rep!

I've been diversifying my genre interests lately though. Currently on a dark folk bender!

--Adrian

Someone melted a bag of gold and converted it into an internet web page - this thread is IT!

Those Devin Townsend videos are triumphant

Animals as Leaders spring to mind

Ive been getting back into Therion as well but would personally not consider them that proggy.

Another YouTube spam thread!

• Meshuggah
• Tool
• Periphery
• The Faceless
• King Crimson
• The HAARP Machine
• Pulse Ultra
• Cynic
• Between the Buried and Me
• Into Eternity
• Coheed and Cambria
• Protest the Hero (NEW ALBUM COMING SOON!)
• Misery Signals (NEW ALBUM COMING SOON!)
• Sikth (RIP)

And of course, Uriah Heep.

This thread has been good to me. Anyway I'll post some recommendations now:

• Opeth - Progressive "growl" metal with clean vocals as well (same vocalist), and the extended guitar segments sound incredibly unique and skillful :)

(20:16)

• My Morning Jacket - Psychadelic prog

(7:29)

• Nightwish - Symphonic prog

(10:03)

• My Dying Bride - Progressive doom metal

(12:14)

• In Vain - prog metal with good growling, the music is somewhat melancholic especially during the clean vocals

(9:42)

• Tool - I can't define this shit but it's gold

(14:02)

• Amorphis - Some kind of death metal

(7:22)

@jrinswand: I thought i'd be the one suggesting Cynic to everyone, great call man. I'm a huge fan of classic prog metal like Atheist, Opeth and Dream Theater as well as prog rock like Yes. Since everyone has already mentioned a lot of the great ones already i'll try to keep mine fairly obscure, they will lean towards the metal side of progressive. PS I don't mean to YouTube spam but it's nice to just be able to click and listen to some of the recommendations in here. @jakob187: Those are some real solid suggestions, i had a chance to see The HAARP Machine open for The Faceless a few months back and i was really impressed with the vocalists range.

Animals as Leaders: Great instrumental progressive metal band lead by a guitar virtuoso type named Tosin Abasi.

The Human Abstract: Much like the band Thrice this band took a more melodic "experimental" approach to their later stuff which i didn't care for at first, but songs like this have definitely grown on me.

The Ocean: I can't suggest this band enough. Kind of similar to Mastodon but with a hell of a lot of soul.

And one last one for good measure, i'm pretty sure the title of this song is a Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference so there's at least that.

Seeing as a lot has been suggested already. I'll repeat opeth, but get something like blackwater park or still life to get into them. (Damnation is also awesome but pretty different then what the normally do, just as it the new album.)

And i'll add

• Ihsahn
• Gru - Cosmogenesis
• Anything that involves steven Wilson and Arjen lucassen
• Symphony x
• Circus Maximus
• Seventh wonder
• Big elf
• Gordian knot
• Leprous (I go to these guys for something like opeth but not opeth.)
• Mind's eye
• Pagan's mind
• Pain of Salvation
• Painted in Exile
• Persefone
• Proghma-c
• Planet-x
• Protest the hero
• Queensryche
• Redemption
• Blotted Science
• Excivious

These are some more i didn't see mentioned in here, unless i missed them, that i think are worth checking out. I like some more then others on this list but these might all fit the bill that you are looking for.

Could probably come up with some more.

Edit: Some i didn't see mention where actually mentioned Like seventh wonder and protest the hero. and http://music.capturethesunband.com/

Oh my god, I'm going to be spending all night listening to this youtube spam. My addition is an Israeli Prog Metal band called Orphaned Land. I'm extremely impressed by how well they're able to transition between an angry, almost deathy sound, to something much slower and reflective.

This song is a pretty good representation of the styles the band is good at.

Edit: Man, with all the recommendations, I'm surprised there isn't any Diablo Swing Orchestra in here. Hope you're ready for equal parts Swing jazz, Metal, and Chaos.

@ruggles: Damn dude i'd never heard of Diablo Swing Orchestra before, that was awesome.

Dream Theater fan, specifically Portnoy era.

I'm still pissed about them letting him go and considering the last album sucked ass, confirmed by belief that he really was why DT was good in the first place

Between the Buried and Me is my favorite prog metal band.

Abydos
As previously mentioned, Between the Buried and Me

Devin Townsend

Three

Protest The Hero

Panzerballett

Hope you guys like Inronaut

The last few albums with Portnoy weren't that hot, anyway. Maybe one or two tracks on a record were good, the rest seemed like filler.

The last thing they put out that I really enjoyed was the covers disc with Black Clouds, ironically.

Had a fling with progressive metal a while back, I have kinda moved away from it again.
I still listen to Protest The Hero once in a while though.

I'm not a "prog head", but I am a guitar player, and as it turns out prog rock/metal has some of the best guitar, so I do listen to some stuff (mostly instrumental)

• Queensryche
• Dream Theater
• Ethan Brosh
• Steve Vai
• Tony MacAlpine
• Pagan's Mind
• Devin Townsend
• Angel Vivaldi
• Paul Gilbert