Prog Rock

Yeah I do think metal and/or potentially certain more modern variants of hardcore may have been a big influence on more start-and-go riffing as well as the flashier more reckless lead guitar playing.

The fact that Noise Rock and Math Rock make extensive use of screechy, high-pitched guitar noise (albeit not in all cases, but quite often) rather than the "chunkier" Metal tone is an obvious tip-off in that particular case... Not a dig at those genres, since I like 'em quite a bit, but they won't likely be mistaken for Metal in most cases.

Metal does seem to have "weightier" guitar sounds more often than not- even Black Metal, for example, which has a more "atmospheric" guitar sound on average, manages to keep at least some of that...

edited 29th Aug '14 10:34:25 PM by sharkcrap11

Black metal crosses over into other genres more easily than a lot of other sorts of metal for precisely that reason, which is slightly ironic given that the culture surrounding black metal tends to be a lot weirder and more forbidding than, say, power metal or trad-doom.

I mean, it's very easy to pick at bands like Liturgy, but they do exist for a very logical reason. Tremolo picking, blast beats, fuzzy production, harried screaming and an emphasis on emotional and sonic extremity all make sense in the context of other kinds of music, so there's spillover in either direction.

I notice that death metal tends to be immune to this for the most part, but I think that's because the sound of death metal is... well, very "metal" in a way that doesn't translate as well into other kinds of music.

I've heard some interesting Death Metal / something-else hybrid bands, but then again, many of those are sufficiently different from more "conventional" Death Metal to barely count in many cases (i.e. Opeth, Alchemist, Atheist, etc.).

Liturgy has an interesting idea, but they just don't pull it off very well, IMO. But I very much agree that Black Metal is more open to hybridization than many other Metal subgenres are, even if said experimentation doesn't always "work"...

It's funny that Alchemist should slip my mind, but I guess I think of bands like that in terms of their individual sound being more amenable to unusual outside influences rather than the genre as a whole being particularly wobbly-edged. While the shared fondness for unusual harmonies, virtuoso playing, extreme speeds and tricksy rhythms does give the fierier end of jazz-fusion a certain degree of common ground with the more atonal and melodic corners of death metal, it's not as broad an area as is shared between black metal, screamo, crust punk, shoegaze, some post-rock and harsh noise.

Yeah, some definitely do it better than others. For what it's worth, I really do like Deafheaven, as divisive as that statement is for some people (cue Stillbirth gettin' angry here), but I think that they know what they want to sound like and they pull whatever that is off rather well. Granted, I think they have more in common with Envy or Suffocate For Fuck Sake than most other black metal bands, but fuck it, I like music.

edited 30th Aug '14 1:13:33 AM by JHM

Jazz Fusion and Prog-Rock interact with Death Metal fairly often, as does Industrial music. But beyond that, it seems to be a far more insular form than Black Metal.

I can't really get into Deafheaven, but I won't hate on you for liking 'em. After all, I like Leviathan, Wolves In The Throne Room, Xasthur and Nachtmystium, to name a few of the so-called "Hipster Black Metal" bands that a lot of serious Metalhead types hate so much, so I know the feeling...

Really, liking something that happens to be popular regardless of where the tides shift is very different from liking something because it has become hip. And really, I think people who like things because it makes them look cool are a lot rarer than people think they are; much like most music stereotypes, you will run into them now and then and ask how this person is for real, but you're asking that question for a reason.

Incidentally, I'm only semi-familiar with most of those bands, although I like what I've heard of most of them.

There's always people who live up (or, more accurately, down to) any stereotype or strawman that exists, but thankfully they're not too common. I always laugh when I run into them...

Good bands, all. No matter what some might say...

On a different note regarding this discussion on metal I would like to (for no other reason but to bitch) say my main grievance with modern prog: dominated by electrical instruments and precisely drawing from metal soundscapes. What makes classical prog so appealing to me is the juxtaposition of electronic and acoustic instruments and sections to build dramatic tension. (See any longer composition by Genesis) That and generally spicing up the general rock band instrumentation with more interesting sounds seems like the way to go. At some point, no matter how complex your chord is, if the sound is dominated by distortion on the guitar, it sounds same-y.

Not to be nitpicky but are you talking about modern prog rock or modern prog metal or both?

Also some examples might be neat.

I think he's talking about progressive rock-based styles that use strong distortion in general, at least in the more rhythmic/chordal guitar parts.

Modern prog and prog-metal hybrids, that seem to dominate the scene right now.

Though I am fully open to examples that go against that description, if they are there.

Most of my personal preference for prog metal generally lies within the realm of the more melodic post-classic heavy metal derived sounds associated with Dream Theater, early Queensryche, Fates Warning, and earlier Symphony X. However I think you might be referring to bands more along the lines of Meshuggah, Opeth, Periphery, and Mastodon, perhaps even the more "extreme" stuff like The Faceless and Between the Buried and Me right? I'm not familiar with modern prog rock (I've mostly stuck with the classic 70's stuff) but bands like these are in my experience seen as the new face of prog metal.

I don't have a terribly high opinion of the latter group to say the least.

edited 13th Sep '14 2:01:52 PM by StillbirthMachine

Is it weird that I like all of the bands you've mentioned here (except The Faceless and Between The Buried and Me, not really my cup'a tea)? Or wrong? Opeth, Dream Theater and Queensryche are my favorites listed here, though...

Sorta figured you'd not like those last few though. Call it a hunch... To each their own and whatnot, eh?

On the subject of (relatively, i.e. post-Neo-Prog stuff) recent Prog, I'm a fan of Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, Jadis, Anekdoten, Anglagard, Porcupine Tree and Ozric Tentacles, though I'm aware that the last one isn't "pure" prog by any means (more of a Prog-Rock / Psychedelic Rock / Electronic Music hybrid with a lot of Jamming involved)...

I also like some (but not all) of the so-called "New Prog" bands, though they're a different category entirely.

edited 13th Sep '14 6:30:27 PM by sharkcrap11

A good friend of mine's twin brother was a big Ozric Tentacles fan, but I've heard next to nothing from them myself. When I think of modern prog, though, I generally think of The Mars Volta, Porcupine Tree, and to a lesser extent the likes of Kayo Dot (who I love to pieces).

I've never listened to Kayo Dot, how'd you describe them? I'm a big fan of The Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree, though...

They're... hard to describe.

This is typical, in some respects.

Intriguing. Though your statement implies that it isn't typical in all respects, or maybe that there IS no typical for them...

Even more intriguing, in other words.

Most of their tracks are a bit shorter than that, and less of an extreme slow burn, although they are very good at increasing tension over any length of time. Some of their work is doomier, other stuff more understated. There are sometimes screams. It varies.

But describing what they actually sound like is very difficult.

Very much my cup of tea, thanks for bringing it to my attention, man.

So, I'm just gonna go ahead and open this can o'worms...How do you guys feel about that weird 50:50 blend of prog and new wave/soft rock that a lot of our beloved bands fell into in the late 70s? Here's looking at you, Yes, Renaissance, The Alan Parsons Project, and The Moody Blues.

I mainly ask this because of a train of thought I had while listening to Camel's I Can See Your House from Here.

...to be fair, a lot of those bands had aspects of the sappy balladeer in them from the start, and a lot of the earlier "soft rock" acts had some very progressive inclinations in their own rights. I guess that it's really about the feedback between a certain kind of singer-songwriter sensibility and a certain kind of virtuoso style, but eh.

I like Todd Rundgren. I'm OK with mid-period Genesis, early Chicago. But the better part of it is really not my thing. When it comes to the "dark age" of progressive rock, the closet prog-rockers and real freaks were way more interesting.

I don't like the way that Yes and Genesis "reinvented" themselves at the start of the '80s, but I have to admit they did a damned good job of it. 90125 and Genesis were brilliant things of their kind, even though that's not what I myself wanted to hear from them. And all the other prog artists at that time were selling ever fewer records, and looking enviously at their erstwhile peers' success. They're only human, and I'll bet they like to eat & keep a roof over their heads just as much as you or I do. So going in a poppier direction must have seemed like a no-brainer.

Now, sometimes that worked, but most of the time it didn't. I mean, it REALLY didn't. But it's also hard to argue that they could reasonably have kept following their muses. From 1980 until the rise of the Internet, playing prog was a great way not to have so much as a record contract.

• Soft Machine: I really only like their first three albums. After that, they just kind of devolved into typical Brit-jazz, and it was all over when that Adiemus hack Karl Jenkins joined up. Their first three albums are real monsters, though. Third is rightly acknowledged as a classic, for the way it blends jazz, psychedelia and Terry Riley-style electronics, but I have to say that Volume 2 has held up a bit better for me.
• Quiet Sun: I enjoy Phil Manzanera’s full-blown swan-dive into jazzy prog quite a lot, the only thing that doesn’t work for me are the vocals on “Rongwrong.” Charles Hayward, you are no Robert Wyatt. Otherwise, nice Canterbury from not-Canterbury.
• Henry Cow: Some of these avant-garde bands I more appreciate than like, but HC fall heavily on the “like” side, especially their debut. Well, some of the more improv-y moments of In Praise of Learning leave me cold, but “Living in the Heart of the Beast” more than makes up for them. Heart-stopping brilliance!
• Gentle Giant: I don’t listen to them nearly as much as I used to, but I still consider them a favourite. I can understand why some would hate them, though, at times they sound complex and dissonant to a contrived degree (“Knots” being a rather extreme example). They never embraced the epic like a lot of their contemporaries (I think their longest song ever was something like nine minutes), and I actually applaud them for that.
• Aqsak/Aksak Maboul: Though I’ve known about them for years, I only just recently heard some of their stuff through Spotify. Too early to form an opinion, I fear, but I like what I’m hearing.
• Metabolist: Is their stuff available? I had the chance to get Hansten Klork on vinyl lifetimes ago, but stupidly passed it up, not knowing how rare it would become. Considering I’d heard them compared to Can, you’d think it would have been an autobuy.
• Caravan: I really like them a lot. Feel-good prog. I don’t get why some folks like to bash Pye Hastings (as both a guitarist and a singer), ’cause I really like him. Funnily enough, I didn’t much care for For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night when I first heard it, but I put it away for a month only to rediscover it and have it quickly grow to be a favourite. These guys incorporated orchestrations into their music better than most. “A Hunting We Shall Go” is sheer beauty (especially the interpolation of the Soft Machine theme with synth solo and the swelling orchestra underneath).
• Shub-Niggurath: Only just discovered them, very Magma-esque, and I love the operatic female vocals. I much prefer them to Eskaton, who always struck me as “Magma-lite.”
• Univers Zéro: Mes belges préférés. I love Ceux du dehors and UZED most of all. These guys integrated 80s synths into their sound better than anyone else (see also: the tragically underrated Heatwave).

RE: modern/latter-day prog. There’s stuff out there that I like, but most of the popular current bands (Spocks Beard, Porcupine Tree, Flower Kings, Riverside et al) tends to leave me cold, if I don’t just out-and-out dislike them. And I tend not to be a big metal fan, so I usually just avoid prog-metal as a rule. And I don’t think death metal mixes well with prog at all, so that rules out Opeth (well, except for Damnation, which was better than any of the PTree I’ve heard).

My top album for 2014 is probably the self-titled debut by Perfect Beings: