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The Official Progressive Metal Recommendations Thread


RelentlessOblivion

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Moderator's Note: This is the place for all Prog recommendations on Metal Forum.

 

this is a bit of a running thing with me now, looking for complex, technical bands that keep things interesting and please for the love of god no dream theatre...wait they are prog aren't they? either way I can't stand them

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Re: intro to prog All RIGHT! :P Anyhow, I think I'm just going to give you a list and elaborate only a bit...It'll take eons if I try to give you a good impression of the band or album in question. I'll try to answer your questions on these bands if you want some more in-depth description. I recommend: 'The Weight Of The World' by 7days. This features my favorite guitarist Markus Sigfridsson and famed Candlemass vocalist Thomas Vikstrom on lead vocals; one of my favorite albums. 'Final Extension' by Andromeda. This is a reissue of their first album, but with their current singer who I think is better. Brainstorm overall. I have 'Liquid Monster' but people say that's one of their weaker albums. Otherwise, a pretty crunchy approach. Don't get their latest stuff, it's somewhat bland. 'Metus Mortis' and 'Soul Temptation' get good reviews. Circle II Circle overall. They use some of Savatage's talent and have a strongly guitar-based approach and great vocals. Circus Maximus overall. They have some great material on their two albums. 'Where Stories End' by Darkwater. This album is better than their first in my opinion; its melodies are more accessible and the guitar is better. Independent Harmony by Division By Zero. Their other album is also good, but this one showcases their awesome mix of thundering technical riffs better. Dominici overall. Good prog all around. 5th Season by Dreamscape. It's got a lot of long songs, but good and VERY underrated. Definitely a band which deserves more publicity. In Search Of Truth by Evergrey. This band really got to sucking recently, but their early stuff is good. Check out the song 'Watching The Skies'. MAD riff on that sucker! :twisted: 'Memoirs Of A Broken Man' by Futures End. I think it's their only album, but it's great, very aggressive stuff while retaining clean vocals. 'Pulse For A Graveheart' by Mind Key. I discovered this recently, it's very good prog with a lot of passion behind it. Myrath overall. O yes, how I love this band. It's groovy, technical Arabic prog. What more do you need to hear? Nevermore overall. I like 'This Godless Endeavor' but they have a LOT of great stuff. The guitars are awesome here. Definitely one of my favorite prog bands. Orphaned Land overall. They combine complex arrangements with Hebrew instruments and prog. Pathosray's self-titled debut. Their songs have multiple passages, strong instrumentation and an overall aggressiveness and passion. 'Scent Of Snow' ranks up there as one of the best prog songs I've ever heard. Random Eyes overall. Yeah, their new album is called 'Light Up'. No, it's not about weed. Yes, it's pink. No, it's not horrible. These guys are a mixed bag; I like their album 'Invisible' the best but their other stuff is fine too. Redmption overall. They are the BEST prog band I've ever heard. :mrgreen:Scar Symmetry overall. They haven't got one really strong album, but a lot of good material. 'Holographic Universe' is probably their best-loved album. 'Mercy Falls' by Seventh Wonder. Great Swedish prog and one of my favorite prog albums. Imaginary Sonicscape by Sigh. This is technically black metal, but the musicianship is great. Weird stuff and great for being strange. 'Aeons Past' by Solution .45. This is good progressive death metal with clean vocals. I know some people hate this band but I think they're good. 'When Time Fades' by Suspyre. This band has strong classical influences and a wide variety in their music. Definitely check them out for something interesting. 'Iconoclast' by Symphony X. This album features their crunchiest stuff, I think. Very aggressive, but it allows the keyboards to enjoy a bit more time in the limelight, putting it a bit ahead of 'Paradise Lost'. Threshold overall. They were the first prog band I discovered and remain one of my favorites. Sadly, their vocalist Andrew MacDermott died so we won't get to hear him again...try to find the material where he sings. 'Long Way Home' remains to this day my favorite song. Tomorrow's Eve overall. This German band is pretty underrated, but they're very good, nice and crunchy with good keyboards and drums as well. 'Reality' by Wingdom. This is good prog with wonderful keyboard melodies. And two Australian bands! 'The Fourth Season' by Vanishing Point. This band has good vocals and great atmosphere. Voyager overall. Look at their more recent stuff...I don't like their old work although others do. Their vocalist is quite exceptional, one of the best. Their overall sense of melody is great. Eeesh. Well, now my back hurts. Check these bands out!

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Re: intro to prog

Black Majesty was pretty generic IMO. Rob used to make large orders with Limb Music' date=' and I ccould not tell most of those bands apart, which makes it both easy and difficult to sell depending on the person.[/quote'] Sure, they are rather generic (which is why I never bought any from them) but they're still solid power metal. What of Dungeon? On the topic of prog, you may like the album 'Waves of Visual' Decay by Communic. It's great music but I didn't like the lyrics and the songs were all quite long. I also forgot, definitely check out Queensryche.
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Re: intro to prog

alright starting to check out some of these bands' date=' taking advantage of a music app on my xbox 360 to check out Circle II Circle's Watching In Silence album, so far I'm liking it a lot[/quote'] Yes, that's a good album. I should recommend Vanden Plas, especially their latest album 'Seraphic Clockwork'. The concept behind the album is somewhat stupid but the music is great.
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Re: intro to prog Well, I sort of need an intro to prog myself. It's my least favorite metal genre and the one I own the least of, and most of the progressive stuff I have is progressive black, death, or thrash metal, and not straight up prog metal. In any case, I'll still try to give a few recs in case there are some I like that you haven't heard, maybe you'll dig the more extreme progressive acts I do.

 

Age of Silence - Acceleration:

I found out about these guys because a number of their members are in established Norwegian bands, but I like their modern progressive sound. Lars Nedland's vocals are always great, though perhaps not as great here as with Solefald, and Andy Winter's keyboards and Hellhammer's drums are always in top form.

 

Alarum - Eventuality:

These guys might be close to tech death/thrash in places, but I've always felt they were a great deal more progressive than most bands in that field. They have a very flowing, jazzy style that I dig, and everything is tightly played and well placed.

 

Alchemist - Organasm:

Alchemist are a totally unique band, not sounding like any other I've ever encountered. They play a sort of avant-garde, progressive, tribal death/sludge metal that is just as hard to categorize as that sounds. They use native Australian musical influences (at least on this album, the only one I have), but combine it with their original metal sounds seamlessly for a very compelling listen.

 

Amorphis - Elegy:

Another step in Amorphis' evolution immediately following Tales From the Thousand Lakes, Elegy saw them incorporating 70's progressive influences and a larger Finnish folk presence into their music, in addition to Pasi Koskinen's clean vocals. All things considered this is easily my favorite Amorphis album, no album before or since has captured the unique feel of this album, and I've always found it to be totally engrossing and it sticks in my head for long periods after I listen to it.

 

Anacrusis - Screams and Whispers:

Anacrusis were originally a thrash metal band that became more and more progressive throughout their career. I don't have their first two albums, but Screams and Whispers is my favorite of their later two, a perfect combination of prog and thrash with Ken Nardi's vocals and the great songwriting as the highlights. I can't really think of any other bands that sound like Anacrusis, as they do a great job of alternating relaxed passages and tense ones.

 

Arcturus - The Sham Mirror:

This is the 2nd of Arcturus' progressive avant-garde period, and it's my favorite album of theirs by the smallest margin over Aspera Hiems Symfonia. Garm's clean vocals are at their peak here, as are all of the instruments, and there are TONS of outside influences incorporated into their sound here, but I love the way that they all flow together. This album gives me a very spacey feeling as I listen to it, more so than just about any album I've heard.

 

Edge of Sanity - Crimson:

Edge of Sanity were a Swedish death metal band that became more progressive as time went on, resulting in a unique and amazing progressive death metal fusion culminating on Crimson. This isn't my very favorite Edge of Sanity album, I think I might like The Spectral Sorrows just a little bit more, but this is a much more progressive album. This album consists of 1 40 minute song, but I grabbed just the first part instead of the whole song. There is not much repetition, and when it does cycle back around to a familiar section, it feels as though it is exactly the right time to do so, everything else having been developed to it's logical conclusion, and never do I feel bored when listening to it as a whole.

 

Frantic Bleep - The Sense Apparatus:

This is another Norwegian band with a bizarre take on progressive metal, alternating dissonant heavy passages with a very laid back and somber tone. As far as I know, they've just made this one album, and while I haven't listened to it in quite a while, posting it here is reminding me to dust it off and give it some more time.

 

Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness:

This is another album like Crimson, containing only 1 song for the entire album length. Not sure what to classify this as either, but it is quite progressive and I love this album a great deal. Again, I only posted the first part, and again some passages are revisited, but I never tire while listening to this album the whole way through.

 

Ihsahn - The Adversary:

This is a pretty interesting album, it's basically Ihsahn incorporating influences from his former bands Peccatum and Emperor, mixing them with King Diamond, and a great deal of progressive metal. Hopefully the combination of all of these things will appeal to you, at least on this album, as he has grown into a much more unique and difficult to swallow progressive artist over time, with his newest album containing many saxophone sections and a large jazz influence. If you can warm up to it though, it can be a very rewarding listen.

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Re: intro to prog

Well' date=' I sort of need an intro to prog myself. It's my least favorite metal genre and the one I own the least of, and most of the progressive stuff I have is progressive black, death, or thrash metal, and not straight up prog metal.[/quote'] :shock: Really? I would have thought your least favorite would be power metal. Weird. Prog's probably my favorite. Anyhow, murph, you might like Royal Hunt, they're pretty good. Maybe I'll recommend Pagan's Mind too, although I've become less awed by their music than I used to be. Oceans Of Sadness is a rather good Belgian band, but it's rather hard to find them. I know you can get CD's on Amazon.
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Re: intro to prog man I have so much to get through, I've just gotten started on black metal, fortunately there's not as much there, then I've got death, doom, more power metal since I never finished that list, prog and thrash, seriously at the rate I'm going my metal collection will be even more monumental then it already is, but on the down side I'll be totally broke

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Re: intro to prog

Well, I guess it's not quite as black and white as I made it out to be. European flower metal like Edguy would probably be my least favorite type of metal, but I love classic power metal. I don't like a ton of traditional prog, but progressive variants of other metal genres do rank among some of my favorites, so maybe I did speak a bit too definitively about that.
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man I have so much to get through' date=' I've just gotten started on black metal, fortunately there's not as much there, then I've got death, doom, more power metal since I never finished that list, prog and thrash, seriously at the rate I'm going my metal collection will be even more monumental then it already is, but on the down side I'll be totally broke[/quote'] That's the struggle. I mentioned in another thread that if I didn't like all of metal's subgenre's to one degree or another, I would have a much more impressive collection in just a few genres. Getting into lots of different things is great IMO, but you'll always be behind on your wants.
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Re: intro to prog

Well, I guess it's not quite as black and white as I made it out to be. European flower metal like Edguy would probably be my least favorite type of metal, but I love classic power metal. I don't like a ton of traditional prog, but progressive variants of other metal genres do rank among some of my favorites, so maybe I did speak a bit too definitively about that.
Oh good, someone else hates Edguy. It depends what you mean by traditional prog...I'd say King's X, Queensryche, Fates Warning and Rush count as traditional prog. However, there is some really awesome pure prog out there, like what I just finished listening to. And what I'm listening to now. :mrgreen: 'Human Device' by Tomorrows Eve and 'For All The Nations' by Random Eyes.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Re: intro to prog ok BlutAusNerd checked out the vid list and I can't think of any bands in that one that I didn't like, I think I like that Amorphis song more then the one you posted in the doom metal section actually, Frantic Bleep had a very interesting feel so I'll be getting that album for sure and I'll check out other material by those other bands eventually, if I keep going at this rate I'll have 1000 albums by the end of the year

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Re: intro to prog

ok BlutAusNerd checked out the vid list and I can't think of any bands in that one that I didn't like' date=' I think I like that Amorphis song more then the one you posted in the doom metal section actually, Frantic Bleep had a very interesting feel so I'll be getting that album for sure and I'll check out other material by those other bands eventually, if I keep going at this rate I'll have 1000 albums by the end of the year[/quote'] Good luck with that, I have a hard time containing my spending (by my standards anyway) and am around 1500 albums, and I've been buying at a pretty high rate for almost 10 years with a few breaks. The Amorphis song I posted in this section is from my favorite album of theirs, but I still love their early work as well.
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Re: intro to prog I think this is the only one I haven't done a second set from, so here goes:

 

In the Woods... - Omnio:

In the Woods... began as a black metal band with a strong progressive and atmospheric influence, and would eventually become a progressive/atmospheric band. This album is in the middle of their evolution, but leans much farther to the progressive side of the spectrum. Green Carnation sort of evolved from this band, so if you liked the stuff I posted from them, this might appeal to you as well.

 

Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle part 1:

Nachtmystium were a pretty unremarkable US black metal band until they started incorporating Pink Floyd influences into their music. Instinct:Decay was the first album to show signs of the evolution, but with Assassins, they became extremely psychedelic and progressive rock influenced, to the point that many won't even call them black metal anymore. I personally love the fusion of ideas, though the followup to Assassins was definitely weaker.

 

Orphaned Land - Mabool:

I know Iceni has recommended this band before, but I don't know if you checked it out or not. These guys are a progressive Middle Eastern folk/melodeath band, and are gifted songwriters. They capture an atmosphere of that region and of the desert better than almost any other band I've heard (except Melechesh), and I find their music very interesting and cool. Mabool is my favorite, I felt like their new one wasn't as good as this, but all of their albums are great.

 

Pagan's Mind - Celestial Entrance:

Pagan's Mind are probably my favorite modern power/prog band, probably because of their heavier and less symphonic writing style, and the excellent vocals and instrumentation. I definitely feel like they fall more on the progressive side of the equation, which is why they're here instead of on the power metal list. These guys take the best aspects of Dream Theater and reincorporate them into a more metal setting in a way which I really enjoy.

 

Ram-Zet - Escape:

Ram-Zet are a pretty unique band combining many influences, so it's hard to put them into any one category that isn't progressive or avant-garde. The arrangements can seem pretty schizophrenic, as with many avant-garde bands, but the place where all of these strange and seemingly disparate ideas meet makes for some pretty interesting listening. Not sure if you'll like this one or not, but I'd bet Iceni would.

 

Sigh - Imaginary Sonicscape:

Sigh are one of the best and most fascinating metal bands in existence IMO. They began as an exceptional black metal band, and have continuously evolved into something fresh and yet unique to themselves with each album. They're also the best band at incorporating influences outside of metal that I've ever heard, and are extremely adventurous without losing the ability to be catchy and entertaining. This is one of their most progressive albums, but they're all worth owning IMO.

 

Solefald - In Harmonia Universali:

As you can tell from the song title, Solefald is a pretty fucking strange band. Their roots are in black metal, but they're very avant-garde, and really great IMO. Nothing conventional at all about their song structure, vocals, riffs, anything really, and it can be a bit too much for some, but I guess I'm not one of those people.

 

Voivod - Nothingface:

Voivod are one of my favorite bands, and after their early thrash albums they became a unique progressive metal band. Their use of discordance is sort of their trademark, as is their scifi atmosphere and themes. Snake is not the best vocalist, but his deadpan delivery gives the band another dimension of strangeness that I find extremely compelling.

 

I guess I don't have as many progressive recommendations than other genres, as I left some of the really bizarre, challenging, and extreme stuff off.

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Re: intro to prog There's a guy called SoundsOfChaos on YouTube who's got a pretty big collection of avant-garde music. I might recommend his videos to you. I was most impressed by Ensoph (a pretty vicious Italian gothic metal band...maybe you'll like them, maybe you won't, but I did) and Thy Catafalque. The latter is a great Hungarian band, I liked material from their albums 'Roka Hasa Radio' and 'Regneteg'. Truly awesome stuff, a strange synthesis of black, folk, prog and doom.

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Re: intro to prog

There's a guy called SoundsOfChaos on YouTube who's got a pretty big collection of avant-garde music. I might recommend his videos to you. I was most impressed by Ensoph (a pretty vicious Italian gothic metal band...maybe you'll like them, maybe you won't, but I did) and Thy Catafalque. The latter is a great Hungarian band, I liked material from their albums 'Roka Hasa Radio' and 'Regneteg'. Truly awesome stuff, a strange synthesis of black, folk, prog and doom.
I've heard of Thy Catafalque, but haven't actually heard them. I don't think I've found my weirdness threshold yet, I like stuff that's really strange and/or hard to listen to, so avant-garde stuff usually works well for me.
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Re: intro to prog well BAN that second list was interesting to say the least, when I got rid of my death and black metal albums (and honestly I had more black then death anyway) I kept three bands, Orphaned Land was one of them, I've posted a couple of their songs in that rate the song above you thread (and for some reason they got poor ratings), thowe avant-garde bands were totally unlike anything I've heard before and were a little difficult to grasp so I'll listen to those songs again and see if I can't tease out a bit more from them, not hard to see why Nachtmystia would be deemed generic if that's the best they have to offer I won't be adding them to my collection, other then that pretty enjoyable songs and I'll be looking into the bands to get a better feel for them (oh and if you were wondering when I sold my death and black metal the other two bands I kept were Celtic Frost and Venom)

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  • 11 months later...

I'm going to try to add a few more on here, I left some of the heavier prog stuff out earlier, but now is as good a time as any for it I guess. There will probably be a great deal of other genres of metal with very progressive or avant-garde leanings as opposed to purely "prog metal", but there might be a couple of prog metal bands I missed earlier too.

 

Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone:

Akercocke are a black/death metal band from England, and are known for playing in business suits, extremely satanic lyrics, and a marked affinity for the nude female form. All of those things aside though, their music is extremely dark and challenging, starting with a couple of very evil sounding black death metal albums, and then becoming quite unique and progressive with their third album. This track is my favorite song of theirs from what I feel is their best album, Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone, and is an 11 minute progressive journey through many different musical textures. Lots of clean vocals, strange structures, and passages that alternate between being destructive and beautiful. This is a masterpiece, and I'm sad that they won't be making albums anymore.

 

Biomechanical - The Empires of the Worlds:

Biomechanical are a pretty interesting UK band, fusing a number of influences into a unique sound. Take Pantera's aggression, mix it with more old school Judas Priest inspired solos and riffs (and even falsetto vocals), then add a high degree of technicality and progressive songwriting, put a modern industrial type of spin on the sound and you have this. It's very progressively written, but hard to pin down a specific genre other than that. The songs are all over the place, changing riffs and structures frequently, and it's a pretty spazzy and occassionally overwhelming listen, but if you're looking for a more extreme take on progressive metal (almost like Nevermore on crack), this might be for you.

 

Crypt of Kerberos - World of Myths:

Crypt of Kerberos were a short lived, but quite cool progressive death metal band from Sweden. The reason that I have grouped them here is because their progressive elements often overshadowed their death metal elements, with heavy use of keyboards, lead guitars, and clean vocals, in addition to more open and airy sounding passages than many death metal bands have ever attempted. This is a unique album that would probably satiate fans of both progressive and death metal, and it's too bad they never did much more than this album and a couple of demos and EPs.

 

Demimonde - Mutant Star:

Demimonde are a band that I don't know much about, other than the fact that they're probably one of the weirdest bands in my collection. They're from the Czech Republic, so I shouldn't be too surprised, but their avant-garde mixture of gothic, death, doom, progressive, and industrial metal is just totally bizarre. I bought this for a dollar with another album from an ebay seller, and it doesn't seem like many people know about them, but I actually really like popping this in once in a while for a truly mend-bending listen. Definitely very adventurous stuff and not for everyone, but see what you think.

 

The Devin Townsend Band - Synchestra:

The Devin Townsend Band is just one of Devin Townsend's many solo projects, the others being Biomech, The Devin Townsend Project, and simply Devin Townsend, all of which center around Devin's unique brand of progressive metal. The guitars are tuned down to C and are heavy, but also quite expansive and beautiful sounding, and his vocals alternate between soft, epic, and screamed sections. This isn't traditional prog metal ala Dream Theater, but something different entirely, and also quite good.

 

Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini:

I've already posted about Enslaved in the Folk/viking thread, but as they've been on an increasingly progressive path for over 10 years, it's only right to include something of their newer material here. This still very much sounds like Enslaved, but the songs are much more progressive than on their early work. The presence of the keyboards have been elevated, clean vocals are prevalent in many songs, and the song structures and riffs are all put together in a progressive fashion. Not much else to say here, other than they're one of my favorite bands, and their ability to grow and expand their sound throughout the years to something like this while remaining brilliant is one of the reasons why.

 

Extol - Undeceived

Extol were a progressive black/death metal band from Norway that became more of a progressive metalcore band following the release of this album, Undeceived. Iceni will probably give me points for posting this one, as they are a Christian band, and quite a talented and original one at that. The performances here are very tight, the vocals quite harsh and mostly indecipherable, and they weave the progressive elements directly into their heavier riffs in addition to the strictly prog metal breaks. It's too bad they went to the metalcore sound after this album, because I would definitely have liked to hear more music in this vein.

Fantomas - The Director's Cut:

Fantomas is a truly bizarre band, I'm not even sure where to begin with them. You may recognize the vocalist Mike Patton from Faith No More, and he has brought his band mate Trevor Dunn with him to Fantomas from Mr. Bungle. Rounding out the lineup is Buzz Osbourne of Melvins, and Dave Lombardo of Slayer. The music is something else entirely, an avant-garde and sometimes noisy take on grindcore, but unlike anything else you've ever heard. This album is a concept album, the concept being Fantomas' adaptations of movie scores and theme music, focusing on great drama and horror movies throughout the years. As with most of Patton's projects, this is weird and unique stuff, worth more than just a listen to any fan of adventurous and different music.

 

Fleurety - Department of Apocalyptic Affairs:

Fleurety are but one of many Norwegian black metal bands that jumped ship from black metal in the late 90's/early 00's to pursue avant-garde metal. There's not really any black metal left in their sound, all that remains is a pretty bizarre strain of avant-garde metal the includes little bits of everything. There's electronic, hip-hop, jazz, and all different kinds of influences going on here, all mixed together with a metal base that makes for a pretty interesting listen. I don't like these guys as much as some of the other black metal bands that have undergone this transition (like Arcturus and Sigh, for example), but this is still a good album that will challenge you as much as engage you.

 

Lunaris - Cyclic:

Lunaris are a progressive black metal band from Norway. They released a couple of albums at the start of the 00's and vanished, but they seem to have gotten back together recently. Both albums that they released were very modern and progressive black metal, with lots of clean vocals, keyboards, and a more technical approach than most standard black metal bands. A couple of the members were also involved in Spiral Architect, which probably explains where those progressive elements come from, and this does occassionally sound like a black metal Spiral Architect, or maybe a less folky Borknagar.

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