New prog
 

Man, and I thought old prog was unfairly treated.

It seems newer prog bands take a beating from prog lovers and haters alike.

I'm curious to see if I'm the only one here who appreciates these bands.

Sigh.

You know what? Today I'm going to listen to a bunch of prog that I've been putting off for some time now.

However, I'm voting The Mars Volta because they blow my mind, and I doubt anything will make me regret my vote.

I actually like a lot of New Prog. I haven't heard anything from the last four of them, but I have albums by the rest.

BTW, why isn't Pure Reason Revolution up there? They are pretty good. Porcupine Tree is easily my favorite though, along with anything Steven Wilson does. Blackfield, No-Man, and his solo album is going to be pretty awesome.

I'll vote Oceansize because i doubt they'll get many.

Tool & The Mars Volta ---- Not a huge fan but I can appreciate their music. Listen to em once in a while, but not all that often now though.

Porcupine Tree & Kayo Dot ---- Love em to death.

Muse and Battles(?!) ---- Rarely listen to them tbh.

Coheed and Cambria ---- Heard only a few tracks on youtube, never interested me.

Flower Kings & Oceansize ---- Like them quite a bit!

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum & Spocks Beard ---- Haven't yet listened to them.

There you go.

Also, Riverside, Pain of Salvation and Arcturus are all worth a mention.

And is there a place for 80s stuff like Marillion, Queensryche and Fates Warning?:D

I'm mainly sticking to 90s and 00s stuff. Plus I dislike most 80s prog.

Also, added Ozric Tentacles, one of my faves.

I love the Ozrics, and the Mars Volta of course, the rest leave a lot to be desired in my humble opinion. Kayo Dot showed so much promise and then decided to remove everything that made them interesting in their first two albums with Blue Lambency, which is a huge shame.

I love Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. I would never have thought to classify them as prog but I suppose I can see where you're coming from doing that.

I listened to "Black Holes and Revelations" by Muse, and I was very impressed. Any other good ones by them I should look into?

Or better yet, who sounds similar?

I have to give this to the Ozrics or Porcupine Tree. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is quite cool too.

A lot of people find BHAR to be their worst album, so the rest of their stuff should be a treat. My personal fav is Showbiz, but you should probably just work backwards through their catalogue.

As for my vote, I voted Muse, obviously. Though C&C were contenders.

Kayo Dot/Maudlin the Well over everything else, but I have been known to enjoy Porcupine Tree from time to time.

Tool. Are a crapload of a lot better than the rest of those bands. Tool in some ways are genuine virtuosi. Danny Carey is the best drummer in prog, period.

Ozric Tentacles win it for me, followed very closely by Porcupine Tree and Kayo Dot.

Hmn; well, with the exception of Muse, I love all the bands on this particular poll (voted for the Ozrics).

And yes, Pain of Salvation and others deserve mentions, but too bad my favorite modern day prog group, The Gourishankar (from Russia), didn't make it here. :(

Here's a few tracks to raise some interest in them for you guys' enjoyment:

Endless Drama (from 2nd Hands)



The Inexpressible Chagrin (also from 2nd Hands)

I really don't understand what's so prog about the stadium rock of Muse. The Mars Volta for me, no question.

Maybe half of each of their albums are stadium rock, the rest is prog. Space Dementia, Citizen Erased, and The Gallery are the best examples I can think of right now.

The Mars Volta are one of my favourite modern bands, so they'll probably get my vote. But first I think I'll go listen to some of the other bands you've listed, I want to get into more prog.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum sound interesting, I think I'm going to download Grand Opening and Closing.

Battles, because I get a strong robot vibe, and I like it.

Where are Riverside or Fates Warning? Fates Warning have been going for 25 years now. This is difficult for me. Requires some thought. Tomorrow's Eve are damn good too.

The Mars Volta earn my vote, rightfully so. Honorable mention for Muse and Tool.

man, does everybody hate Tool here or something???

Tool are still better than half the choices on the poll though.

If you are estimating then yes. If you are going down to the exact number than no.

Tool are too pretentious. Still an okay band.

I don't hate Tool, his post was just wrong in every statement it made.

The best drummer in prog. is Bill Bruford, followed closely by Neil Pert. Danny Carey isn't bad or anything, but there's just too much history out there to agree with that kind of statement...

But then again, most prog. drummers don't hold a candle to the drummers in most of the jazz/jazz-fusion bands I listen to, so the argument is irrelevant. :p:

Who the fuck cares about who has the best drummer. This poll is about the music. Go to the drummer thread if you want to argue a pointless thing. It reflects nothing on the quality of the music.

Sure it does. Skilled instrumentation (drumming included) is as viable criteria as any for judging music, though these days people don't seem to care as much.

On another note, what do you guys think about The Secret Machines?

Are you honestly going to sit there and listen to a song and think about the drumming difficulty while doing so? I mean, I understand disliking bands and music for have incompetent instrumentation, but it's not a competition.

Agreed.

Tool are not any more skilled than the other bands on the poll. The only member of that band I could call a virtuoso is Danny.

And best drummer in prog he is not. That's easly Bill Bruford, but Carl Palmer and Alan White are way better than Danny Carey also.

I didn't mean people think about the difficulty itself when they listen to music. I just mean that, generally, one can tell by listening how complex the sound is just by listening to the interplay between instruments.

Boo Boo: Nice to see we both understand the same thing. :P

Especially for the one genre of rock music that really requires it.

You don't have to be an amazing musician to be in a prog band, but you have to be decent at least, whereas even a metal band can get away with a sh*tty bassist or sh*tty drummer, I don't think a prog band could.

And I like The Secret Machines, I'm not sure weither people consider them prog or not so I didn't include them, though I was considering it.

Should I add them?

If Oceansize are prog (i don't see it much myself) then Secret Machines are. Good band, ahven't heard their second album though. Massively loud live.

Add Riverside and Fates Warning too!

Bah, I prefer to leave out any prog metal.

Because I'm biased. Against prog metal. :)

lol, and which prog band is NOT too pretentious?


...not that being pretentious is necessarily a bad thing.

I guess Gong since they don't take themselves that seriously.

Of course not, that is the philosophy of many a prog band.

It's not that we don't realise these bands are pretentious, of course we do. I love these bands regardless of their level of pretentiousness. I don't consider pretentious to be an automatically negative thing, actually I consider it a good thing, the only kind of music that is not pretentious in anyway is probably stuff like hair metal, bands who are only in it for the drugs, sex and money, and therefore write songs about drugs, sex and money. And without taking themselves seriously in anyway.

If you think that's what music should be, then be my guest. :laughing:

If you ask me, what's even more pretentious than prog is the whole singer songwriter thing. Lets take guys like Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, Morrissey. All great songwriters, sure. But they also play "characters", they have all built up this public persona, based more on their music and stage act than what kind of people they actually are, Dylan especially admits to being a character actor type of songwriter, he's played so many "characters" that no one really knows who the real Bob Dylan is, if there is one.

These songwriters have built up all this mystery and cult of personality around themselves. I don't see how that's any less pretentious than prog bands like Yes and King Crimson who write songs about the things they're truly interested in, in fact very few prog musicians are guilty of the kind of pretentiousness that guys like Dylan and Bowie are guilty of, Peter Gabriel and Ian Anderson being some of the exceptions.

I consider all (great) music and art to be pretentious to an extent.

And what about Tool?:D
Some of these metal bands aren't metal just for the sake of it. Their music is as progressive as any other band here tbh. They definitely do deserve to be in there if Battles, Muse or Coheed & Cambria could make it. Oh well, it's just a poll anyways. Not that these results matter to me :p:.

I agree it's nice to have talented musicians, but just because a band doesn't have "the best" drummer in prog doesn't mean they should be dismissed. It's not about the talent, it's what you do with it.