Metal Album Survivor [1st Wave Black Metal Division]

**Frownland** · 03-06-2015, 06:28 PM

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Originally Posted by The Batlord

Done. Crack the Skye sounds like a boring album anyway. Leviathan and Blood Mountain were clearly Mastodon's peak.

But you can't think of any other bands I'm missing? I added Tool largely because of their reputation. I don't particularly like them, but I just feel like I'm obligated to add them. Would drop them in a second if I had a substitute that was more than just some death metal band with awkward jazz fusion moments (****ing Atheist).

Not the biggest fan of them, but I think that Symphony X could go on. The only one that I've heard by them is V: The New Mythology Suite, and that one seemed decent enough.

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I know very little about judging an album's progginess. I don't have the ear to judge technicality, and wouldn't know whether, say, a death metal album was either progressive or just technical. I saw some guy argue that Death wasn't a technical death metal band because they didn't use inventive "techniques" when playing (I believe he referenced things like odd picking styles), but were instead progressive because they had progressive rock influences. All Greek to me however. I'm of the camp that says that "progressive" should basically be an interchangeable term with "experimental" or "avant garde", otherwise it's just a mindless genre that restricts creativity rather than encouraging it.

There's some hope for you yet, I'm in the same camp as you.

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It's another thing that bugs me about Opeth. Again, Cynic and Edge of Sanity pretty much already did what Opeth are doing and with more creativity and diversity to boot, so all Opeth have going for them is a tired gimmick that only deviates from its formula by the amount of time they concentrate on death metal vs prog rock. A two-trick pony band as far as I'm concerned who are only progressive in a shallow sense.

I like the progressive elements in Watershed, and their most recent one is like a heavier Blue Oyster Cult but I wasn't a fan of that one. I can understand your opinion on Opeth, but their first 6 (I think?) albums are good in my book though, one trick pony or not. Sometimes they do a cool trick.

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Oh yeah, Queensryche. **** if I know it they're prog metal. But they're categorized as such, and it's too late to add them to trad metal. It'd just feel wrong to leave out one of the most acclaimed metal albums of all time when I don't have to. It's why I added Symbolic. I'm not entirely sure it qualifies as prog metal, but it feels close enough while being too far from death metal to compare it to Cryptopsy or Morbid Angel.

I'm fine with it on being on the list since it has such a reputation as a prog rock/metal album, I was just wondering if anyone could fill me in on why they have that status because I really don't see it. I think that Death fits fine in the prog metal category as well. You can be progressive without inventing every technique that you use.