Listen to progressive rock/metal music?

[BurnedOut]

There is something in progressive rock/metal music that makes me a feel pleasantly disoriented. I like it being ambient but happening at the same time. I don't like post-rock because it overdoes its ambience.

These are some songs that I have been listening to frequently lately:
1) Untouchable Part I by Anathema
2) In Two Minds by Riverside
3) Arriving Somewhere But Not Here by Porcupine Tree
4) Open Car by Porcupine Tree
5) He Films The Clouds Part 2 by Maybeshewill (Although this is more electronica)

Notable mentions:
1) Pagan Part II by Vitalism
2) Intervals by Tapestry
3) Ending Credits by Opeth
4) Best Of Times by Dream Theatre
5) Sacrificed Son by Dream Theatre

Suggest some similar music.

 

[Puffy]

I've gone through phases of loving progressive rock & metal as well @BurnedOut . As you've asked for recommendations I'd say look into:

Progressive rock

King Crimson (and Robert Fripp's later projects)
Soft Machine (and Robert Wyatt's & Kevin Ayer's later projects)
Frank Zappa / Mothers of Invention
Henry Cow (and Fred Frith's later projects)
Alan Parsons Project

Progressive metal

Devin Townsend / Strapping Young Lad
Tool
Primus
Meshuggah
Gorguts

Jazz fusion

I'd also recommend branching out into Jazz Fusion, which was a related 60s/70s genre combining progressive rock & jazz. Such as:

Mahavishnu Orchestra (and John McLaughlin's later projects)
Return to Forever
Allan Holdsworth
Miles Davis

Some prog music I've listed falls into the fusion category as well. I started with prog, which led me into fusion. Personally I feel fusion is more sophisticated than prog (in general, not as a rule). I still like some prog but there's a lot of bands I used to listen to when I was younger like Yes, Genesis, Rush, Marillion, Jethro Tull, etc that haven't aged well for me. They just sound like a really lame pantomime when I listen to them now.

 

[BurnedOut]

@Puffy thanks for the suggestions.

I know i am asking for a bit more but could you suggest more modern-sounding bands? I like complex beats and instrumental sophistication but i don't like too many weird instrument sounds and cliched chord progressions and overdone ambience. Also, many prog bands i find online just think that adding a frying pan and baseball bat to the music will make it more 'avant garde'. There is another category which thinks that djent subsumes all prog and the third category of bands is the one who think that adding N more instruments solves the problem.

Maybeshewill is a good example of experimenting but not being gaudy about it. The same is with Riverside. I find Porcupine Tree to be a little formulaic with their music. One example would be Arriving Somewhere But Not Here's weird heavy metal section which sounds very amateurish.

Anyway, if you could suggest something clean, modern and unconventional with preferably fast tempo, that would be amazing because i believe that you are better at this than me

 

[Puffy]

@Puffy thanks for the suggestions.

I know i am asking for a bit more but could you suggest more modern-sounding bands? I like complex beats and instrumental sophistication but i don't like too many weird instrument sounds and cliched chord progressions and overdone ambience. Also, many prog bands i find online just think that adding a frying pan and baseball bat to the music will make it more 'avant garde'. There is another category which thinks that djent subsumes all prog and the third category of bands is the one who think that adding N more instruments solves the problem.

Maybeshewill is a good example of experimenting but not being gaudy about it. The same is with Riverside. I find Porcupine Tree to be a little formulaic with their music. One example would be Arriving Somewhere But Not Here's weird heavy metal section which sounds very amateurish.

Anyway, if you could suggest something clean, modern and unconventional with preferably fast tempo, that would be amazing because i believe that you are better at this than me

Hey BurnedOut, of the stuff I listed I'd suggest giving Devin Townsend a try. He falls under the broad category of progressive metal and has been making music consistently throughout the last 20 years, so more modern in sound than most of my list and up-tempo. But I'd say also quite diverse, he tends to try out different things experimenting with electronica to keep his sound fresh. Personally I think Deconstruction is his best album but he's most known for Terria.

I haven't looked into modern progressive rock and metal if I'm being honest with you. I don't associate it, or guitar-driven music, as a modern genre but rather something that later sounds, like post-rock as you say, grew out of. It's partly also that I have a taste for older music.

King Crimson are widely regarded as one of the most influential progressive rock acts and have been a part of it throughout its whole evolution. They've also re-invented themselves every decade to stay fresh. You could try some of their most modern material, influenced by progressive metal, to see if any of that resonates. For example:

 

[Glaerhaidh]

Genre progressive (characteristic synth use, atypical structure or meter, extended approach to chord resolution and consonance, uses standard rock instruments with unusual or aggressive tones):
>Typical ambience, unresolved chords:
- Animals As Leaders
- Scale The Summit The Migration

>More operatic:
- Ayreon Into the Electric Castle
- Ayreon The Human Equation

>More instrumental:
- Sithu Aye

>More jazz fusion / virtuoso:
- Plini

>Dark:
>>Dark growl but actually instrumental genius:
- Persefone Spiritual Migration
- Sunless Rise Unrevealed
>>Dark with more electronica:
- Thy Catafalque

>More rock avant garde:
- Emerson Lake and Palmer

Too many to list, there's tons more out there.

 

[BurnedOut]

@Glaerhaidh

I am tired of anything similar to Animals As Leaders. I have lost the mettle to listen to emotionless music. It really sounds like a car engine or a grandfather clock: Complex sounds which evoke no emotion. Too much technicality is sadly easy to emulate. As I improvise, I find writing technical riffs or solos much easier than writing something that really evokes emotions. Again, not the formulaic emotional solos. I hope you understand when I talk about 'formulaic emotional solos'.

I liked Scaled The Summit. Although, from the bands you suggested, I liked Sithu Aye and Thy Catafalque the most. Both of them closely match my preferences.

 

[Glaerhaidh]

Agreed, I also can't vibe to overly djenty or heavy industrial or math metal.

Technicality isn't easy to perform and it's difficult to integrate complex harmony into a coherent whole.

Plini is very much like Sithu Aye
Also similar to Sithu:
Gru Cosmogenesis
Jakub Zytecki

Btw do you know any good Goa trance?