Prog V3.0 Discussion Thread

the time traveler himself appears to have materialized

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/showthread.php/22697-Glass-Hammer-Chronomonaut-Tapes-Tom-is-back-or-at-least-he-was

good call on that bubu album. i had no clue. new guerilla toss slays. magic is easy indeed. the edge of the ice cube . . .

new Vennart album worth a mention here too

Seen a poster for a band called Free Salamander Exhibit. Was intrigued by the "rock in opposition" tag.

Sounds quite funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo4mftLYgHo
Some of the other tracks have metal in them.

I think they're a band made up of former Sleepytime Gorilla Museum members - a band worth checking out if you haven't

yeah, free salamander exhibit is nils' new(ish) "metal" band. i saw them on a triple bill earlier this year with faun fables and cheer-accident. they're pretty good, of course a fine live show, really into the druid thing, but i don't know, they don't grab me the way sgm did. lately i'm definitely more into faun fables.

this is dope (note: not the vintage british band)

https://thedruidofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-seven-scrolls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxzLU7UvkrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZm2QIIo-JE

bob drake has a new one !!!

https://bobdrake.bandcamp.com/album/lisola-dei-lupi

Anyone a fan of Beardfish? Overlooked these dudes the first three or four times but I'm listening to Destined Solitaire right now and it's pretty much everything I want out of a 'retro' prog record. Their lead singer is charismatic and actually quite funny which is quite rare in this genre. Great voice too.

Let's shout out Sterbus on this thread too - https://sterbus.bandcamp.com/ new record is rather lovely guitarry Prog Pop

:)

i'm waiting for the Thumpermonkey to come out properly so I can advertise its title track to all ILX's progheads - some of the best prog of this century so far

I'm currently in the process of selling off a mega CD collection for someone on Ebay, large amounts of which is contemporary prog. It's been an eye-opener! Here's the prog-related acts I've encountered to date I'd never even heard of, there are massive worlds of this stuff filled with people like Billy Sherwood and Christian Bruin who release uncountable numbers of records:

Believe – Brasse – Blind Owl – Cliffhanger – Canamii – Casino – Cosmograf - Comedy Of Errors - Combination Head – Chris - Alex Carpani – Cairo – Collage - Different Trains – Discus – Edith - Egdon Heath – Fonya - Fatal Fusion - Final Conflict - Fission Trip - For Absent Friends – Galleon – Jeremy - A.C.T. - Ad Infinitum - Adventure - Alpha III - Ancient Vision – Aragon – Ayreon – Circa – Conception – Cyan - Cryptic Vision - Crystal Maze - Different Light - Echo Park - Dr Coenobite – Karfagen – Maestoso - Steve Adams - Lands End – Legend - Shadow Merchant – Phaesis – Overdrive – Abraxas – Arion – Atlantis - Chimpan A - Jack Foster III – Harvest - The Winter Tree - Nice Beaver – Eurhybia – Fields - Sean Filkins - Flamborough Head – Glacier – Jupiter - K2 – Morild – Tunefish – Wyzards - Leap Day - Solar Project - Tempus Fugit - This Oceanic Feeling – Synesthesia - Sky Architect - Perona Non Grata - Persephone's Dream – Darling – Silhouette – Satellite - Unbroken Spirit - Tea For The Wicked - Nad Sylvan – Shakary – Tantalus - Moria Falls - Josh & Co Limited – Sahara - Ergo Sum - Dave Bainbridge - Cloud Atlas – Cavalli / Cocchi / Lanzetti / Roversi – Darius - Tea In The Sahara - Fabio Liberatori - Alfonso Vidales – Octopehra - Violeta De Outone - Seasons Of Time - Light Damage - Fossil Evolution - Hasse Froberg - Red Sand – Eyesburg - Fish On Friday - Rikard Sjöblom - Tiger Moth Tales - The D Project

i like violeta de outono

most of the rest of it i've heard of isn't my cup of tea

frogbs, care to recommend a destined solitaire jam?

title track is pretty good. here's a live version - its great if you can get past the fact that they look and sound like Jack Black fronting a prog band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-KYaBQGRY

A good quarter of Tenacious D is kind of prog tbf

THE ASTEROID HAS LANDED

https://thumpermonkey.bandcamp.com/album/make-me-young-etc

The title-track is one of the most breathtaking prog compositions of the century so far in my extremely cool opinion

Oh I said that already. That must mean it's super-true

is the title-track as good as "woadscrivened"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4goBiAGYyQ

thanks frogbs for that beardfish. super-dope. could care less what "good" musicians look like tbqh!

Woadscrivened was a stunner but this is even more ambitious imo

xp well most of their albums have at least one "Tenacious D gone prog" track so I was pretty amused to see the singer did actually resemble him

thank you for recommending this because otherwise there is no way in hell i would listen to bands with names like "beardfish" or "thumpermonkey"

Can I tell u about the Flower Kings

no

I don't know much about them but I am digging these guys a great deal at the moment -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEzWPMflmdw

this is so good

https://www.orgaan.ch/storkk/

there's a new anglagard side project out, "all traps on earth". this one has more of a zeuhl flavor. but what i love about it is that that they're _still_ copping riffs from schicke fuhrs frohling in 2018. i don't hold it against them at all, there's obviously way more to anglagard than "pictures" imitation, but it made me laugh so hard.

Kinda scratchy, angry stuff, hard to pin down really, but dead good - https://themmooserush.bandcamp.com/

Deluge Grander - Oceanarium

Very nice, very well sustained for a near 80 minute album. One of those rare albums that has pauses between tracks but feels very much like one large composition. Sleeve notes say that the ideas are used in the previous album and forthcoming album (guessed release date was 2018).

The way the fifth track repeats the main part of track four is gorgeous.

it's probably the densest prog album I've ever heard - I can't really wrap my head around it. there are a LOT of callbacks to Heliotians (the 2014 album).

Oi, you two had best get on this as well https://lostcrowns.bandcamp.com

lol within the first 30 seconds I could pretty much guess who was in that band

Some more gritty stuff - https://slunq.bandcamp.com/

these look incredibly cool but lol @ those prices

https://www.hionerecords.com/product/wood-box-set-birds-and-buildings-bantam-to-behemoth/

https://www.hionerecords.com/product/wood-box-set-deluge-grander-august-in-the-urals/

I did wind up getting one of those limited edition Heliotains LPs with hand-painted cover art and lyrics - it's a really cool item, a lot of people who've come over to my house have asked me about it

I'm a bit miffed you have to buy the expensive Heliotians LP to get the CD.

good news, both Wobbler and Echolyn appear to be in the studio again

Supersister - Retsis Repus

Features the two surviving Supersisters, all the main Nits, Freek De Jonge and more.

"I Am You Are Me / Transmitter" and "For You And For Nobody Else" are my favorite tracks because they do what I consider the band's fast signature sound. There's some deliberately retro fuzzy guitar sounds here and there but for the most part, it doesn't sound like they're trying too hard to recreate the old band. "Hope To See You There Again" is unlike anything from their 70s music, one of the melancholy tracks that I imagine are reflecting on the death of two Supersisters.

It's a nice album. As much as I love the band, I never felt any of their original 5 albums were slammers (usually a few songs were slamming good), so it doesn't have to be more than nice but I would have liked a bit more from it.

A few songs per album were slamming good, I should have said.

No idea if there's been a discussion of The Tea Club before, but I am enjoying these guys, it's squiggly in a good way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNQRfyEs1D0

enjoying Deluge Grander - Heliotians

Now loving Heliotians. Great stuff.

I know this is 90s stuff (which seems like a strange era for prog, with trends less easy to distinguish? Or much sense of them being part of one larger thing?) but I have to once again praise Cairo's track "Angels And Rage" again, it makes me feel like I'm darting, spinning and whirling at great speed in a gigantic tall maze made by Robert Venosa. Love it so much.

I talked about Marge Litch on the power metal thread but now I think they'd be more appropriate here maybe. They've got quite an even mixture of power metal, prog metal (but not dark or remotely brutal), opera, neo-classical and sometimes the synths sound like 90s JRPG music. My initial reaction was that it mostly sounded like power metal but on english websites they seem to be mostly going over well with general prog fans.

Fantasien 1998 is the only thing that's easy to get a hold of outside japan, sadly. It's a remake of their first album (from 1991) and at least one reviewer says that on the earlier version they weren't able to pull it off nearly this well.

It sounds to me like a fast futuristic, big science fiction adventure with occasional visits to stately fairy tale gardens and opera singing demons visiting once or twice. Junko's spotlighted vocal moments are gorgeous, particularly the sweet vocals on "Dealing With The Witch".

Only weaknesses are that the last two tracks aren't on the same level as everything before and that the John Howe cover art was used without permission (I saw him complaining about it on his blog).

This was their last album but they continued on with some different members as a live act and other members formed Alhambra and joined Galneryus (who seem to be really popular). I'll be buying Alhambra albums soon and keep an eye out for rare Marge Litch albums. I totally love this album and wish I could have gotten much more mileage out of it. Terrific fun and brought me close to crying a few times.

Look at them here! Who dressed that guy at the front?
https://www.last.fm/music/Marge+Litch/+images/2f8b8638d60b451688c334b757f9ba47

I'm loving Frost's Falling Satellites (which came out in 2016), I waited far too long for this. I've probably said it a few times but a lot of the surface aspects would normally be turnoffs but I love them.

they're great!! the new EP (called Others) is really nice as well and has a few neat "how is this the same band" moments

if you don't have Milliontown you'll want to pick that up too. I dig Experiments in Mass Appeal too though its kinda like, I dunno, a good take on Linkin Park?

I have Milliontown and Experiments in Mass Appeal. The track "Milliontown" is one of my favorite songs ever, wonder if they'll ever top it?

Never knew about the EP, I'm sad there's no CD version.

I've never checked out the related bands but I did hear Lonely Robot in shops once and it had lots of nice familiar sounds.

I learned about them because Chris Squire bigged up Frost as a particularly good modern prog band and initially I was mortified by how poppy it sounded (this is over a decade ago) but it won me over shortly.

the pop elements are really why I love 'em, I'm kinda surprised that there aren't a bunch of other bands going for that sound

I also felt that way about Porcupine Tree, Opeth and other modern prog bands to start with, I thought they sung like boybands and my first Todd Rundgren album might have been Liar and that is super poppy in many ways.