Prog V3.0 Discussion Thread

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.

new WOBBLER album may be all that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOQp9gCfQA&feature=emb_logo

Deluge Grander - Heliotians

This seems a short album for the band but I ended up liking it just as much as the others. Only 3 tracks and "Saruned" is probably my favorite, so rousing. I love their style, like they are doing a soothing series of documentaries about the history of the universe.

yea its pretty good, took a lot of spins to really get into it though

Oceanarium is still kind of impenetrable to me, there's just...so much of it

wonder what they're up to now. that 7-album pyramid thing gonna be finished in 2035 at this rate

What is that?

i know frogbs disagrees by 1 track and i do keep saying this but they are the best example in all of music of a band who will never, ever, ever beat album 1 track 1. i mean king crimson were heading that way and then they knocked out 'starless'. do DG have a 'starless'?

apparently they were gonna do a series of 7 albums, 4 "base" albums (in which Heliotians was one) which would be reworked into two albums which were combinations of two of them (Oceanarium uses some music from Heliotians plus one yet to be released), then one "mega" album that combines elements of all them

he used to have an explainer on the Emkog site but it's gone now. I wonder if it's still in the works or if he got bored of the idea

What is that?

their sorta shot at a Magma-/Gong-like multi-album epic theme

The first thing was to come up with 7 album names that would each sound good on their own, and for which the titles could be combined in ways that also sound good and reflect the design of the seven album pyramid. I thought about this on and off for about a year before finally coming up with “Heliotians”, “Lunarians”, “Creek”, “Din”, the combination titles “Oceanarium” and “Cretin” (though maybe I should use “Creaked In”), and the title for the top of the pyramid “Creationarium.” The concept for “Heliotians” is the theory that the Earth is a hollow shell, with a small sun floating in the middle, and lands, oceans, and people living on the other side of the crust. This is actually a real theory, but it’s almost certainly not true. “Ulterior” is sort of about people digging their way to the other side, “Reverse Solarity” is about people flying in through holes in the north Pole, and “Saruned” is more about the concept in general. The seven albums aren’t intended to have any lyrical themes in common. Actually I haven’t put much thought into singing on the next two albums to be released, even though musically, they’re well underway.

http://www.arlequins.it/pagine/articoli/corpointerviste.asp?chi=317

review of the upcoming Wobbler!

https://www.velvetthunder.co.uk/wobbler-dwellers-of-the-deep-karisma/

very much looking forward to that one, From Silence to Somewhere really does feel like a great lost prog LP that would've slotted right in with the best of Yes

Thanks for all that about the concept and Heliotians explanation.

I never much liked "21st Century Schizoid Man" to be honest.

In a track for track sense, Falling Satellites is definitely Frost's best album. "Tower Block" is just so amazing. Fantastic album, deserved a much bigger audience.

was fun to read discussion of that on the Proggressive Ears forum which is primarily made up of old men..."wait is this what dubstep is?"

the final suite is pretty nuts, really love the gnarly metal riffs they come up with

Just found out that tracks 12 and 13 are bonus tracks, makes sense. The vinyl has an extra instrumental.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05AFHeSk5N0

Frost have a new album out!

Just listened to it yesterday, it’s very good but like their others it’s kind of an endurance test.

The Police clearly seem to be an influence here, particularly Stewart Copeland. It picks up where “Synchronicity 2” left off. Definitely gonna cop the vinyl if I can

Been trying to sample some Frost on Spotify, it's just not clicking for me at all. I love Wobbler though, def one of my favorite more recent prog discoveries.

The drumming on the track about the invisible boy is really fantastic. Is this the first time they've used so many different drummers? 3 different people.

Recent (old) discovery, kinda what 90s Porcupine Tree would have sounded like if SW was a better singer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAHP1Ivb4fY

Don't know if anyone around here still listens to Haken, they've moved pretty far from pure prog by this point, but the new one is... interesting. Some of the best songs they've written since The Mountain, imho, but others that are just flat out embarrassing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBz9V0ZTfrE

Have I posted this elsewhere? I have no idea how many of the bands mentioned are actually prog, I only know who a few of them are but the channel is mostly about that kind of music.

Thank god, I thought this was going to be the "jazz isn't black music actually" prog youtuber guy