TheForgotton posted:

Gentle Giant fans: I have everything from their first album through Free Hand. Should I quit while they were ahead? I've heard they tried for a poppier, more commercial sound near the end so I've stayed away from their last four albums.

Haraksha posted:

Once I've grown tired of "In the Court", where should I look next?

Sprint posted:

Edit: For those interested in that sort of thing, the BBC put out a really good documentary on classic British prog called Prog Rock Britannia a couple of years ago. It mainly focuses on the 'Big Four' (King Crimson, ELP, Yes and Genesis), but gives a good insight into what was going on in the music at that time.

Madama Butterfly posted:

Where have I been? I didn't realize that any of these were out yet...yay!

LashLightning posted:

Thanks for all the Prog Metal bands you guys have been posting: After listening to Tool and Ayreon, I've been looking for more bands like them.

a medical mystery posted:

Maybe?

TheForgotton posted:

It looks like I might get to interview Jon Anderson in the near future!

JAMOOOL posted:

King Crimson's "40th anniversary remasters" are definitely worth a shot if you're big into the band. Particularly the one for Lizard, which was practically remixed from scratch by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree. Maybe one of the best re-mastering jobs I've ever heard. It completely transforms the album and makes it sound like the crazy experimental jazz freak-out that it was always meant to be. Some elements of songs like "Indoor Games" that were completely obscured come to the fore. The whole thing really is amazing!

evvywevvy posted:

I only started listening to prog rock a couple years ago, when I discovered that I like listening to Rush because they are awesome, rather than because it was funny. (Yes, I'm a hipster.)

Orbital Sapling posted:

What should I listen to of Steven Wilson's? I've tried listening to some of his solo stuff, a few Porcupine Tree songs, and I can't seem to get into any of it. I need some direction here.

edit: gently caress it, I don't want to like Steven Wilson. The man reminds me too much of some sort of wispy butterfly.

Retarded Goatee posted:

Going back to the earlier talk about Steven Wilson/PT

I feel as if I'm the only person who actually find Stupid Dream to be the by far best album, perhaps mostly due to the incredible atmosphere of it. A Smart Kid is probably one of the best songs out of that band.

Earwicker posted:

Maybe it's a regional thing but when I was growing up that song was on classic rock radio stations constantly, I wouldn't be surprised to hear it in a restaurant, bar, gas station, etc.

Prog Doctor posted:

And to comment on the SW/Porcupine Tree trend, I am the only one who isn't impressed by Grace For Drowning? I got the 3-disc deluxe edition that came in that hardcover book. I thought Gavin would have done a much better job on drums, and apart from the first disc I thought the third disc should have been scrapped. Most of the second disc was mediocre, nothing special. I thought Insurgentes was much better. GfD just seemed to ramble, like he'd jammed to song ideas, then took those demos and produced the poo poo out of them, and released it as an album.

I love PT though. FOABP was my introduction to them, and I went back and bought their back catalog chronologically. But being my first PT experience, FOABP is still my favorite of theirs.

edit: spelling

Prog Doctor posted:

I like it! Reminds me of Crippled Black Phoenix. Once you get a full EP or album recorded, let me know!

BSchlang posted:

A track from Storm Corrosion supposedly popped up on Youtube. A lot of people are calling it fake, but it sure sounds like Mikael Akerfeldt on vocals, and Soundhound can't identify it as any other song. I sure hope it's legit, because it sounds awesome. Kinda reminds me of "To Rid the Disease"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64behhTZ8K0

Misogynist posted:

This was quite an enjoyable listen, and I think you're very promising, but you need to break away from music that's filled with references to other bands ("Escape Velocity" is entirely too evocative of In Absentia and Blackfield, while "Pale Fire" was, I feel, inspired nearly 100% by Ghost Reveries and Out of Myself). That's not a bad thing, but I'm presuming you'd like to have an identity of your own, rather than being stuffed into a discount rack with a sticker that says "FOR FANS OF PORCUPINE TREE."

But the cardinal sin, as far as I'm concerned, is that none of the vocal lines are memorable; they seem to be added as afterthoughts because you need vocals, and where they're present, they're never the centerpiece of anything that's happening. This is what killed a lot of bands that could have been really great -- Deadsoul Tribe, Rishloo, and Farmakon are great examples. Start with a memorable melody and work from there, or all the great chord progressions in the world won't help you win a repeat listener.

My last comment is on the soloing -- the guitar tone is down pat, but too much focus is on the notes and not the rhythms, and it makes the solos come across as "incomprehensible solo in harmonic minor" or "incomprehensible pentatonic solo." There's too much going on and not enough room to breathe, and especially in the outro solo of "Escape Velocity," there's a lot of notes that are clearly improvised and don't come across as confidently played. It's as though the guitarist is saying, "Does this note work here? ...Yeah. Whew." Listen to the fit-and-finish on Steven Wilson's solo on "Trains" or Mikael Akerfeldt's first solo in "The Leper Affinity" and then pay very close attention to the transitions between notes on your tracks.

As someone who learns best from the mistakes of others, my primary advice to you as an Opeth fan is to pick up Farmakon's A Warm Glimpse and pay attention to all the things that make them not Opeth.

Smekerman posted:

I'm going to take a different approach to Misogynist and say that, although your influences are clear as day, I think my main problem is the songwriting. Pale Fire starts off well, with the acoustic section that builds into the distorted riff. It's a good build-up and the segue into the distorted part is decent as well, but the song doesn't go anywhere after that. You revert back to a mellow/atmospheric section which doesn't really feel... "earned" for lack of a better word. The distorted part is underdeveloped and doesn't go anywhere. It just feels a bit clunky.

I'm probably pretty terrible at explaining this, and maybe I'm projecting what I'd want to hear as opposed to what you wanted me to hear, but I think my recommendations for this track are to lose the mellow/heavy/mellow/heavy approach featuring almost identical parts and develop the actual riffs a little more. Also I feel like the song is playing at half speed. Your distorted parts lack energy. Listen to the Baying of the Hounds (you should probably change your riff a bit, by the way, it's pretty much identical to the intro) and you'll notice it has a lot more energy, a more driving rhythm. Your riff sounds a bit lethargic by comparison.

I should also specify that the mellow/heavy thing is a problem I have with Opeth as well a lot of the time, especially on their first two and their last two albums. I just think that the songwriting process should be more than just a riff salad, it should feel cohesive. Morningrise and Heritage are perfect examples of this style of songwriting going horribly wrong. Ghost Reveries is probably one of their strongest albums from that standpoint, as most of it feels cohesive and thought out (some rough parts in Reverie/Harlequin Forest notwithstanding).

I'd recommend listening to that album again with songwriting in mind. Listen to Ghost of Perdition, notice the callbacks to earlier parts of the song (the "higher" part getting revisited several times throughout the song, in different forms, most notably at 9:08 after a pretty sweet prog breakdown). More importantly, the music doesn't feel rushed, it doesn't feel cramped. Riffs are allowed to breathe, change and morph into other parts of the song. Look at doing something similar with your songwriting. Even if you start off as sounding like an Opeth cover band, realizing what works and what doesn't and playing around with these elements will go a long way towards improving your songwriting skills.

I guess that's a lot of words, but really, I just want you to be aware of your songwriting and actually learn how to improve it and not coast on random soft/heavy segues like Akerfeldt's been doing recently. Not sure if you've heard Heritage, but it's full of weird, nonsensical segues and random song parts that go absolutely nowhere. Don't do that. It's not experimental, it's not avantgarde, it's just plain ol' lovely writing.

Then there's the vocals. I'll just agree with what Misogynist wrote, although I'll add that they remind me more of Aghora than Deadsoul Tribe or the other bands mentioned. Personally, I liked DST and their vocalist had a really drat good voice (Murder of Crows has some pretty fantastic vocals, despite being Tool/Jethro Tull-ish as hell). Aghora, on the other hand, had serviceable vocals that weren't grating but they were completely superfluous; they added absolutely nothing to the music and were a mere distraction. That's pretty much how I feel about the vocals in Pale Fire.

Sorry if I seem overly critical, I'm not, I just thought I'd write this as you seemed open to critique and suggestions. Hope you don't take this the wrong way.

nihil morari posted:

Haha, is he still bitter that Wilson said Dream Theater sucks?

Misogynist posted:

I think even prog nerds tend to listen to Roundabout, South Side of the Sky, and Heart of the Sunrise and skip at least half of the tracks in between

Katina posted:

Allen Wren posted:

Tales From Topographic Oceans has about twenty minutes of good ideas in its eighty minutes of music. Apples is correct, Relayer is better.