Progressive music:]

[Fortress]

I love progressive music and what it's doing but sometimes I think bands push the envelope too far in such that the music just sounds weird. I do enjoy progressive metal especially the works of Between the Buried and Me and The Human Abstract and Protest the Hero album, I was wondering if any of you listen to any of these bands or know of any other artists in a similar genre, especially similar to PTH:]

[DeusEx]

Yeh sometimes it's just too much. For me ELP and Transatlantic were just too hard to listen too, but Marillion, Floyd and IQ somehow make vast compositions cathy and listenable. It does help to break up the albums with the odd slice of pop - think Kayleigh, Another Brick In The Wall, Land Of Confusion (Genesis)

[kvincent5555]

Progressive is a tough genre. If you get it right, it's highly original, brilliant, and mind-blowing. Otherwise, it ends up being pretentious, boring, self-indulgent, and geeky.

A lot of progressive bands seem to be composed of technical geniuses who have mastered their instruments and the technical aspects of music theory and production, but seem to lack soul, funk, groove, and other intuitive qualities that are at least as important for making good music.

Bands who do have a go at it deserve some extra credit for doing what they do, especially since the results can be so unpredictable. A lot of the experimental and technical aspects help the rest of the business move along. And occasionally, we end up with bands like Yes, Rush, or Floyd who blow us away.