Progressive metal
| Progressive metal | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Progressive rock, heavy metal, jazz fusion |
| Cultural origins | Mid 1980s, United States, United Kingdom, Canada |
| Typical instruments | Electric guitar - Bass guitar - Drums & Percussion - Keyboard |
| Mainstream popularity | Moderate since creation, slowly rising since the mid 1990s in the United States and Europe |
| Fusion genres | |
| Technical death metal | |
| Other topics | |
| Timeline of heavy metal • Mathcore | |
Progressive metal (sometimes called prog metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal, which blends the powerful, guitar-driven sound of metal with the complex compositional structures, odd time signatures, and intricate instrumental playing of progressive rock. Many progressive metal bands are also influenced by jazz fusion and classical music. Like progressive rock songs, progressive metal songs are typically much longer than standard metal songs, and are often thematically linked in concept albums.
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History
The mixing of the progressive rock and heavy metal styles can be traced back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. One of England's heaviest progressive rock bands[1], High Tide, fused the elements of "metal progenitors such as Cream, Blue Cheer, and the Jeff Beck Group" into their sound[2]. Other bands such as King Crimson and Rush were also incorporating metal into their music[3][4], as well as Uriah Heep, whose "by-the-books progressive heavy metal made the British band one of the most popular hard rock groups of the early '70s".[5] Rush songs such as "Bastille Day", "Anthem", "By-Tor and Snow Dog", "2112", "Fountains of Lamneth" and "Something for Nothing" have been cited as some of the earliest examples of progressive metal.[6] Another early practitioner of progressive rock and heavy metal were Lucifer's Friend[7]. However, progressive metal did not develop into a genre of its own until the mid-1980s. Bands such as Fates Warning, Queensrÿche and Dream Theater took elements of progressive rock groups (primarily the instrumentation and compositional structure of songs) and merged them with heavy metal styles associated with bands like Judas Priest or Black Sabbath. The result could be described as a progressive rock mentality with heavy metal sounds.
These three flagship bands for progressive metal at the time each had somewhat different sounds. Queensrÿche had the most melodic sound of the three and achieved, with Operation Mindcrime and Empire the genre's most immediate commercial success, which peaked with the crossover single Silent Lucidity reaching number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. Dream Theater drew more heavily upon traditional progressive rock and also built much of their earlier career on the band members' virtuoso instrumental skills, despite also achieving an early - and unexpected - MTV hit with the eight-minute Pull Me Under from 1992's Images and Words. Fates Warning were the most aggressive and heavy and arguably had the most in common with the thrash and extreme metal scenes of the time, which led them to be the least accessible of the three bands.
Though progressive metal was, as it has remained, primarily an album-oriented genre, this mainstream exposure increased the genere's profile, and opened doors for other bands. Over the 1990s, bands such as Pain of Salvation, Vanden Plas, Threshold, Symphony X, Andromeda and Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Ayreon project all succeeded in developing their own audiences and signature sounds. In the decade which followed, artists who began their careers outside of the progressive milleu, such as Sweden's Tiamat (originally a death/doom metal act), Green Carnation and Opeth (both formed in the death metal mould), developed a progressive sound and became identified with the progressive metal genre.
Pain of Salvation drew heavily on more obscure 1970s prog acts. Ayreon stayed with the traditional Prog Metal themes, but mixed them with many other influences, prominently rock opera and ambient. Symphony X married progressive elements to power metal and classical music. Steve Vai's former singer and heavy metal band Strapping Young Lad's singer and guitarist Devin Townsend combined elements of post metal and ambient with traditional progressive metal on his first two solo albums Ocean Machine: Biomech and Infinity. Opeth and Between the Buried and Me combined (in very different ways) their prog influence with death metal. Andromeda created a more traditional progressive sound that incorporated elements of space rock. Another prominent influence on prog metal's development and populatity at the time were "technical metal" bands, such as Watchtower, Atheist, and Cynic, who utilized complex song structures and technical instrumental playing.
Diversity
Progressive metal can be broken down into countless sub-genres corresponding to certain other styles of music that have influenced progressive metal groups. For example, two bands that are commonly identified as progressive metal, King's X and Opeth, are at opposite ends of the sonic spectrum to one another. King's X are greatly influenced by softer mainstream rock and, in fact, contributed to the growth of grunge, influencing bands like Pearl Jam, whose bassist Jeff Ament once said, "King's X invented grunge." Opeth's growling vocals and heavy guitars (liberally intermixed with Gothic-evocative acoustic passages and clean melodic vocals) often see them cited as progressive death metal, yet their front man Mikael Åkerfeldt refers to Yes and Camel as major influences in the style of their music.
Classical and symphonic music have also had a significant impact on sections of the progressive metal genre, with artists like Devin Townsend, Symphony X and Shadow Gallery fusing traditional progressive metal with a complexity and grandeur usually found in classical compositions. Similarly, bands such as Dream Theater, Planet X and Liquid Tension Experiment have a jazz influence, with extended solo sections that often feature "trading solos". Cynic, Atheist, Opeth, Pestilence, Between the Buried and Me and Meshuggah also blended jazz/fusion with death metal. Devin Townsend draws on more Ambient influences in the atmosphere of his music. Progressive metal is also often linked with power metal, hence the ProgPower music festival, with bands such as Fates Warning and Conception originating as power metal bands that incorporated progressive elements which came to overshadow their power metal roots.
Progressive metal has also overlapped thrash metal - most famously perhaps with Dark Angel's swansong album Time Does Not Heal, which was famous for its sticker that said "9 songs, 67 minutes, 246 riffs." The band Watchtower, who released their first album in 1985, blended the modern thrash metal sound with heavy progressive influences, and even Megadeth were often and still are often associated with progressive metal, as Dave Mustaine even once claimed that the band was billed as "jazz metal" in the early '80s.[8] The band Racer X would also fall within this genre of technical proficiency featuring Paul Gilbert, a guitar instructor at the Musicians Institute[9] in LA, a tendency evidenced on songs such as "B.R.O." from 1999's Technical Difficulties.
Recently, with a new wave of popularity in shred guitar, the hitherto-unfashionable genre of "technical metal" has become increasingly prevalent and popular in the metal scene. This has led to a resurgence of popularity for more traditional progressive metal bands like Dream Theater and Symphony X, and also has led to the inclusion within the progressive metal scene bands that do not necessarily play in its traditional style such as thrash/power metallers Nevermore, technical death metal act Necrophagist and mathcore band Protest The Hero. These bands are, rightly or wrongly, often labeled progressive metal, as they do play relatively complex and technical metal music which does not readily cleave to any other metal subgenre.
Differences with avant-garde metal
Although progressive metal and avant-garde metal both favor experimentation and non-standard ideas, there are rather large differences between the two genres. The experimentation of progressive metal has a strong emphasis on technicality and theoretical complexity (influenced by jazz music). This is done by playing complex rhythms and implementing unusual time signatures and song structures - all with the use of traditional instruments. For avant-garde metal, most of the experimentation is in the use of unusual sounds and instruments - being more unorthodox and questioning of musical conventions.
See also
- List of progressive metal artists
- Timeline of progressive rock and progressive metal
- Progressive rock
- Jazz fusion
- Avant-garde metal
Book references
- Buckley, Peter (2003). The Rough Guide to Rock. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 1-85828-201-2.
Other references
- ↑ http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jxfpxq95ldse
- ↑ http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hxfpxq95ldse
- ↑ Buckley 2003, p. 477, "Opening with the cataclysmic heavy-metal of "21st Century Schizoid Man", and closing with the cathedral-sized title track,"
- ↑ Buckley 2003, p. 749, "Rush were throwing off shackles of prog-rock and heavy metal,"
- ↑ http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gifexqr5ldde~T1
- ↑ [1] Progressive rock reconsidered by Durrell S. Brown
- ↑ http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:09fexq85ld6e~T1
- ↑ http://www.revolvermag.com/content/history-american-thrash
- ↑ http://www.mi.edu/news/git-welcomes-paul-gilbert
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Portal:Heavy metal