All of this. There's a lot of obvious metal heritage stuff floating around that's not really metal anymore that's phenomenal. Unprocessed and Polyphia are two very obvious examples of this, and in a completely different direction so is Thank You Scientist. And there's a whole new sound of modernity, some of which started with the 2010s djent explosion, that's still evolving and picking a ton of interesting new sonic directions...like Plini for example here. The cool new ways heavy jazz is coming around and stealing from metal (thinking Tigran Hamasyan), and vice versa, also lights my brain up like a Christmas tree.introclaus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 14, 2022 7:52 pmI think what sets me and some of you apart here is that the standard prog metal stuff to me has gotten very stale and that’s just not where I find the for-me-interesting-stuff these days. I know a lot of you still love new stuff in the trad prog genre, and that’s great. But for me it isn’t where my head is at these days. I want to see the future of the genre, not bands doing what we’ve seen others do hundreds of times before. A few trad prog releases do catch my ear each year, but it’s few and far between. In later years the progressive side of metal core, djent and post-hardcore genres have given me a lot of new inspiration, and the entire “next-gen prog” scene is super inspiring I think.
About the heaviness of a band like Unprocessed or Port Noir: It doesn’t have to be overly “metal” to be “heavy” - that has more to do with emotions and lyrics and atmosphere. A distorted loud guitar doesn’t mean heavy to me. The way Unprocessed does it is heavy in its own way I think.
As for the new Seventh Wonder - it’s a rehash of a style heard a million times before, the production is quite poor, both Andreas bass and Andreas keyboard needs to step it up. For someone who loves this band soooooo very much, it’s painful to listen to sometimes, and it definitely doesn’t excite and inspire me in the same way Unprocessed or Port Noir does.
I’m honestly just looking for where the prog “metal” genre can go next, and I don’t think it’s another 7W or Vanden Plas album that’ll do that… at least not for me.
We're on really well tread territory here, but it's the Progressive vs progressive argument again, and while I do still cherish the former what I'm really chasing is the latter. I also still want it to be more metal than not, but when it's kinda light and still gives me stank face, well I still got stank face so it's good with me.