Painfully Laboured Metaphors, Horrible Face Paint, Solos Nicked Off Tony Banks - It's the Neo Prog Thread

Neo-progressive rock (or often shortened to neo-prog, not to be confused with the significantly more modern new prog) is a sub-genre of progressive rock, developed in the UK and popular in the 1980s, although it lives on today.

Neo-progressive rock is characterized by deeply emotional content, often delivered via dramatic lyrics and a generous use of imagery and theatricality on-stage. The music is mostly the product of careful composition, relying less heavily on improvised jamming. The subgenre relies very much on clean, melodic & emotional electric guitar solos, combined with keyboards. The main musical influences on the neo-prog genre are Genesis, Yes, Camel, and Pink Floyd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH8c1pDIQX0

This blue my mind in 1983. Still think they were good as long as Fish was in charge, but I rarely feel the urge to listen to them in the 21st century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWOugKLRaNQ&feature=related

IQ was easily the best of these guys imo. This shit still sounds v. dope to me.

Geir to thread!
Maresnest to thread!

IQ definitely the best of that era :

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

In a very sub-Genesis way tbh.
No neo-prog thread would be complete without the godawful Pendragon :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzyfO3Ehzkk

Could this define the genre any more?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyyGlh5q9O0

Even I couldn't get into Pendragon when I was a progging teenager.

I can't remember which Pallas song was a straight rip of Genesis's "Carpet Crawlers" so here is "Arrive Alive" in said. They were quite unfortunate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iLvrDZVtLI&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coPUMbvv2zM

I quite liked Twelfth Night at the time, tho they lost it quite a lot by their second studio album - had a mad pop-up gatefold sleeve iirc but they'd gone too AOR for my taste.

It's funny how many of these bands clearly hated each other and changed line-ups every 4 weeks.

post-Waters Floyd sounds like this imo

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

So many fashion faux pas in that vid.

sorry I meant the Twelfth Night vid, not ver Floyd.

Neo-prog bands I saw at the Marquee (from memory) :

Palls
Twelfth Night
Pendragon
Haze
Twice Bitten
Citizen Cain
Geoff Mann Band
Tamarisk
LaHost
Trilogy
Jadis
Pete Nicholls' band after he left IQ, forget the name
probably many more I'm forgetting

A relative of mine played in this band for a while, embarrassingly :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDEy312tlMw

As Above So Below, who for some unknowable reason appeared to be Pendragon soundalikes, have apparently got no Youtube presence at all. But I remember their Tommy Vance session. Vaguely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGiYg8tlFx4&feature=related

Magnum weren't properly Neo Prog imo but any excuse to post this tune cos I think it's quite lovely.

Wasn't it Pendragon that posted a notice pretty much every week in Sounds/Kerrang throughout the mid/late 80's that read something like 'If you like Genesis, Marillion, Yes, Rush then you should listen to Pendragon PO Box blah blah...'

They forgot to mention Chris de Burgh

That's cruel, even for you Matt. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI5QCem2fx4

Which band did I just find out features, as one of its primary songwriters, the son of two of the best friends of my long-deceased parents?

Also, I played a Porcupine Tree double album all the way through last week! (Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape, which I have on yellow vinyl. It was okay! Kind of Hawkwindish, a lot of it.)

Pete Nicholls' band after he left IQ, forget the name

niadem's ghost.

That was it! Mediocre.

I must be the 1st person under 40 to post in this thread. These bands are all awful though so it might be my last :)

Wasn't it Pendragon that posted a notice pretty much every week in Sounds/Kerrang throughout the mid/late 80's that read something like 'If you like Genesis, Marillion, Yes, Rush then you should listen to Pendragon PO Box blah blah...'

― Run Westy Run Megatorrent (MaresNest), Monday, 7 March 2011 19:25 (58 minutes ago)

Yhey used to run similar in "Q" when they used to send albums in for review. "Q" would slag off the albums for being barely-concealed ripoffs of Camle, Floyd etc, Nick Barrett always claimed everytime Q did that, Pendragon would shift shitloads more records. Someone once told me how many copies their albums sold, and it was shitloads, more than you'd ever believe. I liked "The Jewel" and "9:15 live" but never dug any of their other stuff. Barrett is a fucking awesome guitarist, but a terrible singer and a worse lyricist.

Yeah I heard they'd shift 20,000+ back when people used to buy cd's.

this label, oof...

http://rateyourmusic.com/label/musea_records

i tried to listen to a bunch of 80's musea releases and i didn't get too far. and i have a really strong stomach.

http://coconutsdisk.com/ekoda/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/mandragore101012.jpg

Anyway, I'd also cite IQ as being the best of all these bands, at least for the albums w/Pete Nicholls singing. (most of these bands ditched their singers p regularly I seem to recall) although all of their albums have at least one clunkingly bad number on them it seems to me, which is frustrating. the real A+ talented guy out of all these bands is the late Geoff Mann from 12th night - "The Collector" and "We Are Sane" are both fantastic numbers, Mann's performance on the latter is v spooky.

Some Musea releases are great though - Shub Niggurath, Pulsar, Eider Stellaire. Lotsa shite too, yes.

Musea were more a symph-prog than neo-prog label IIRC? Symph-prog is pretty slim pickings for quality.

Yeah most of the big 80s prog revival bands lost their singers and replaced them with someone inferior - Marillion, Pallas, Twelfth Night, IQ.

I tend to have pretty good feelings about Musea b/c they listed & sold my recordings back when I used to bother releasing shit, and they always paid quickly.

"Fire In Harmony" was the "Fill Your Head With Rock" of this movement.

http://www.proggnosis.com/Covers/V/V23050.jpg

The 2 albs I still like out of all the UK 80's neo bands are Pallas "The Sentinel" which is kind of gleefully OTT in every way - I picked up one of their later albums which wasn't so good, but had one killer track on it - and Solstice "Silent Dance" which was this hippyish band w/an electric violinist and a female singer, or common to neo bands, a succession of female singers. Kind of Yes-meets-Renaissance IIRC, it was a nice change from sub-"Selling England..." which was where all the other neo bands seemed to come from. I have the urge to pull some of this stiff off the shelf & have a listen.

That ("Fire in Harmony") used to fetch a p decent price back in the late '90's @ the used record store.

This music seems p much untroubled by crate-diggers it seems?

I played The Wake this afternoon and I like it more than ever. Used to think it tailed off on Side 2 but now it feels solid beginning to end. Wd love to read some explication of whatever the hell it's "about" tho.

Ironically I think what makes most of this music perennially unpopular isn't the Proggisms so much as the sounds, those 80s tics and polish and certain synth sounds and guitar tones that feel cheesy today.

"Some Musea releases are great though"

sadly, all the ones i was listening to were for for troo kult synthpomp lovers only.

I LOVE how a lot of these second wave prog bands are repped for so heavily in 'Classic Rock Prog' mag, they're discussed, interviwed and treated like they had an awful lot of impact (well the ones that are still together mainly) they must bloody love having they're own dedicated print mag after years of neglect.

Critical neglect, anyway, but the fact that a lot of these guys have managed to keep going in some way means the fans have always been there I think.

I forgot Geoff Mann had died and now I'm sad.

nearfest line-up this year:

NEARfest 2011
June 24th, 25th & 26th
Zoellner Arts Center
Bethlehem, PA USA

Featuring
Accordo dei Contrari
Italy
Curved Air
England
Gösta Berlings Saga
Sweden
Half Past Four
Canada
Jeavestone
Finland
Karmakanic
Sweden
MediaBanda
Chile
New Trolls
Italy
simakDialog
Indonesia
Umphrey's McGee
United States
vonFrickle
United States

Although CRProg should stop writing about Steven Wilson and P Tree all the time, he's not *that* interesting.

last couple of p tree albums i have not dug at all, the most recent was as flat as a fart I thought.

don't think I liked what Porcupine Tree I've heard, and definitely don't dig Spock's Beard - sorry xhuxk! Prefer the more song-based guys, even if it's 3 or 4 songs stitched together to make one long one, than the jammy or over muso-y metall-y proggers.

which is odd cos I like plenty of Metal and plenty of Fusion and plenty of jammy muso-y stuff, just don't like it in my Prog for some reason.

Ha! no way Pash, I was listening to that Little Feat boot just the other day. :)

never really vibed with The Enid for similar reasons. They're obv not a Neo Prog act but they were definitely playing at that time and picking up fans from the other bands I'd guess.

It's interesting how we're still discussing what's Prog and what isn't, I wonder if there were any old underground fanzines calling out bands and having endless screeds, defining boundaries in the same way that Maximum R&R and Punk Planet did.

I don't know about that, but I do know there's a 1969 interview with Mike Ratledge where he expresses disinterest in the Soft Machine being identified as "progressive". So "progressive" is one of those labels that musicians themselves have always had certain reservations about. I find most musical categorizations are that way. Several members of "Les Six" actively rejected being associated with that group, for instance.

Who am I missing???

Abel Ganz (nothing to do with the fact that they have a new album out and, um, my brother's in them)

Oh look, Team Motorik just showed up

Only to plug my brother's band! You lot carry on with your hobbits and wizards (j/k)

ha! i'd have neu ahead of every og prog band except vdgg. but then WHAT ARE FAUST

this is why prog has to be self-defined btw

Somebody said a guy from Stars In Battledress was in the ilxor prog forums years ago. I recently read the Knifeworld guy doing his Quietus Bakers Dozen and it seemed like they were all a part of the prog scene, slightly leaning towards RIO. Think he was in the Romantic Warriors RIO documentary.
It's a good read..
http://thequietus.com/articles/15887-kavus-torabi-knifeworld-favourite-albums

I'm sure the third Marillion album Misplaced Childhood is the consensus classic. I haven't heard any of their albums (many people have said they go through major stylistic changes) but I think "Lavender" is a beautiful song (which I'm sure is from Misplaced Childhood).

I've got the IQ albums The Wake, Dark Matter and Frequency. I think the later two are not as consistent but it doesn't seem to me that they've lost anything. The production is a bit shiny but I think they make that work surprisingly well, some of it has this modern science fiction feel.
"Sacred Sound" from Dark Matter is maybe my favourite IQ song, years ago it was a song I regularly returned to, I bloody love it. "Life Support" from Frequency is amazing too.

I always mention Frost when this sort of modern prog comes up. It taken me a while to come to terms with their poppy sheen and poppy vocals(the main guy is an award winning pop producer) but I totally love their albums. "Milliontown" is still one of the best prog epics I've ever heard.

Don't know if Devil Doll fits but they are one of my all time favourites, despite some of the blatant influences they are still one of the true originals. I'd do terrible things if that would make them release a new album.

*I'm sure the third Marillion album Misplaced Childhood is the consensus classic*

I'm sure it's not, it is largely weaksauce.

this Deluge Grander stuff is cool. same people who did Birds And Buildings tho right? they always came off as the more interesting end of the neoprog spectrum

i'd take Clutching at Straws from the Fish era. i know nothing of the rest.

Misplaced Childhood is the one I always see listed as their best, I've never heard any of them but it's the one I'd go for. But there's probably 50 prog bands I should try before that. But I really do love "Lavender", so I could see myself going for it.

this Deluge Grander is ending brilliantly

XP - I was crazy for them as a 11 year old (which was just shortly before MC came out).

It's specifically overwrought lyrically and vocally and that somehow holds a mirror to my gauche and uncool early teenage years, I find most of the Fish era music cringe inducing nowadays.

If you wanted to go for it, I would maybe start with the live record Real to Reel.

Clutching is a better record, I'm sure MC get's written up because it's the most salient/successful, it's actually not very prog.

listened to this song like 4x

"I tend to have pretty good feelings about Musea b/c they listed & sold my recordings back when I used to bother releasing shit, and they always paid quickly.

― lycanthrope electrif (Pashmina),"

wait, what did Pashmina release under?

Misplaced Childhood is pretty fucking prog, not sure what you mean. Clutching at Straws/Season's End/Holidays in Eden aren't that prog, but MC is.

MC is probably the best of the Fish albums, Marbles, Brave, and Afraid of Sunlight are far and away the best of the Hogarth era (Marbles is my favorite album by the band)

this Deluge Grander stuff is cool. same people who did Birds And Buildings tho right? they always came off as the more interesting end of the neoprog spectrum

yeah it's a Dan Britton band and IIRC there's another guy in both groups. I just grabbed his stuff from Bandcamp, he prices his albums at a buck a song even though his average track length is like 12 minutes or so. He's got a rather nuts level of dedication - the latest DG album came in a limited release of 205 which all a different painting on the cover and a handwritten out set of lyrics. Looks like he's got big plans:

Well, the very tentative plan at this point is to release a series of FOUR limited edition albums, then combine the material on them, probably rewriting and re-arranging everything in the process, and release TWO regular CDs. Then, as the piece de resistance, release ONE other album that contains only the best material from all six of these releases, probably re-arranged and re-recorded yet again, and maybe release that as a free or very inexpensive download. The insanity never ends!

from: http://emkog.com/DelugeGrander.html

Misplaced Childhood is pretty fucking prog, not sure what you mean

Fair enough, I haven't heard this record in a long time and didn't rate it very much when it came out, so I revisited.

It is a little proggy in places, but mostly it is horribly meandering, downbeat, bedsit relationship soft rock leavened with some more uplifting celtic themes, but I personally don't hear very much that is Prog, or decent.

Pseudo Silk Kimono - Proggy, portentous intro, theme not strong enough to bear repeating later in the record though.

Kayleigh - 80s Wine Bar Pop.

Lavender - Celtic rock.

Bitter Suite - More scene setting, almost the same as Assassing, some spoken word then a latin beat and a guitar solo over a two chord vamp, a retread of Lavender (after only about 4 mins!) then another horrible soft rock, synthy piano bar song.

Heart of Lothian - Picks up the pace with a very Marillion track in 7 and then 6, but slips into an anthemic 4, hey it's the end of the first side! Nice little musical postscript at it's end.

Waterhole - Another retread of Assassing with synth marimbas but kinda prog, good chorus 'when you think it's time to go, don't be supriiiieeeeeeeeeesed'.

Lords Of The Backstage - Definitely proggy, another repeated 7 beat keyboard phrase, nice chord changes but pretty stock.

Blind Curve - Another segue of shorter themes, kicks of with more dismal 'my bird chucked me' angst, then a lovely uplift into Mylo, which was always the best bit of the whole record for me, following that we get the heart of darkness bit with funereal toms and bass with quiet spoken parts which get louder and more aggressive which takes us into a 6/8 piece which is a bit ranty and over the top, 'drenched in NAPALM, this is no vietnam!' ugh

Childhood's End - Horrible Then Jericho/Big Country intro and verses, then more shouting masquerading as a chorus.

White Feather - Big Country again, but decent folky melodies overlay more shit, 'I've been on tour y'know' lyrics, for such a relentlessly downbeat record, at least it ends in an upful fashion.

wait, what did Pashmina release under?

Vietgrove

Back in the '90s I was pretty strongly opposed to neo-prog on the grounds that it was "commercial" and it used digital synths, which nowadays I think are pretty stupid reasons to be opposed to something. Now I'm opposed to it on the grounds that the songs are long but don't earn it. You could probably edit most of IQs songs into much better five-minute songs. You can't really do that with "classic" prog because "classic" prog tends to be lacking in songcraft- it was very much a kitchen-sink genre. There's something kind of stagnant about doing a 20-minute song just because it's a cultural expectation of the genre rather than "duuuude, guys, let's do a record that takes up the WHOLE SIDE of the album!"

IQ is kind of conflicting in this regard; "The Last Human Gateway" probably wouldn't exist if "Supper's Ready" didn't, Subterranea clearly was a go at The Lamb, and so on. I do kind of agree that many IQ tunes could be edited (see: first half of "Widow's Peak" vs. the second) but to me it comes down to the fact that they have the talent and are very entertaining so IMO it works fine. When I first listened to Wobbler a few years back I had a real problem with that - "these guys are just copying 'Tarkus', why bother listening to them?"; but then I got big into Glass Hammer and realized that the entertainment factor kind of trumps all, so long as they don't use the original recordings as a crutch. In other words I am okay with "lets do something like 'Awaken'" but not okay with "Well 'Awaken' had a long calm passage here and a chord change there, so lets do that in our song" - it's pretty obvious to me when bands are doing the latter.

The other thing that strikes me about '80s neo-prog is that prog rock of the '70s had this sense of PROFESSIONALISM that neo-prog bands typically don't. It's like, to take another kind of subcultural music, comparing "Rainbow Rising" to "Kill 'Em All"- "Kill 'Em All" sounds like it was done in somebody's basement, "Rainbow Rising" is a professionally done record. That's nothing for or against either of them, merely that the typical line on neo-prog is that it's more "commercial" than '70s prog, which it isn't simply on the grounds that it's not as well-produced. So there's kind of a creative tension inherent in the music. Theoretically this should make it better, but recorded music seems remarkably adept at ignoring theory. :(

imago - tell me what you think of this one (2nd track, same album)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YVc6iflAn0

the last 5 minutes of this absolutely floor me, right when the grand piano comes in

lol when I'm home

in a fortnight link track 3 obv

this is cool yeah, although the other one was better & had a truly out of this world finale

like, 'inaugural bash' is one of the best maybe 3 long-form prog pieces i've ever heard (long-form = over 20 mins)

it might be the best one if 20 minutes is the cut-off actually

sorry, gates of delirium. not sorry, anything by genesis. lol, meurglys iii

obviously 'a plague of lighthouse keepers' is not music but a fully spiritual experience

25:22 into Inaugural Bash is p much the most kickass musical moment I've heard in ages

It's almost like a mini-Kohntarkosz in that last spot

I just fucking love how it seems to be petering out gracefully and then BANG it smashes you with that final final freakout

seems like a blatant and obvious ploy for All Downhill from Here...instances where an artist peaked with the first song on their first album

like, this seems like the song that the songwriter had been working out in his head since the age of 14 or whatever

How about Yes clones, Starcastle? There a couple of old threads about them and quite a few people rate them really high.

I'm very resistant to clone bands and usually hope I can easily dismiss them but I'm kind of intrigued about these guys.

Again, Devil Doll doesn't really fit in with the neo/new wave of prog but I listened to Eliogabalus (second album) a few days ago and I think that band is one of the best things to happen on this planet. I can't think of any band who would excite me more if there was new albums released.
Maybe a lost album by the old Jacula line-up.

post representative trax itt! that's how frogbs got me inextricably hooked on at least one song. listening to 'inaugural bash' again rn in fact, fuck the closing keyboard solo is just the best solo, it's just so swag

It must be said that Devil Doll has a vocalist that will not suit everyone. One of the most extremely stylised vocalists I've ever heard. Like Peter Hammill crossed with Dwight Frye in full horror mode; his voice constantly shifts into different sinister poses and other styles without relaxing; a heavily impressionistic style called sprechgesang.
If you like expressionist silent horror film imagery, you're way more likely to enjoy this.

He is a huge Hammill fan (I think he met him several times) a fairly even mixture of symphonic prog, classical, goth and metal. Often comparisons to Bartok, Shostakovich and Bernard Herrmann. Some say Residents, Art Zoyd, Universe Zero and Jacula but I think that's a bit more far off but there are similarities.

It's difficult to select tracks because their shortest tracks are 20 minutes. They only have 5 released songs and 1 remix (Sacrilege Of Fatal Arms is an extended remix of Sacrilegium).
I think Sacralegium and Dies Irae are their finest albums, but are roughly 40minute songs.

Damn you spellcorrect! Heavily EXPRESSIONISTIC not impressionistic!

Another comparison could be Current 93, he's quite similar to David Tibet with all the obsessions and odd voices.
Somebody said he has one of the biggest record collections in Italy. The interviews on the site have a wealth of information about his influences (writers, films, bands, but more classical composers than anything; a huge Punishment Of Luxury fan too). He wrote a book about Bernard Herrmann and one about UK punk and new wave singles. He said he might write a book about hundreds of scary music. He's got an encyclopedic mind.

He looks incredible too
http://www.devildoll.nl/unused16.html
http://www.devildoll.nl/unused17.html

Devil Doll- Sacrilegium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP42yacM-XI

I'm still not sure about the ethics of lots of youtube linking, especially since the song is basically the whole album.

The track is actually just 45 minutes or something near enough that then everything after is silence with clips inbetween (like a funeral, a backwards demon voice and a brief bit of music).
Just listened to it today and I'm still amazed by it. I've heard some say the Bernard Herrmann bit is a full recreation but it sounds like a sample to me.

I'm surprised I didn't link Unifaun on here. Shameless and intentional Genesis ripoff, vocalist tours with Steve Hackett now, wears pirate shirts. The album is suprisingly good.

The Agents of Mercy also features the Unifaun vocalist (Nad Sylvan) and Roine from the Flower Kings. I've never warmed to the FKs but the Agents' "Heroes and Beacons" is great... and rips Genesis even more effectively than Unifaun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yeywUMtqqs

Been listening to that Birds and Buildings album a lot lately, this stuff is absolutely insane, almost certainly some of the best modern prog out there. The actual album sounds better than this but just listen to the musicianship here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXbHy9ZwTOY

Yup, pretty proggy.

Just discovered that there is a British Prog band called 'Magrathea', which is, of course, the most totally apt name for a v3.0 BritProg band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m73sUhuOPmg
Cairo - Angels And Rage.
Love this track so fucking much. Posted it on another prog thread a year ago. The whole album isn't this good but I need more of this band sometime. Cairo and Saga do remind me a bit of old Gillette adverts in the singing, almost verging on power metal but I think it works for them.

I have been listening to the Quebec neo-prog band Miriordor's Signal 9 album this morn. Very good and much more prog than the math-rock of their also ace labelmates Ahleuchatistas.

i never know how sniffy to get about genre nomenclature. like the idea that anybody should give a shit about the difference between neo-prog and avant-prog seems a little recondite to me (they are on a "prog magazine" sampler cd with iq), but the stuff, but for the record historically "neo-prog" has not been defined in a way so as not to include miriodor (who've been around a long, long time, actually, since the '80s). i heard a little of signal 9 and it was ok, but the one that's stuck with me for whatever reason is 2009's "avanti!".

Yeah neo-prog pretty much means 'bands influenced by Marillion, Asia and It Bites'. Cuneiform Records wouldn't be seen dead releasing any of it so Miriodor probably have to fall into the 'avant-prog' bin, if we're feeling picky.

For reference: http://www.progarchives.com/

But just going slightly off the beaten neo-prog track doesn't maketh one Ornette Coleman, or something! Sorry I am just a dilettante here and don't listen to much rock music these days.