The anticipation was killing me. It was the first weekend in May, and that could only mean one thing: time for the road trip. Destination: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Objective: a serious dose of live progressive rock. It was finally time for the internationally renowned Rites of Spring Festival. For the past five years, my longtime best …
Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen to a talented underground band is they get noticed, particularly by a major record label. Still, where avant-pop geniuses Bent Knee were concerned, it was only a matter of time before they got noticed and a major label got involved. The Boston quintet has been hard at work, …
I knew I had to see Devin Townsend at Bogarts. I couldn’t really avoid it. Mastodon, Eagles of Death Metal. and Russian Circles were playing at the Taft, which would have been a given if any other band or group was playing, but Devin and I go way back. I remember first hearing Devin Townsend’s …
John Mitchell is no stranger to progressive music. Known for his work with It Bites, Frost*, Arena, Kino, and John Wetton, Mitchell has made a name for himself as a multi-talented musician, vocalist , writer, producer, sound engineer, and all around talent. Mitchell’s solo effort, Lonely Robot, is an opportunity for him to sit in the driver’s …
After much anticipation, progressive metal band Tool has finally released the name and tracklist for their new album, Pleistocene, which will be released in late 2018. Lead singer Mayneard James Keenan has said of the album, “We tried to do a conceptual album with Lateralus a few years ago, but this time we decided to really commit. …
This post has a distinct purpose: to help folks like me open their mind up to good music. Up until about 5 or 6 years ago, I refused to listen to anything that Genesis released after Peter Gabriel left. I was a Genesis purist, and as far as I wanted to see, Genesis were prog’s …
I am writing this post with a grateful heart for the last few days of my life. I have walked the decks of this massive engineering marvel, listening to amazing music and meeting incredible people, but carrying with me the names of those I love and those who made it possible for me to come. …
My day 3 officially started at midnight last night. I went to sleep at 3 am, because I didn’t want to miss anything. The problem was that we were supposed to have breakfast at 7:30 AM with Steve and Jo Hackett. My brain, understanding the gravity of the appointment, managed to wake up at 6:45 …
This day has been wild. I’ll just start it by saying that by some fluke of the universe, I just got to jam to Beatles tunes with Neal Morse and Brook Hansen at a piano in a small bar. So I’m still sort of in shock… An example of the magic that can happen on …
I’m writing this review at 1 am and a group of musicians from the various bands we’ve seen today are playing the entire Court of the Crimson King album in a Greg Lake tribute. They just finished a ridiculously awesome version of “21st Century Schizoid Man” by King Crimson, with the lead singer of District …
To all of our lovely readers: Thanks to an incredibly thoughtful surprise gift from my beloved friends and family, I was given the amazing opportunity to represent Proglodytes on Cruise to the Edge 2017. I will be reviewing each show I see and I will try to help you, our lovely readers, share with me …
2016 has been an intense year here in the United States and in the rest of the world. We’ve lost Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and our collective minds. And to make matters worse, we have a presidential election coming up next Tuesday. Election anxiety has been a very real phenomenon this year, and many Americans …
After 18 years of recording, the supergroup trio known as The Jelly Jam finally toured this summer for the first time ever in support of their new album, Profit. The tour was very small—only 8 shows confined to the northeast United States—and it wasn’t well publicized. The tour culminated with the final show on August …
Each year, Prog Magazine gives out awards for the movers and music makers in the progressive rock world. A number of categories are open for fan voting, while others are determined by the writers and editors of the magazine. What follows is a discussion by the Proglodytes team on the awards and who should win …
When I first heard that Peter Gabriel and Sting were touring together, I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical of the billing. In my mind, I viewed Peter Gabriel as more thoughtful and ponderous and Sting as a little more poppy and “mainstream”. I then was made aware that the structure of the shows would …
Big Big Train has been enjoying some well deserved success lately. Starting with their acclaimed release The Underfall Yard in 2009, Big Big Train has only enjoyed more and more positive reception. I first heard them after reading an article on modern progressive epics (meaning longer songs). ‘The Underfall Yard’ is a 20-minute progressive epic, fitted …
To preface this review, I was a really big fan of Dream Theater as a teenager. As a musician, their technical ability inspired me. I used to sit out in the garage and play along on the drums, carefully counting out time signatures and working on copying fills. I started to fall out of love …
In a previous analysis of Google Trends, I noted that it would seem that prog is a dying genre. While I made a couple loose assumptions to come to that conclusion (namely, that search engine results say something about the ultimate popularity of prog), I have been reflecting on what it might mean that prog is …
In 1968, a band called The Nice released a track called “America”, which became the first instrumental protest song of popular music. Evening out the odd meter into 4/4, it featured blazing keyboards, heavily distorted guitar, and the trademark theatrics that had earned The Nice their reputation. In the final moments of the song, the … Continue reading
I’d like to think there’s not a single person reading this review who does not know who Jim Matheos is, or has never heard of the legendary Fates Warning. With that, I’ll skip the minutely detailed history lesson and sum it up, however redundantly, like this: Fates Warning is legendary. Fates Warning is one of … Continue reading
OK, so…James. Tell me about the six years between the Echoes of Edensong EP and the amazing new record Years in the Garden of Years. We were actually busy writing Years in the Garden of Years very soon after we released the Echoes of Edensong EP. EoE marked our first time in the studio together with … Continue reading
Melodic Revolution Records is proud to announce that they have signed New York-based Prog outfit Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius for the group’s upcoming release, Guilty Of Innocence. Stratospheerius will release their fifth CD Guilty of Innocence through Melodic Revolution Records in early Fall, 2017. The new 10-track album will be available worldwide in both physical and digital formats. … Continue reading
Arcadea is a new, ambitious project featuring Brann Dailor (Mastodon), Core Atoms (Zruda), and Raheem Amlani (Withered). Core Atoms came up with the idea of Arcadea as an exploration of what music would be like 5 billion years from now, when human life has died out, synthetic life has taken over, and the merge of … Continue reading
Prior to playing this album, I knew nothing about iNFiNiEN, save for the fact the band’s name is a pain in the tuckus to type. I took on the assignment of reviewing them because I’m all about discovering music and bands I’ve never heard of; and because I was told iNFiNiEN was stylistically similar to … Continue reading
Detroit, Michigan’s very own Discipline has a long, storied history in the world of underground American progressive rock. Led by founding vocalist/keyboardist Matthew Parmenter, Discipline has released 4 albums since 1988 along with a smattering of live releases. 2017 brings about the band’s 5th album, Captives of the Wine Dark Sea, via the Laser’s Edge … Continue reading
