Dream Theater - A Nightmare To Remember

Band: Dream Theater
Song: A Nightmare To Remember
Album: Black Clouds & Silver Linings (2009)
Genre: Progressive Metal

One of the groups that came into my field of awareness around the same time as Joe Satriani was Dream Theater.  See, my dad's always been a huge fan of Prog of one sort or another, so artists like this have kinda floated around a lot.

I'm actually really surprised I haven't shared the 16 minute trip that this song is yet.  It's a rather good time with a lot of strong imagery in it.  In the past I had scripted out an overly artsy music video for it in my head actually.  The whole thing is just a very strong piece.  It goes on a little long, but that could be said of a great deal of Dream Theater's work.  It's not so much about the individual songs for them, it's more about the story that is told.  If it ends up being an entire album devoted to one point, or if it's something like the 24 minute Octavarium, so be it.  I can't always get behind some of that stuff, but this song manages to hold the position of the only song over 10 minutes that I'll willingly put on to listen to in it's entirety.

Apologies if that paragraph doesn't all flow, it's like, 3 am, and I'm losing base functionality, haha

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Meshuggah - Monstrocity

Band: Meshuggah
Song: Monstrocity
Album: The Violent Sleep Of Reason
Genre: Progressive Metal

I'm not sure if I can be happy about how much Meshuggah has fallen into my top rotation recently.  They're really a fantastic band though, so can I be blamed?

I've been just shuffling their music recently and this was one of the songs to come up.  It's got such a wicked groove to it I just couldn't resist sharing it with y'all today.

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The Fine Constant - Quiescent

Band:  The Fine Constant
Song:  Quiescent
Album:  Woven In Light
Genre:  Progressive Metal
Bandcamp:  sarahshreds.bandcamp.com

I have never been one for exceptionally proggy stuff, that's always been more of Jeff's thing.  But ever since these guys came to Erie a while back I've got to admit, I've been interested.  Firstly, the girl, Sarah Longfield, is somebody I've followed on YouTube for a couple years now.  She's got some fantastic work that just kinda makes you either want to pick up a guitar and play, or just stop forever.  She did some collab work with Rob Scallon a few times if you happen to follow him.  This was my favorite one they did music wise.  I die with happiness every time I watch it.

But Fine Constant though.

Their music is really really freaking good.  Some of it is is chill like this, some of it less chill, but it's all really good.  Pick up a copy from the Bandcamp link if you like it on the cheap, it's only $9 for the whole album.

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Opeth - The Baying Of The Hounds

Band:  Opeth
Song:  The Baying Of The Hounds
Album:  Ghost Reveries
Genre:  Progressive Metal

As with many artists my brother recommended to me, I tried to needlessly avoid Opeth for a while.

Most of it is probably the Prog aspect.  I have a hard time getting into music that's really unfamiliar to me and there's nothing less familiar than Prog in my general music rotation.

Then I found out Mikael Åkerfeldt was in this band.  I've listened to him in Bloodbath for a bit and I'm straight up in love with his voice.  Hardcore one of my Metal Vocal crushes.  Now he doesn't scream anymore cause years and years of doing that have apparently taken that gift away from him.  Still good though, just not what I like as much.

Fear not though, this is Mikael in all his screaming glory.  The song has like, 3 or 4 acts to it since it's almost 11 minutes long, so I'm sure there's a part of the song you'll enjoy, yeah?

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A to Z 2K17: P is for Periphery

Band:  Periphery
Song:  The Bad Thing
Album:  Juggernaut Omega
Genre:  Djent, Progressive Metal
Language:  Strong

Nothing's more fun that some really grooving music, which is something that Periphery is more than a little good at.  Since about 2005 these guys have been rocking the Djent community with their chugging grooves.

I'm partially regretting picking these guys since I honestly don't know too much about them, but what I do know is that they're good, so we're gonna go with that today.

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A to Z 2K17: M is for Meshuggah

Band:  Meshuggah
Song:  Clockworks
Album:  The Violent Sleep Of Reason
Genre:  Djent, Progressive Metal

If you watched the film Wolf Of Wall Street, you might have seen 'ol Leo DiCaprio make a face similar to the singer of Meshuggah.  The singer being the dude in the middle.  Because of that there were a couple people who took one of the scenes of the movie and dubbed Meshuggah over it.  Twas funny.

For those of you more interested in facts about the band, here ya go then.

Meshuggah doesn't really do melody, they are a band that focuses on complex rhythm.  There's a lot to be said for that though, as they consistently manage to crush their way through everything with their insanely heavy sound.  They kinda do this thing where the drummer mostly plays in 4/4 time the rest of the band will play in a different time signature that floats around the drummer's beat.  It's a really cool musical element that not a lot of people try for and even less do well.

Honestly it's down even to the vocals.  The band has said that the vocals only exist as another rhythmic element, which is why they've sounded very much the same over the course of all of their albums.

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The Dillinger Escape Plan - Milk Lizard

Band:  The Dillinger Escape Plan
Genre:  Mathcore, Progressive Metal

I remember when my brother showed me this band for the first time, I really hated it.  I wasn't into Grind yet though, and I also wasn't listening to any of their better songs.

They've got a fun chaotic sound that I'm starting to get into more, it's sometimes a mess, but it's surprisingly coordinated at the same time.  I love it, the controlled chaos.  It's one of the things I like a lot about bands of this style.  To pull off something like that you need to have some insanely talented musicians.

This song has trumpets in it, which is straight up fantastic.  It's something that people kinda dropped when Ska stopped being as big a deal.

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Periphery - Parade Of Ashes

Band:  Periphery
Genre:  Progressive Metal

I unfortunately have only managed to listen to this album by Periphery.  They're an amazing band, but for some reason I can't manage to find the time, they're a little too smart for me.

Not like lyrically though, they're just rather involved musically.  Their use of time signatures and tempos are rather intimidating to listen to when all you want is some simple music to pass time with.  I tend to not want that in my leisure time, but once I find the songs I like they are added to the list of familiar enough to enjoy.

I feel like this is a very disjointed post and for that I apologize, it's been an off day at the point of writing this.

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Dream Theater - Caught In A Web

Band:  Dream Theater
Genre:  Progressive Metal

Ok, let's start this out with my trash talking and then we can wrap up with compliments.

Prog is the most pretentious form of music.  There are no Prog bands that aren't at least a little annoyingly pretentious.  That's not to say that individual members of the bands might not be ok, but as a whole they have that rep, aight?

Secondly, who the hell does this singer think he is just walking up and throwing down with the rest of these guys.  For real, he drives me crazy.  All of the musicians in the band are straight up fantastic and he's a base level good vocalist.  Maybe he contributes to the writing of the music, but I kinda feel like he doesn't.

Ok, that's all my complaints here.

Now let's talk about somebody who I feel doesn't get enough credit.  The bassist.

Everybody talks about Petrucci who is a god level guitarist.  In the Prog community you'd be hard pressed to not hear somebody talk about Jordan Rudess who can keep up with Petrucci, but on the keyboards.  What about freaking Mike Portnoy, the really annoyingly pretentious cause he's amazing drummer?  We all hear about them when everyone talks about the band.

But I never really hear about the bassist John Myung.  Now maybe I'm just out of the loop here, but I feel like a lot of people kinda overlook him.  He may not really take any solos in the band (in the songs I've heard at least) but he can keep up with 3 absolutely jaw dropping musicians without sounding like he's trying really hard.

Or maybe I'm way off mark, but this is always the impression I've gotten.

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Meshuggah - Born In Dissonance

Band:  Meshuggah
Genre:  Djent, Progressive Metal

Yo, Meshuggah released a new track today and I'm ffreaking pumped.  I don't really follow them as much as I'd like, but you've gotta hear this song.  It's straight up amazing.

It follows all the crazy time signature chugging everybody loves Meshuggah for, so get into it a have fun.

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A to Z Challenge: D is for Dream Theater

Band:  Dream Theater
Genre:  Progressive Metal

I'll be honest, a lot of Prog music just gives me a headache.  It's not straightforward and when I'm tired and all I want is the mindless churg of Nu-Metal Prog really doesn't work for me.

When I'm awake though and willing to give things the time of day though Prog stuff isn't half bad.  The tempo changes, the weird timing, it's all really nifty.

Dream Theater is good at making their Prog not feel too weird though.  Actually a lot of their stuff reminds me of Rush.  At least the stuff that has videos does.  The song I had planned on posting before I realized it didn't have a video does not sound like Rush at all.

Good band though, solid song.  I'm sure you'll like this a lot more than the 16 minute song I had planned on posting, haha.


Happy A to Z-ing everybody

Periphery - Zero

Band:  Periphery
Genre:  Progressive Metal, Djent

This album is a pretty cool concept.  Each track was written by a different member of the band, thus lending each track a rather different sound than the others.

This track was written by one of the guitarists, so as you'd expect there's a slightly larger amount of guitar compared to other songs.  It's actually straight up instrumental.

#DisjointedThoughts #FallingAsleepAsIType

Sorry guys, I'll get caught back up soon.  Once all religious holidays are done for a bit.

Meshuggah - Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion

Band:  Meshuggah
Genre:  Djent, Progressive Metal

Other than having an absurdly long title this song is also really heavy.  Meshuggah is a bit of a front runner in really low tunings, way back in the day they got the some of the earlier 7 string guitars.

In their quest to tune lower they also have managed to gain a place in almost everybody's heaviest band lists.  I tried to avoid doing that with my choices and more going with personal opinion, but there's some people I can't ignore.  Almost everybody has Sunn O))) on their list, but I honestly thing that their heaviness aspect come's more from their shows that are loud enough to demolish buildings more than the actual music.  It's a little too stripped down to make my list for me.

Meshuggah on the other hand has earned their spot, and they shall have it.

Periphery - Feed The Ground

Band:  Periphery
Genre:  Djent, Progressive Metal
Language:  Strong

I feel like I usually have a lot of issues going from one musically extreme to another.  Like, I try to cut out some of the Rap and I switch to solid Death Metal for a week, or something like that.  I also always promise to try not to switch extremes.  Well you know what?  I'm actually gonna do that this time.  We're gonna have a good few days of "normal" music.

I'm on a kick of music that I just said I wouldn't post for a little bit though, but we are gonna actually have variety, I promise, haha.

One thing that Periphery is known for is having a singer that sounds like Katy Perry when he hit's his high notes.  He's better than her though cause his lows are stronger and he can scream.  Honestly he's a really freaking talented vocalist.

Outside of that the band is a really nice sounding group.  For a Prog group they don't really hit you over the head with it.  Some bands go hard with the weird time signatures and such, but these guys manage to keep it chill.  Still complex stuff, but a lot more accessible than say, Between The Buried And Me.

Listen to this with good headphones though, or a good system with nice bass response.  You'll enjoy it a lot more if you can hear all the hits.