Yes, I think all of these things are related. Loosely, maybe, but by my observation they all go hand in hand in some way. I will do my best to explain where I'm getting this grand picture from. I'm not going to point out whether I think this "prog fever" trend is indefinitely a good thing or a bad thing, because I see a lot of positive and negative effects.

First off, a lot of (but not all) progressive metal bands also display elements that are metalcore or deathcore oriented. Their tone is typically high-mids, they play a lot of breakdowns (albeit, complex ones), and the vocal department has a lot of of angsty screaming and singing. In fact, I think that if a lot of these bands released their music five or six years prior, most of the metal community would scoff at them and write them off as mainstream garbage (and indeed, I remember Periphery creating a huge upset when they released their debut.) Despite all this, a significant portion of metalheads are getting into these prog bands, because the simple fact is that lots of these band members are very good musicians and are playing increasingly technical music. This is what turned on 90% of listeners into metalheads to begin with. The plus side to this is that more people are becoming consciously aware of every aspect of music in each song they listen to/write. There aren't as many people with a strictly old school mindset who believe the meat of the song is a riff (even though a good portion of it sometimes should be), but now metalheads and even kids who are into hardcore music, are experimenting with new textures, advanced compositions, and different time signatures. Prog music now cannot be defined with guidelines in the same way a discreet genre is like death metal or punk can. As a result, people have begun to describe their music in, well, terms that describe music. "This band is very heavy and noisy", or "this song has some lighter mellow parts." "This music is fast, this music is slow." "This is technical, that is primitive, this is repetitive, that is volatile" etc. Granted, you still see people using terms like "death metal vocals" or "thrashy drumming" a lot too, but these flavors are getting mixed together more and more, so descriptors with genres in them have to be tossed out the window. You even see more metal bands today like Revocation and Warbringer with singers who have an unconventional style for death and thrash metal. So what do you think? Is the age of strictly sticking to genre guidelines coming to an end? Do you think there will be a time when the intense distaste of the different factions in extreme metal and -core genres will disappear, and heavy music will just be called heavy music? Is the trend in progressive and technical metal for the better or for the worse?

Just for clarity, are you elaborating on the phenomenons similar to Dillinger Escape Plan & Meshuggah? The problem is that for me the term "Progressive Metal" resonates with DT, Andromeda etc!

The -core stigma is very much alive because BTBAM and most djent bands suck. If the entire focus of your band's music is just to show off how many notes you can play or how many half-assed riffs you can shove into one song, then your band is worthless to me. If half of your riffs are just breakdowns, you're even worse.

If you want a good example of -core influence in a band, look at Gaza. Or The Secret. Or Fuck the Facts.

Fuck the Facts is grindcore so they don't really count man.

I pretty much disagree with everything you said. I don't think it's too trendy to be prog. In fact I think it's actually far less viable to be a pure prog band nowadays. As a prog/power/heavy metal enthusiast I know that prog metal at it's base is a mixture of 70's prog rock bands and power metal (which have a direct lineage from heavy metal/NWOBHM like Priest, Maiden, etc.)

The first thing I thought when reading this is who the fuck is Periphery and how do they stand in the prog field, so I had to look them up and was disappointed to hear nothing but a car crash of Fear Factory, Meshuggah and KSE/Bleeding Through/Shadows Fall/As I Lay Dying/etc. Hardly new, innovative or anything truly "proggy". Metal? I ere on the side of no because of the vocals.

So your first and prime example is likely to be dismissed by the even more picky prog/power/hm people around here.

Getting back to prog as a genre, again it's more viable to be Prog/Power (the most common) because it's WORTH more. There is not a lot of people who want to go to a show and see people noodle around on their instruments as much any more. So if those guys who were prog aren't hitting as much attendance/record sales numbers any more, what do they do? Dumb it down a bit. Symphony X, Evergrey, Conception, Dream Theater, Nevermore, Opeth and Redemption are just some of the stalwarts across the generations that have gone in a more "accessible" direction with their music.

As for other modern bands that are more complex for their genre (like Revocation), you don't need to go back very far to see another band that was just as complex if not more so in the very same genre that wasn't prog. For thrash we have Annihilator, Coroner and Voivod among many others who were ridiculously complicated but were still thrash.

So ya, I don't see any of what you said as progressive metal. Sorry dude. Just because its complex for the genre, hardly makes it progressive. It's just complex for its genre.

Well this is wherein lies the issue. I'm certainly aware that modern prog metal bands sound different from King Crimson and Yes, but the fact is they're still very progressive. They might sound like shit, and a lot of them do (for reason I believe both of us are aware) but that then doesn't erase the prog influence. And if you would like to point out what else makes something progressive, and thus keeps these bands from being progressive, please point it out. I mean don't get me wrong, if I had to choose which bands would lead the progressive wave, I would pick guys like Valborg and Klabautamann, but prog is such a vauge descriptor and I believe encompasses all of the bands mentioned in this thread. So in that sense, it is trendy to sound like BTBAM, Born of Osiris or whatever and not Rush, but that doesn't make it any less proggy. A lot of these new bands are not only getting technical but also delving into genre fusion, adding orchestras and electronics and keyboards, or having a multitude of vocal styles going on at the same time, just generally unusual stuff. Now that kind of attitude would be appreciated in a lot of metal, but the point of my first post is stating that the unfortunate side effect of these prog bands is that it's not really being included in metal, but in trendy -core and lame commercial rock bands.

The second argument I have a hard time following. If the masses are suckers for music that is metaphorically equivalent to simple cardboard, then why would bands go down the prog path? And second of all, I would have disagree even further an a resulting point. There has been an obvious demand for more technical musicians as of late, in virtually every genre. Also, I would hardly call Opeths last release "accessible". Again, this is a plus side to the progressive trend. A lot of bands really are getting more complex and alienating sounding, but at the same time adopt a slightly less ballsy or modern style to compensate for it.

Mono...I think the issue here is that despite what you've said about the disappearance of labels and so on, I feel from the language of your posts that you still can't help but see "progressive" as a genre of sorts. It isn't, really; it's just a relative adjective to show that a band in a particular style isn't afraid to think outside of the box. Are Earth progressive for what most people would term a "drone" band? yeah, probably, but only when you compare it with their contemporaries. you're right: It is a natural evolution of all genres to progress. Rock music progressed a lot from BIll haley to Yes, that's for sure, but even today we still have rockabilly type music around, and interestingly, not many of the chops that yes had back in their prime. We'll always have death and thrash metal, too.

Damn, that's God Tier funny.

Point form so I can keep myself on track:

- "Pure/classic" Prog isn't dead. Slowing? Sure, but it's not dead and won't be for a fair long while yet due to some people always clinging to a tradition/certain sound.
- There is still a huge gap between classic metal genres and modern *core genres. Again due to sticking to traditions a lot of hardliners will stay with the tried and true.
- Crossover sound continues to happen, yes, but like crossover thrash in the 80s/90s it will be a rather quick and mostly forgotten entity in a few years. With the falling popularity of hard/heavy music since the mid '00s to dance/electronic music most people already note that the popular metalcore sound and influences are being dropped out of music more and more.
- "metaphorically equivalent to simple cardboard" is taking a bit further than my original intent but the majority of people do enjoy simple music/things. Metal is mostly a minority in this regard but I bet every single one of the users on this site has a thrash/trad/pop rock/hair metal/whatever song/album that is relatively easy to listen to that they enjoy listening to from time to time.
- I will agree on the point that a lot of popular harder music is returning to a more complex root of late and that IS good for progressive metal as a whole but I still have difficulty noting bands with harsh vocals as traditional prog metal. If they cross that line I use extreme progressive metal to differentiate and I am not the only one.

The death of the core stigma is coming about because of the death of the metalcore genre. A few of the stronger bands like KSE will carry on on the backs of a strong fan base but as a whole it is going the way of nu-metal. The bands that borderline it will reintegrate with metal or hardcore or will be dead in a few years.

I hope this makes more sense, sometimes I got lost trying to get everything out haha.

Technical/chaotic metalcore. They're probably (well, definitely) influenced heavily by grind but they're not grind.


I disagree, purely on the basis that vast majority of the people who listen to prog use the term "progressive" to refer to a particular sound, therefore making "progressive rock/metal/etc." the name of that sound.

What is your deal, dude? You always make all these weird passive-aggressive statements about grindcore without ever actually stating how you feel about it.

I don't think I've made a single passive-aggressive statements about the genre at all, but since you seem concerned I'll let you in on a little tidbit: I like grindcore.

Something weird I noticed while visiting the progarchives forums; over there Progressive Metal seems to be the "black sheep" of the prog genres (just like metalcore/nu metal etc... on this forum). The one usually looked upon as the "gateway genre for dumb naive kids" and whatnot by the elitists (who seem to be older men into classic prog most of the time).

They seem to especially dislike the newer styles of prog metal like the ones mentioned in OP, just like they aren't very well recieved here in MA either. And I think the reason is basically the same... the growing influence of (modern)hardcore, and the commercialization of early bands. Opeth, Dream Theater, Symphony X, etc... have all mellowed their sound while newer bands and genres (like the infamous "djent") have a lot of metalcore influence; for example, I would enjoy bands like Periphery a lot more if they didn't have the whiny/emo clean vocals, or the newer tech-death bands if they didn't have so many breakdowns.

I think the "prog fever" mentioned by the OP refers to that: "technicality" has become a trend among the more commercial hardcore/metalcore genres, but I don't think it will last too long. If anything it's good that those trends can give complex/progressive music in general a bigger exposure, and get people interested in other kinds of prog.

Also, the labeling and stigmas won't go away, in the end all of this just creates more weird and specific labels like "Technical Brutal Deathcore" and "Djent".
The metalcore fad will soon end, just like nu metal did, and newer mainstream fads will come (probably related to Dubstep and other kinds of electronic music). Those will get mixed with metal, prog and other genres; the kids will dig it, the purists will get mad, and the circle repeats itself.

has everybody forgotten the backlash against technical death metal? Remember how 6 years ago pretty much every thread about death metal here was lamenting the fall of proper osdm?

Don't make up statistics.

When I hear "progressive metal" I think of bands like Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Redemption, Shadow Gallery, Symphony X, Nevermore, Opeth, early Queensryche, Pain Of Salvation and Sieges Even. Because basically those bands took the characteristic style of Yes, Floyd, Genesis et al and melded it with the more heavier sound of Maiden, Priest, Metallica and metal of that era.

Did they manage to create a signature sound? That is debatable because not all those bands I have mentioned sound quite alike although you will find similar patterns in Symphony X and Dream Theater as in Redemption or Sieges Even. The subgenre definitely calls for great skill and technique and conceptual formats for lyrics and albums. But that as a trademark is something that came from Yes and Rush and other '70's prog bands so at least you can draw some sort of line to bind all prog bands from all ages.

These days things like Dillinger Escape Plan and Periphery are referred to as "prog" as well. I just don't see it as such. I can't come to terms with the idea that that is the trend progressive music has taken. Because there are still new bands out there outside of the mainstream playing "progressive metal" like Fates Warning or Dream Theater initially did, with "metal" as actually part of the equation. And those are the bands I am interested in!
Look around, the Metal Archives is filled with them.

But because those bands are outside of the mainstream they tend to go unnoticed, and since prog is a bit of an acquired taste, even in the underground death and black metal bands get more glory than these new bands ever will.

I was hoping it was clear that it wasn't meant to be an accurate measurement.

I believe that bands like Periphery, BTBAM and Tesseract/Textures/Volumes/etc to be the new incarnation of prog metal. Personally I find it very refreshing that they've managed to be heavy and progressive without relying on recycling the ideas of older bands like Dream Theater or Symphony X (who are already obsolete by today's standards). Obviously they have metalcore elements, but if that makes you immediately write them off as not metal, you're living in the past. Sure, hardcore and metal used to be entirely separately beasts, but ever since the early 2000s they have been merging. Permanently, as far as I can tell. In certain scenes hardcore and metal have become one in the same, and it's foolish to write these bands off just because they sound different.

Personally it dismays me that this site has such a strict definition of metal which is steeped the ideals of the 80s/90s. I mean sure Judas Priest was metal for the 80s, but not very heavy/metal to today's standards. Why can't these prog bands be considered metal for the 2010s?

I just like to approach this from the simplest possible angle, so when I see a band like Periphery live and hear their solos, the varied vocal performance, look at all the young metalheads getting into it, it just screams metal to me. Also, since progressive bands were usually considered super nerdy and weird, it's awesome to see progressive bands getting so popular and spearheading a whole new movement.

Basically, wait 10-15 years and it will be totally acceptable to be into these bands, and albums by Periphery, Structures and Protest the Hero will be considered "seminal metal albums". I guarantee it.

How is Judas priest not really fucking metal? For me heavy metal is about heavy metal riffs and judas priest has those in spades. In fact i actually consider stuff like death metal to be less purely heavy metal than bands like Judas priest or early fates warning. To me 100% pure metal is metal with as many outside influences removed and when you do this you end up with a little thing called USPM.
Metal and punk have had a intimate relationship ever since punk first emerged. Pretty much every big new development in metal was influenced by punk and vice versa. From sludge to thrash to even something as specific as NYDM.
Also music never becomes obsolete, people just stop playing it or listening to it. Good music always stays good.

Well this is the type of thinking which is silly to me. Yeah, JP and Fates Warning are great and defined 80s metal riffs, but it's foolish to expect a band to sound like USPM to be considered metal 2013. Things have changed and those bands are more than 25 years old by now. They cannot be the standard to which new bands are compared to.



I never said that those bands became band, good music indeed stays good. However, if people stop playing or listening to it, it definitely becomes obsolete/irrelevant. I find it foolish to fetishize old bands and ways of playing when there are so many unique metal bands today with access to better production/distribution.

What is this I don't even...

So wait a minute, what was metal 25 years ago isn't metal nowadays? Hardcore and metal started to merge around the 2000s? People write off bands who verge on hardcore only because they're prudes and not because they don't like them? A band doesn't need to have metal riffs to be considered metal? Only metal bands can demand an intense reaction from metal fans? Non-metal bands will be releasing "seminal metal albums" in the future? USPM isn't metal in 2013? Old bands stop being metal because they're old?

Seriously, should I continue?

On-topic now. I don't see this new trend as the "new prog", in fact I see it more as the new crossover trend of this time and age and one that's building on the early "djenty" bands without being glued to that definition. Trying to get their own "scene" by mixing different stuff and trying to come up with a new formula that is still similar enough to bigger names as to have a target audience, but using a different sonic presentation from the start. I'm not a fan of this new style nor of the bands because they don't play music that I enjoy, although I can see why people like them. Again I say that they're very far from neo-prog because they're taking more from crossover bands than from progressive bands in the first place.

Disclaimer: I use "crossover" here as a term to define bands playing a crossover of different genres, I'm not referring to the punkier thrash style.

And one other thing, how on earth are TDEP progressive in any way?

Heavy metal will never die!

Time has proven this. Nu metal came and went and those bands you're referring to as dinosaurs still remained as the ultimate answer to all things metal. You can't guarantee shit about those Protest The Hero and Periphery albums. Sure, they are very technical and exciting now but stuff like that lacks the purity and timelessness so effortlessly claimed by traditional heavy metal, power metal, death metal, black metal, doom metal, and yes, Prog metal bands.

Metalcore had to evolve sooner or later because it had a sell-by date the minute it arrived. And it is turning into a more ambitious thing than it initially was because staying the same really isn't an option anymore. This new wave isn't really "progressive" to my ears but maybe they are since they obviously take some aspects of that style.

But I have decided there is after all a thing as traditional prog metal and to me that is bands like Dream Theater, Threshold, Pagan's Mind, Symphony X, Fates Warning of course, Sieges Even and so on and it is to those that I'll stick.
Why?
Because they are deeply rooted in metal. They are flamboyant and excessive but at the heart of it all, there is METAL and I still likes me some METAL!

Uh, no...Judas Priest is still metal by today's standards. Looking at things by way of 'how heavy is it' is just wrong.

Once again:

"Progressive" is not a genre.
"metal" is a genre.

If you combine the two, you could get the traditional "progressive metal" tag of bands like Dream Theater and so on, but it is the nature of progressive music that it not stay the same or possess the same sound over the years. A band that goes out of their way to sound like Genesis did in 1973 today would not be considered very progressive in spirit,, even if they play with complex timings and lush, symphonic arrangements. But it's nothing to reallyfuss over. On progarchives they list Blood Ceremony among their ranks....they're not a very progressive band in my view, but I guess they're there because of the lenghty flute solos, and it's not a big deal, especially if it exposes more people to the music...the site also lists bands like Univers Zero, Mars Volta, Meshuggah, and so on, that are progressive in the modern context, and deserve to be there.

Metal is a different thing. metal is an established genre with its own codex of ideas and sounds. It is not just "heavy guitars".

There are people who believe that punk was essentially over by 1979, and that bands that followed either retread ground that was already established, or became hardcore in order to try and stake out new territory. I don't think it's exactly the same for metal, since there seems to be more room for bands to grow and new ideas to be tested. Maybe metal is more in-tune with progressive music ideas because its founders were not only experimental but had the skill to try out their notions of musicality on their early albums (Priest, sabbath, Budgie, Rush, etc).

It doesn't really bother me if you consider Periphery and so on to be metal, and sure, they are definitely progressive, especially by the standards of the presumably core-based genre from which they originate. What bothers me is that someone could think that what was metal in 1982 is no longer metal in 2013. Would this be because we have HEAVIER guitar sounds now? Here's a thought...the "object" of metal is not to be the loudest, noisiest, most "brutal" sound on the planet, and that's quite ok. I don't know about anybody else, but while I like to play metal loud, and enjoy concerts where you can't talk to the guy next to you without screaming in his ear, I don't enjoy metal because of its volume, or the thickness of the guitars.

Ok, you simply don't know what's metal or what makes something metal to begin with. I'm not an expert but I do know that metal it's not about production values/loudness war, it's about songwriting. A metal song/band needs to write a metal song using metal structures, vocals and especially METAL RIFFS.

By your definition, then everything before the rise of death metal it's not metal anymore cause sounds significantly less loud/less heavy than the modern productions? Man, even the first Scorpions albums has more metal riffs than your standard djent album/band.

About Priest, listen Painkiller and say it again. If you recognize that album as a metal one, why not the 80's catalogue? what's the huge difference? the speed? the production? cause you can find similar riffs, structures and vocals with a obvious coherence within the style from the 70's. speed it's not a factor for metalness, as the very first metal band proved from the very beginning or you dare to say that Sabbath's doomy stuff it's not metal cause it's not 'fast and furious' enough? if you consider Sabbath's slow material metal, why? By your definition, even Creed is way more metal than, say, Mercyful Fate cause sounds louder and plays some palm muted notes from time to time.



They are recycling Meshuggah anyway, which took notes from progressive bands like Watchtower that were using syncopation within 4/4 or 6/8 bars so it's not like they created something completely new from scratch.

Related to the previous response, the problem is not that I/we don't take it as metal cause I/we don't like it, it's cause the metal element is very small in the mix of the things they do. As I said, metal is about metal songwriting, metal riffs, not bands using Peaveys 6505/5150's to sound as heavy as possible.

I have even a more 'objective' problem with djent: it focuses on rhythm, not on riffs. The 'riffs' are just the guitars chugging the same beats than the bass drum, something that it happens in metal but the difference is that metal is mostly riff-driven, making the riffs flow and work independently of the beat that the drum plays. The drums follows the guitars. Djent does the same than electronica does: put a beat and everything turns around it (even Meshuggah has said they start with the drum beats and build the 'riffs' around that patterns and I'm sure they are accepted in the archives only for their first material that had more thrash and some death metal stuff into it, not for the stuff they do over and over since Chaosphere).

Saying that the 'classic' prog metal is obsolete is just plain ignorance. Just as an example, pick Fates Warning: they've managed to evolve, staying fresh and delivering quality over the decades; hell, just listen the Arch/Matheos album and say prog metal is obsolete. There have been tons of bands that have built their sound drawing influence from those prog bands, as well as the prog 70's rock bands.

Oh, and metal and hardcore has been separated only until 2000's? do you know thrash metal by any chance? hardcore and metal has been complementary since decades and not only the music; back in the day was common to see punks and metalheads hanging together in bars and gigs (I was there, so it's not like someone told me or I read it somewhere).



Youngsters think that SOAD, Limp Bizkit and Korn are metal, that's a terrible argument.

Some jazzy bands shreds like madmen, their drummers also use double bass patterns, are they metal for that reason? if they play loud enough they will?

Will Kiss be a metal band, even if its live performance is loud as fuck?



Too soon to say; unless those bands incorporate more metal elements over time, that won't happen.

Because they are metal; again, genre is just a question of style, not quality. I don't like any of those bands at all anymore, but that doesn't make them not metal all of a sudden, they qualify as metal the same way any random shitty, "br00tal" Suffocation clone act does.

Are you on acid?

Oh shit it's one of those guys.

Honestly I don't see this thread getting better at this point...

Out of curiosity, what genre would you place a modern Genesis clone into?


And stylistically, they are not metal. SOAD, Limp Bizkit, and Korn riffs have little in common with metal riffs. They're much closer to alternative rock than they are to any kind of metal; just about the only thing they borrowed from metal was the guitar tone.

Scourge, thank you for a well-reasoned response; I'd argue that having a metal guitar tone is enough, since "metal riffs" isn't some monolithic style. If you listen to the well-respected bands from any established metal genre, you'll hear their riffs come in all different sizes, shapes, tempos, etc., with little to connect them except for the metal guitar tones they share, so it seems odd to me that we accept different styles of riffs from the bands that are generally liked, but when it comes to bands from a controversial, dying style, "metal riffs" then seems to become some specific sort of thing that they alone don't possess; doesn't seem like a coincidence to me, and feels like more confusing genre with quality. Plus, "alt rock" being a vaguer classification for music also makes me more hesitant to lump the nu bands in with that when they've always (and still) feel closer to metal to me, though I no longer enjoy most nu music, but to each his own.

Metal riffs lead to more metal riffs. Obviously comparing a black metal riff to a doom one is going to be extremely different, but you can trace the lineage back to a point where they had a common branching point in heavy metal riffage, and those traces still remain in some form or another. These nu metal acts and djent acts bring their riffs out of various non metal styles, be it grunge, alt rock, hardcore etc. The riffing styles for each genre are defined in relation to how they adapt from a previous one, so the techniques and approaches aren't defined out of thin air.

Also no one has said these bands aren't metal because they hate them, at all. I don't like USPM much, but it's undeniably metal as fuck.

OK Smalley, I'll bite and give out my "well-reasoned response", although to be honest lord_ghengis' post said pretty much anything I could add as of this point in time.

What is and isn't metal isn't defined by how it sounds, i.e. tone, heaviness, etc., but rather from its stylistic nuances that form different patterns that are then categorized under different musical genres. We can all agree that post-rock and "atmosludge" bands share similar traits in terms of use of musical techniques, and sometimes they also share a similar tone as well. Then what is it that separates what is rock from what is metal? The musical structure can be identical many times, the tone as well and the instrumentation too, as most of these many times overlap. What about the riffs? Doesn't post-rock build on guitar strumming and crescendos over and over again while "atmosludge" picks up on doom or sludge riffs and adds these elements, but still with a baseline that is based on riffs (sorry for the redundancy)? That's how you say "this is rock and this is metal". Compare Red Sparowes with Isis for instance. Can't you tell the difference?

If you seriously look at the bands you stated earlier and you can tell anyone that their music is build primarily on metal riffs then you probably can't tell the difference between rock and metal altogether.

PS: I own and actually like a couple of SOAD albums, and know extensively the two other bands. Funny how things work out isn't it?!

So...

Cypress Hill became a metal band cause they added some chugging distorted guitars on the choruses of their songs for the Skull & Bones album? Creed is metal cause Tremonti has a 'thick' guitar tone and palm mutes from time to time? Radiohead's Creep is a metal song cause has a cuasi heavy guitar on the chorus? well produced hardcore will be metal as well if it sounds 'heavy enough'?

Then Sabbath's Paranoid or Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny are not metal cause they don't sound as modern heavy tone-wise as Periphery? As I said before, even early Scorpions is way more heavy metal than your average nu/alternative rock/pseudo-metal band or djent stuff. If you don't believe me, listen the cover of The Sails of Charon done by Testament; they did it just like the original, the only real difference in terms of delivery is the production. The music itself is the same and sounds heavy as fuck and by 'heavy' I mean both the heavy metal songwriting and heaviness.

Isn't this new prog trend kind of reactionary like a lot of Deathcore bands were? Like the bands in the community are doing shit trying to one up each other only instead of how gorey or offensive your lyrics are its about how many notes you can play.

That was tech death, Djenty stuff isn't all that shred happy.

This thread depresses the fuck out of me. So I'd just like to take a short moment to thank Abominatrix, Kveldulfr, androdion and lord_ghengis for having a brain.

Anyone who thinks 80's Priest isn't metal is too ignorant for words and needs to get educated as to what metal IS. Hint: it's not having the loudest guitars, for fuck's sake.

As for djent, -core and all that shit... Fuck off nowadays's "metal".

*reads through thread*

In reference to the OP, I do see a big trend in modern bands as being progressive. They are no doubt progressive in comparison to their metal/deathcore forebearers, e.g. Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, etc.. After reviewing many 'Best of 2012 Metal' lists, I noticed many progressive bands. To be honest, if you were to take away its central focus on breakdowns and the generally crappy vocalists, I think many would embrace it as legitimate. On websites like Metal-Sucks and Blabbermouth, I see high praises for bands like Kylesa, Periphery, and many other "progressive" bands, so it does give the feeling that the lines are being skewed. They get very little attention here. There are tons of bands which fuse many genres together because we live in a musical golden age, where any musical idea you have can be realized; even if it "Sinatracore"(Sinatra vocals over grindcore in case you were wondering). Do I think it is a good trend? As long as people are making complex music and realizing their dreams I am not too upset. There will always be elitists, which is good because they help define the lines. Does that mean we have to be hostile, not necessarily. Again, just get some better vocalists, lyrics, and do not center everything on breakdowns and it is okay.

Periphery is not progressive at all. As I've said in a few previous threads, all they're doing is taking the Meshuggah style and adding post-hardcore and metalcore elements to it.