Current Trend: Continuation of Prog

So it's a little odd, normally when I fall into a trend I fall out of it just as quickly. But here we are, a solid 2 months in and my time is still being absorbed by Prog Metal/Rock. Not only am I still working through the music from last post, but I am hunting out new artists, and side bands of well known Prog bands. Here are a few:

• 3 - 3 is a band I accidentally discovered (as so many of the best bands are) one day. After listening to their album, "Wake Pig" (also it was the only album I could find by them for a long time), I described them as a Coheed & Cambria that I can stand. And by that I mean, that alot of their sound is reminiscent of C&C (even though they pre-date them) but with a little bit of balls still within the music. I am currently (at the time of this post) listening to their newest album, 2007's "The End Is Begun," and I am enjoying it just as much as "Wake Pig." They have that mix of heavy prog and the poppy music, normally not something I am a fan of, but they pull it off fairly well.
  
• Transatlantic - Transatlantic was a side project of to several people, all big names within prog; Neal Morse of Spock's Beard, Mike Portney of Dream Theater, and Pete Trewavas of Marillion. They only released 2 albums, and both are full of sprawling epics. Their first album "SMPT:e" (Which I have listened to), is a mix of hellish long songs and more accessible, faster paced shorter songs. There are 5 songs on the albums, 3 of which are over 15 minutes in length, with their opener being over 30 minutes. This albums was full of great music, but the long songs have large points of dull music within them. If they were split into several smaller songs I could easily get into them. But as it stands they are just too massive to listen to in the car or on the go. It will remain as a home album only. Their second (and last) album, "Bridge Across Forever," features only 4 songs, and 3 of them are over 15 minutes, with two songs almost thirty minutes in length. While I plan on listening to this album, I am hesitant, for it will be a feat.
  
• OSI - Another side band of several; Jim Matheos (Fates Warning), Kevin Moore (Chroma Key), Mike Portney (Dream Theater), and Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree). This supergroup released 2 albums ("Office of Strategic Influence" and "Free") and 1 EP ("Re:Free") in their short collaboration. The only one I can get my hands on is "Office of Strategic Influence" and I gave that a listen this past week. This albums I was less impressed than with Transatlantic (I know they are different bands, but they are in the same vein, and I got the albums at the same time). They have decent length tracks, with only two over ten minutes, but it was almost all instrumental, and although I like Instrumental tracks, not an entire album worth, my mind starts to wander. Now, not all the songs were lacking vocals, some of them had a full set and they were really good, but several of the songs had words but not vocals. Several had spoken tracks over the music, with a good portion of them recordings of speeches by famous people (one song had President Bush talking throughout the entire song). I really dislike music that takes sound bytes from other stuff, especially some speeches by people they are trying to satire.
  
• Spock's Beard - Just got three of their albums, I am now listening to their latest one, "Spock's Beard," and am so far fairly impressed. So far has longer songs that are mostly instrumental, and then they throw in lyrics at the end, but these don't get boring. They keep changing the rhythms and instrument parts so it stays fresh. Now I am listening to "Is This Love?" and it strikes me as an old jam-room rock song, with slight prog influences. Very different to the tracks before it, and from almost everything I have been listening to in the recent weeks. I intend to listen to more of these guys in the near future.
  
• Yes - See my previous post to get the info on Yes