Looking for some heavy metal or prog CDs to add.. reccomendations? (1 Viewer)

[Mike<R]

Backslash- THE best NEW metal
Accept/U.D.O.
Skew Siskin
Maiden
Doro/Warlock
and the almighty Priest/Halford

 

[Sheldon C]

I suggest you check out Iced Earth's new cd, Glorious Burden. Most of the cd is good to average, but the last 3 songs are incredible. Those 3 songs are a combined 33 minutes, and they tell the story of the battle of Gettysburg. Tim Owens (replaced Rob Halford for awhile in Priest) is the new lead singer for this album, and he does a great job on the vocals. I saw Iced Earth live, and he hit all of those high notes with perfection and with seemingly no effort.

Other longer more complex songs that you might like from Iced Earth:

Dante's Inferno of off Burnt Offerings - this song is over 16 minutes long, many who have heard it consider it to be one of the best metal songs ever.

The trilogy at the end of the album Something Wicked this way Comes.

A Question of Heaven off of Dark Saga. This one is my all time favorite non-80's-Metallica song. It's not quite as long as some of their other epics, but it hits me just right.

Phantom of the Opera off of Horror Show - includes a female vocalist. Reminds me of Suite Sister Mary from Operation Mindcrime in some ways.

 

[Tony-B]

So, you're looking for some good "prog metal"? Well, I have a few suggestions that might work out for you!

Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity, Irony Is A Dead Scene (It's only 4 songs and 18 minutes long, but it's one of the best albums I have. It's even got the one and only MIKE PATTON as the vocalist!), Miss Machine (It's more "mainstream" than the other two, but it's extremely catchy)

DEP is a great band if you are looking for technical complexity in metalcore. Here are some other suggestions...

Mastodon - Remission and Leviathan (This band reminds me of Metallica in the Master Of Puppets era mixed with some of today's metalcore. They are VERY good!)
Converge - You Fail Me
Meshuggah - Chaosphere, Nothing, and I
Mr. Bungle - Mr. Bungle
Tool - ANY ALBUM! (How come no one has mentioned them yet?! Or is it too obvious? )

I hope you find something that you like in this list!

 

[Mark Murphy]

I was thinking the exact same thing as I was scrolling down...when is Tool going to get mentioned? If you are not familiar with them, you should go in order of Albums, or at least start with Undertow.

Opiate
Undertow
Aenima
Salival
Lateralus

 

[Mike Broadman]

I just assumed that anyone who digs deep enough to find bands like Symphony X has enough of a familiarity of Tool to decide if he likes them or not.

 

[Mark Murphy]

I would have thought the same thing but he mentioned bands like Queensryche and Dream Theater but not Tool or King Crimson.

 

[Alan Erceg]

Lamb of God: New American Gospel, As the Palaces Burn, Ashes of The Wake.

Certainly not prog..just straight up American metal, although the first album has more of a death metal vocalish feel too it than the other two.

 

[Tony-B]

If you're gonna recommend LoG, then I gotta recommend the other big players in American metal today...

Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, God Forbid, All That Remains, and Chimaira.

 

[Keith I]

Almost any group on the Magna Carta label (www.magnacarta.net), which are too numerous to mention. You'll see some of the bands listed in this thread on this site. There are audio clips to sample. There are some really good discoveries there. Check out the Artists Page for links to each band.

I really enjoyed James Labrie's (Dream Theater) Mulmuzzer CDs. Dali's Dilemma is also great. I'm surprised to see David Lee Roth on the Artists List but I'm sure you're not thinking of him when you list "prog metal."
-

 

[PaulHeroy]

I've just in the last few months gotten back into listening to prog & metal, and have picked up several things from bands listed here and like them, particularly Opeth. As Mike B said, their (Mikael Akerfeldt's) growl vocals are much more listenable than most. Seems like most of the better prog/metal comes from Europe these days. (Though I'm not sure of the origin of a few mentioned bands, all on my list are European.)

Here's a few specific albums I've picked up and recommend:

Therion - Vovin (symphonic/choral with metal guitars)
Opeth - Blackwater Park (I 4th that recommendation!)
Ayreon - Into the Electric Castle (Ayreon is Arjen Lucassen as auteur/composer, hiring talent to play his progressive/concept music. Very ambitious stuff, usually 2 CD sets, somewhat more akin to classical music in its method of creation than typical bands.)
Star One - Space Metal (Argen Lucassen's "other band", think Deep Purple w/SciFi themes & sounds, very riff based and fun.)
Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors (Most members come from "death" bands but the music here isn't... strong vocals and a variety of mostly metal sounds but veers at times into trip hop, electronica etc.)
The Gathering - Mandylion (Strong female vocals inspired a slew of similar Dutch bands like Nightwish, After Forever, Within Temptation, and most of them contribute to Lucassen's projects! Earlier albums didn't include Anneke, and a couple more albums down the road they didn't really include metal sounds much either.)
Vanden Plas - Spirit of Live (Fairly traditional prog metal, well played, good vocals. DT fans should approve.)

You may also want to read through this Ultimate Metal forum thread for more suggestions esp. some more obscure stuff like Watchtower.

 

[Alan Erceg]

Shadows Fall is probably the only straight up Metal band on that list. God Forbid and All That Remains I love as well, but I guess they are a little bit more on the metalcore side.

Im not a fan of the last KSE album...I loved Alive or Just Breathing though...

Not a fan of Chimara much at all though....