Pelican, Isis, Neurosis - Prog-Metal or Post-Rock?

The music of bands like Pelican, Neurosis, Isis, Cult of Luna (and also partly Agalloch, Kayo Dot and others to a different degree)and their followers is most usually labelled as 'Post-Metal', which describes their sound, often influenced by bands like Godsflesh, The Melvins on the one hand, and post-rock collectives on the other, quite well, I think. They surely do deserve a place on this site.

^ Sludge is a metal genre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sludge_metal

And of course all the mentioned bands (Pelican, Neurosis, Isis, Cult of Luna, partly Agalloch, Kayo Dot) are metal bands ... why "disguising" them as Post-Rock when they aren't? Surely not just to make it more obvious that they don't sound like Dream Theater?

"Post" means that it developed beyond the boundaries of the genre, but is still influenced by it. It's exactly the previous albums which make the connection so obvious, Ivan.

^ ok, if you want to avoid coined phrases I'd describe these bands as "experimental minimalistic metal". Even a word like "Sludge" shuold be avoided as it doesn't tell you much about how it sounds unless you already know most of the bands.

I cast my vote for keeping them in progessive metal.

I think they are definitely metal, so moving them to post-rock would be misleading.

The only downfall in my argument is that those bands tend to be appreciated more by people who like post-rock, rather than people who like progressive metal.  They sound nothing like the typical prog metal band.  However, moving them to post-rock might open the gates for moving bands like Agalloch to post-rock, which just doesn't make sense at all. 

So, I guess my argument is that the aforementioned bands are something like Progressive Atmospheric Sludge metal, the same way that Agalloch is Progressive Atmospheric Black Metal, and thus they should be kept in metal.

PS: please don't flame me with technicalities about metal subgenres, and who is and is not black metal or sludge metal.

Yeah, is Red Sparrowers really that different from Isis and Pelican to be in a separate category?

All these discussions are only caused by the rigid category structure of the archives ... it would only take a relatively simple modification of the database to allow bands to be placed in multiple genres (or at least one main genre and a secondary genre). I'm not comfortable with moving these bands out of prog metal, but I don't mind having them listed in post rock ... the best label would IMO be "Post Metal/Rock". And I think this will be confirmed by the results of this poll ... no clear winner.

can a band be in multiple genres. They are both.

They fit perfectly under Post-Metal, so either the site needs to include that category, or they can fit under progressive metal. Either way, there needs to be "metal".

Edited by lightbulb_son - March 30 2007 at 15:21

GoldenSpiral wrote: So clearly the argument can go either way, but I think Pelican, Isis and Neurosis, while similar in many ways to post-rock bands, should still be distinguished for their metal influence.

Thats it.

I tend to see post-metal bands more post-rock than metal in structure, but  their clear metal (sludge, doom, stoner and whatnot) influences is what sets them into the genre. Although I see your point, Ivan.



Edited by chamberry - March 30 2007 at 16:10