They say "bombastic" like that's a bad thing...

Salutations, my fellow prog people. Been meaning to make an account here for ages, and, well, here I am. My origin story: I credit intrinsic nerdiness along with my dad's early influence to my lifelong progressive rock appreciation. As a kid, I was drawn to music I didn't even realize was part of an overarching genre - all I knew was that I liked music that seemed complex and interesting and melodically compelling, and the occasional science fiction theme and/or philosophical speculation definitely didn't hurt!

As a youngster, I was marinated in a lot of Jethro Tull, Yes, early Genesis, and so on; in my early teens I sort of independently got into Zeppelin (though with a preference for the tracks that seemed more relatable to me, e.g., anything that included a Tolkien reference. :)) and very early Queen (the first 2 albums in particular were very art-proggish) and of course Floyd. I always felt rather alienated by contemporary pop and was so excited to find music that wasn't all love songs or breakup songs, and where you could just lose yourself in exploration of epic imaginary worlds via tracks that passed the 10 minute mark. As a kid who spent more time worrying about the heat death of the universe and wondering about the possibility of time travel than engaging with social gossip and the perplexities thereof, it was wonderful to know that music was actually being made for people like me!

Fast forward to now - I'm always on the lookout for compelling material, and in recent years have come to adore projects like, say, Phideaux. What got me to join this forum is that I actually only just discovered Aeryon (no clue how that took me so long) and am just enraptured. I've had "The Final Experiment" on endless repeat for roughly a week now, and am starting the journey through the rest of the catalogue going forward.

Sooo, anyhow, glad to be here and hoping to learn of even more great music to explore.

(Also, fwiw, I am an electrical engineer by profession, currently 38 years old, and a crazy cat lady with 4 felines in house. Thankfully, my SO is tolerant of all of this, as well as my prog obsession).

LOL, thanks - I am quite well aware of that now, but as a teenager it was just refreshing to find songs that weren't about romantic situations (though certainly there are actually plenty of prog songs that are relationship-themed, it's not ALL metallic dragons having an existential crisis.) :P

Rushfan4 - hehe, it's hard to think of everything to include in one post. :p Thanks for the welcome, my favorite Rush album is probably 2112. :D

Sadly the Captchas are a recently added "improvement" to the site that have essentially chased many of the regulars away.