He's Not Metal, He's Just Heavy

Inspired by the "Rush: Heavy Prog or Prog Metal" thread.

While to me its obvious that Rush is HP not PM, its not always so straight forward.

Take Haken for example.  Outside of PA I think they are generally thought of as prog metal.  But they are under HP here.  Is that appropriate?  I think so.  They do have many metal moments, but they have a lot of "standard" prog rock sound.  Still they are generally heavy.  So HP works.

What about Riverside?  They are under PM here, and generally referred to as PM, but they have a lot of "non-metal" stuff.  Certainly their first album and most recent are mostly not metal, in my mind.  I imagine they are under PM mostly because the HP sub here on PA did not exist when they were added (just a guess).

I was listening to Threshold - March Of Progress today and heard a lot of similarities to Haken.  (Of course they've been around much longer than Haken.)  I don't know their earlier albums, but based on this one if evaluating them today I'd put them in HP as well.

Certainly there are other examples.

Just some random rambling...

It is often my dilemma because the dividing line is often "lost". The bands are combine the genres.

Edited by Svetonio - September 26 2014 at 04:19

I think the main difference is that metal uses power chord-based riffing either exclusively or overwhelming, whereas prog-rock is more diverse in that regard with much greater use of textural contrast in composition. Not to mention that metal's way more guitar-dominated, whereas prog focuses more on instrumental interplay between the entire group.

There's also some differences in culture too, between music theory-educated conservatory/university graduates and self-taught basement jammers. Also how prog rock groups more often have extremely systematic philosophical worldviews behind their music concept with Magma as the most triumphant example, in comparison with many metal groups being more concerned with ideological grey zones and moral ambiguity.

To use an example from around my neck in the woods: Mercyful Fate's original drummer Kim Ruzz came from a prog/psych-rock background rather than a heavy metal/hard rock background, which on one hand can be heard in their rather ambitious and intricate songwriting early on compared to most metal acts of their generation... but it's also one of the reasons he left after Don't Break the Oath since him and the other band members had very different musical philosophies.

Frank, great thread title 

I sympathise with your view Aapatsos, but sometimes a prog music vs prog metal thread exposes metal influences of prog groups that members don't realise are even there and why newer prog metal bands truly refer to them as influences. Everything in music evolves from some previous souce but to think that a group like Dream Theater evolved solely from early King Crimsom is wrong. (I know just such a person). Getting the facts straight, I feel, is what's ultimately important, not seperating Progressive Metal from Progressive Rock. 

Edited by SteveG - September 29 2014 at 11:08