Casually last week Guigo and I been talking about the actual reality of Neo Prog and the need of changing the definition or making some changes, but sadly I’ve been sick as a dog with a silly virus that lasted 20 days and turned into a throat infection with strong antibiotics that have me half asleep all day.
One of the issues we’ve been talking about is that NEO PROG HAS CHANGED, it’s not the same genre with pompous keyboards a la “Europe” with a typical smell to Miami Vice and some harder guitar riffs mixed with an almost Progressive structure based almost exclusively in Genesis.
We have changed more than 100 this because most of them say literally:
“XXXXX is a Tanzanian /(Or German or British) band, playing neo-progressive music greatly influenced by Marillion, IQ and Genesis”
Ridiculous as it may sound, this phrase appeared almost identical in more than 60 biographies of Neo Prog bands, because people like to believe everything is easy to describe and have a strong prejudice against Neo Prog.
We received complains from some iconic Neo Prog bands, asking to be moved out of Neo Prog, even some expert members hate to see their favorite bands under the Neo Prog label……But people, get used they are Neo Prog.
The second point we talked about is that Neo Prog has changed or evolved, even bands like Pendragon are releasing albums that have little in common with their soft atmospheric almost predictable and pleasant sound of the 80’s and 90’s, moving to some sort of aggressive Symphonic with Heavy guitars.
And it was logical, since the start, one of the main characteristics of Neo Prog was that the guitar passed to be a lead instrument instead of a secondary instrument behind the keyboards, and the sound of that guitar has got more radical each time, the division of Neo Prog between Symphonic and Hard Prog is shorter every day.
Mussolini said “Only idiots don’t change” (Well, it’s not my fault that a Fascist dictator said a good phrase ), and he was the clearest example of that, because he tried to keep an exhausted criminal system for more years than possible at any cost, so he fell; this also apllies to Progressive Rock.
We seen in the 70’s that the old formula of getting more and more pompous had a saturation limit and started to decay, Neo Prog remained almost exact diring the 80’s and the Symphonic Renaissance of the 90’s almost erased the genre from the map.
Symphonic has changed, blending more and more with other genres as Folk (Like to call it ethnic, because Folk is too identified with British Pastoral and Celtic) because of the new air that came from Eastern Europe and using Avant influences as never before, specially in USA.
Neo Prog had to change also, the bands got tired of the mellow mellotron choirs a la Entangled and being compared almost exclusively with Marillion, they also needed to be more versatile if they wanted to survive, so if you compare new Neo Prog bands with Fish’s Marillion, IQ, or “The Masquerade Overture’s Pendragon” you are talking about a different Neo Prog from the one of the 21st Century.
We haven’t still talked with the Boss (E-Dub) but a new approach needs to be adopted (we have to clean the bios before, in order to have everything in order before making changes), we don’t know if a New definition, broader and more exact is enough, maybe merging part of the genre with Symphonic and Hard Prog will be required, we don't know, this is something the Neo Prog Team will decide leaded by E-Dub and in agreement with the Collaborator’s Team and mailto:M@x - M@x if possible.
But get used to the fact that your favorite band probably is Neo Prog, despite your prejudices against this excellent and underrated sub-genre.
NOTE: About the specific EVERON case…..Yes their guitar approach is far more aggressive and distorted than the stereotypical idea of how a Neo Prog band should sound, the Prog Metal references are there, but the structure is absolutely close to the 80’s sound of Neo Prog.
People normally look at the surfaces (Guitar riffs, Keyboard solos, etc) but forget the structure. EVERON is rougher in the surface, but the structure is close even to Fish’s Marillion, forget the distorted vocals, the original arrangements, their essence is in Neo Prog.
Iván
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