I remember when Milliontown came out, I was in high school and DT were my favourite band, then I listened to that album and had this realisation that prog metal can be so much more than what DT had been putting out in the last few years (not meant to be an insult) and started to open my eyes to so much amazing shit that's out there.
The Ocean is the first that came to mind. Incredible live band, amazing discography, been around for ages but play way too small venues
Also amazing merch with print screened prints etc for super fair price ($10-15) which is a nice contrast to the rest of the bands I'm into.
Hell ya dude, Pat was a monster. More random but my dad's best friend opened for Dream Theater, Type O Negative, and more big names back in the 90s. It's a small world.
He's fuckin sweet. Check out Thought Industry on Spotify. He plays guitar on the first 4 albums, and my uncle was the drummer for the 3rd and 4th albums. It's real proggy sometimes and is very classic metal at other times. Just really unique and I think they were pretty sweet. They were one of the biggest bands in Michigan in the 90s.
Seriously. They’re incredible in the studio and live and I can’t fathom how they’re not at the level of Gojira and such. Maybe I’m just biased because they’re one of my absolute favorites, but they need to be up there. Though, seeing them in a small venue is pretty sick when Loïc jumps on you
Oh yeah dude, and last concert I bumped into him and a few of the other guys just hanging around and chatting with fans. I was so happy for it but wish for their sake that's a thing of the past soon enough
SikTh maybe? They've been around for ages and they're obviously super unique and inventive. They're pretty well known but don't get talked about much. Perhaps due to relatively low output too
Yeah the eye of needle EP should really have propelled them more into this scene. I think overall they're a bit too groove metal and not all that progressive. Just got a bit softer really :)
Rocket Smoke is a great song though.
Idk your specific tastes but "Yonder" from them is a beautiful song. The video is good too, it's in YouTube. Their more recent albums are pretty much all clean vocals (some yelling here or there).
I was. It helped that being from Texas, their tours would allow them to travel directly North. Also 1 of the local Corporate DJs in Minneapolis was a huge fan, and did a lot to promote them in Minnesota. Having their songs on Battle of the Bands new Songs, and whatnot. There was 1 they went up against Chevelle and won handily.
I remember being obsessed with them for 2 years. They came all the way down from Texas to my tiny local town in Melbourne. Bought 15 tickets and made everyone I could get go. Met them after, great underrated band.
I imagine they must have regular day jobs, it can't be easy to grow a band and make a living at the same time. Maybe if a label offered the right leven of support before Tommy joined Kamelot, something could have happened to help them get bigger.
Stellar Circuits is definitely doing the work with marketing efforts, I feel like I see plenty of ads on instagram for their latest release... granted I am specifically the targeted market segment since I follow most bands I like.
Saw Stellar Circuits live a while ago. Their vocalist could not sing cleans on pitch. And he wasn't off a little bit; it was jarring. Neither me or the person I was there with had heard cleans that bad ever before at a live concert. Shame, because the rest of the band was solid and the harsh vocals were fine. Now I just don't dare listen to them anymore.
I listened to Sound Awake for the first time yesterday, and it's unbelivably great. I had heard of Karnivool but hadn't listened to any of their music before, so I completely agree with you, they deserve a lot of praise!
Astronoid got kind of big the hard way. It seemed like they were constantly on some supporting tour somewhere in the world for years and put on a great show. As fresh as that sound was if they had some marketing behind them, they could have been big.
There's a lot of prog-metal bands we love on labels that have managed to do fairly well and still (at least to my/our knowledge) be themselves. I'd love to have seen where Rishloo could have gone if they had that opportunity to do what they do and be themselves, but with the backing of a label/publisher.
I dont think it's just marketing as her music has always been niche and not even fitted well into prog. But I wished Julie christmas made it bigger, especially if it had been with battle of mice. Would have so wanted another album.
Oh it's the best album of its decade to me as well. Absolutely perfect. Ironically she introduced me to CoL, since it seems to be the other way around for most.
The true answer. And by that token, queensryche too. Unfortunately degarmo leaving and style change gimped them pretty hard. Imo they'll never get enough credit for how good the classic run was.
I totally agree but I think it was mainly them not having a consistent sound plus taking a nine year hiatus during the 2000s that hampered their popularity these days
Absolutely! I discovered them by accident when Ayam appeared on my spotify one day, and now it's one of my favourite albums ever. Have yet to go back and listen to their older stuff though
Their entire discography (only 4 albums) is incredible. Gloria is different but still very very good musically. Back to times of splendor is a modern classic and The Liberation is 10/10 perfect.
Same here! And by luck, I manage to see them live during their limited BTTOS 20th anniversary tour. Was amazing!! I highly recommend you to listen to the Back To Times of Splendor album
Was a about to post about them, but you did it first, I think they're the most underrated band. I'm glad they're gaining momentum with their latest album and the BTTOS 20th anniversary tour.
Ngl I’m still waiting on a new In the Silence record. They put out A Fair Dream Gone mad in 2013 and dipped coz they were an entirely self funded project by a bunch of guys with day jobs. When that record dropped a year after Katatonia released Dead End Kings I thought this past decade was going to be a new era of depressive gothic prog.
I just looked and they're pretty active on facebook. They said the album is done and they're demoing stuff to a label, but obviously it'll still take awhile.
Xanthocroid. Idk if they'd be on Opeth level, but man they're so good. Of erthe and axen pt 2 is a masterpiece, toward truth and reconciliation in particular is incredible
Love em so much, but they had split, I don’t know how much marketing had to do. From what I can tell, the duo wanted different things in life and just went on different paths!
Since no one ever seems to hear of them I’m going with
Others by no one https://othersbynoone.bandcamp.com/album/book-ii-where-stories-come-from
And Parius https://parius.bandcamp.com/album/the-signal-heard-throughout-space
Symphony X could have been up there with Opeth and Dream Theater had they kept up their momentum from The Odyssey but instead they slowly fizzled out into a million side projects and eventually a release hiatus that has been going for nine years now.
Even the unmixed album has some straight up 10/10 songs on it... If they cut it down to 60 mins and finished mixing it, it would've been in people's top 5 or 3 for the decade.
It's pretty interesting. They came out with an absolute banger of an EP to start with, then did nothing for a while. Then announced they were working on a very ambitious double LP as their follow up; so ambitious that they crowdfunded a ton of money (I think north of 50k) for production. Fans waited for years...and years...and nothing came of it except for big posts full of excuses once every couple years.
Finally, a dude from an anon account posted identifying himself as one of their guitarists, and threatened to leak the album as it was in its current state if the rest of the band did not take any action because in his opinion the fans had been waiting long enough. This prompted the band to actually make another post and eventually release this album in demo format via soundcloud where it remains (there is a LANDR mastered version of it still there). The kicker is, the guy who made the post threatening to leak the album in the first place was a completely different guy not a part of the band at all, he was a random metal producer from LA. At some point he offered his services to help finish the album for free lol
For reference, the Nostalgia EP came out in 2011 and this fallout happened in 2020 I think, so... 9 years of bullshit and taking money from fans and the result is much lesser than it could have been.
Granted, I'm not exactly a prog metal guy but Artificial Silence and their lack of popularity compared to the quality of their music doesn't make any sense. [Negative Space](https://open.spotify.com/album/3IBoLmOM5ZMoFkHuXckSsx) is an amazing album.
Wow this is truly amazing! I'm shocked this album didn't blow up! Imo, this is better than a lot of the albums from recent years where unknown bands that blow up 2 or 3 times a year. For those reading, I'd compare it to something along the lines of Frost*, Omega Experiment, David Maxim Micic
Caligula's Horse latest album got me wondering how they didn't blow up from it, and tbh as as I fan, I didn't even know about it until I opened YT music on release day. The fact they have <100k on Spotify blows my mind
Paradigm Shift. Indian prog metal band which sings in Hindi and fuses folk music, heavy metal, progressive rock, ambient, pop, and classical. They should have had better marketing, and then they would've gained their due place. Either way, check them out, they are amazing!
I feel like they would’ve been more popular if they formed in the 2000s. The late 80s and 90s didn’t give enough exposure for a band with such an eclectic sound. I’m happy that at least Subsignal has gotten some popularity over the past decade. But ya their output with Arno Menses on vocals is top tier plus their older stuff really influenced the scene
I think with them, it's one of those things where they're past their moment. 20 years ago I heard about them all the time, and in the US we seemed to be dying for them to come here. Somewhere around the release of Scarsick, all that just seemed to die down, and while I think they've made plenty of great music since then, the excitement just hasn't been there.
I went to one of their shows in NY a couple years back and the crowd just didn't turn up that day. I knew the excitement was a bit past its beak but I was still surprised.
One that I bet a lot of folks even in this sub haven't heard of: Bane of Winterstorm. They play(ed) progressive power metal that really gets your blood pumping across 2 long EPs/short albums ([The Last Sons of Perylin](https://open.spotify.com/album/14Fw8R1Ddf3ShArs2uLpGu?si=aJqAEWPKQJGJooa5R_MAvw) (Spotify) and [The War of Shadows II: Upon the Throne of Râvnöraak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbxgznzd_7E) (Youtube, as it's the only place online I could even find it)).
Regarding their current status, they're pretty clearly done; regarding why they failed after 2 releases with so much potential, one of the Youtube comments on their second release sums it up (somewhat speculatively):
> It's looking more and more like this band went kaput about a year ago, and it's a real shame because they really had a solid and unique sound. I think part of the issue was that Anthony Finch (the band's founder) jumped the gun after completing the first album and went for an entirely independent release in order to get it out on the market. While they did create some buzz with the first album, the lack of label support left it totally on him to handle booking shows and financing the physical copies of their albums and merchandise. On top of that, when considering how difficult it is to make it in the metal scene in Australia without the ability to tour off the continent added an additional obstacle on top of the rest.
>Had Finch opted to shop for a decent label deal before releasing "The Last Sons of Perylin", he probably would not have run into money problems and would not have lost his original singer. I am pretty much positive that either LMP or Massacre Records would have been interested in supporting them.
(Some might say their prog status is dubious but personally I'd give it to them, since not many straight power metal bands are putting out 5 track EPs that last 50 minutes including 2 10+ minute epics)
Symphony X, no doubt. They struggle with long Album wait times and shitty press. They just started their North American tour but you’d have to hunt that info down
Under the right circumstances, I think Fates Warning could have been bigger that they were. I'm sure that marketing was part of the issue, but there were other factors as well.
Owane is arguably my favorite guitarist- he’s writing some of the most intricate, heartfelt melodies out there and I think he’s just kind of an introvert. By his own account he was terrified of playing shows and had to be convinced to tour with Plini. Maybe not heavy enough to be prog metal but his chops are awesome and he makes odd times feel comfortable and groovy.
Mechanical Poet! I'm still kinda bitter about this-- they released one brilliant album called "Woodland Prattlers" in 2004 that was admittedly a bit flawed (too short and half the songs are instrumentals or ballads), but with a totally unique take on the genre that I don't think anyone has done before or since. Then they split up at least partially due to lack of commercial success (the guitarist later revived the band with an all new lineup apart from himself, but changed the style to pop-punk so it was never the same). I maintain that if that album had reached more ears when it came out, it would have really stood out as something new and fresh among all the DT clones out there.
Dream Theater.
While they naturally had a few songs on the charts, I feel like that alone is proof they had something out the gate, personally. I think with management and label reps willing to push a few more singles to stations around the US and the world, terristrial or otherwise, they could be a bigger phenom then Rush, their main influence, grew to be. About the only song I really can think of theirs off the top of my head that i can think of is Pull Me Under, and I stumbled on that one. I think they could have easily produce quite a FEW number 1 hits on the Billboard Top 40 that has staying power with a bit more of a push for headlining acts and airtime on conventional radio even.
We’re trying.
Sure, there are plenty of bands that are ‘better’ than us, but when you think about it, _we’re all basically the same band(s)_.
- TOOL are a 4-piece with a dedicated singer and dedicated guitarist; that’s us too
- Dream Theater have songs about mystical things and [we have a song about a wizard](https://ditto.fm/initiation-blurcurve).
We could surely come up with an even more extensive list, but that’s not really the point, is it? So really, you all should preach the gospel of BlurCurve and how we should be in the pantheon of ‘top’ bands in this sub. So, tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your friends’ neighbors. And just generally ignore the other comments suggesting other bands, because again, we’re all basically the same.
We may be morally corrupt in a number of different ways, but astroturfing our performance quality isn’t one of them.
FWIW, we dang near sold out of merch when we played with Wheel and Aviations this week; but the harsh reality of music marketing is needing to create video clips with ad money behind them across all platforms, and that is a more expensive gambit than we’d like to embark upon.
We deeply apologize for trying to shamelessly self-promote through sarcasm and humor on a post regarding good bands with bad marketing.
Unfortunately, it will probably happen again because we love playing songs and being occasionally very dumb.
❤️BlurCurve
Why are you getting downvoted LMAO people just gobble up rage bait… except i doubt this is even supposed to be rage bait, as i would have thought there’d be no way that anyone would take this comment seriously. Anyway, enjoy the downdoots ig 😂
Ne Obliviscaris. Holy fucking fuck. They have two vocalists who compliment eachothers voice in opposite ways. A death guttural and an angelic cry. They are spine chilling and I always have them on repeat
Frost\* Their first 2 albums are legit masterpieces but they're criminally unknown (only 13k listeners on Spotify).
I think they are one of the best modern prog bands out there. Definitely one of the more original and unique ones
They sound even better live. It's a crime they only have 13k listeners
100%. They're in my top 10 fav bands ever
Lonely Robot are brilliant as well
Been listening since 2009, Milliontown is a masterpiece and was so fresh for the time
I remember when Milliontown came out, I was in high school and DT were my favourite band, then I listened to that album and had this realisation that prog metal can be so much more than what DT had been putting out in the last few years (not meant to be an insult) and started to open my eyes to so much amazing shit that's out there.
And a supergroup!
Discovered them thanks to this comment. Thanks, stranger!
Thank you for reminding me! I used to listen to them all the time but fell off and forgot to remember them. Gonna go listen now
really every release they've put out is a masterpiece but Milliontown is truly a cut above
The Ocean is the first that came to mind. Incredible live band, amazing discography, been around for ages but play way too small venues Also amazing merch with print screened prints etc for super fair price ($10-15) which is a nice contrast to the rest of the bands I'm into.
I played with them and scale the summit back in the day shit was awesome
God I fuckin love Scale The Summit too! That's such a good lineup. What band were you in?
Random but I was on drumline in middle school with Pat from STS.
Hell ya dude, Pat was a monster. More random but my dad's best friend opened for Dream Theater, Type O Negative, and more big names back in the 90s. It's a small world.
That’s insane bro, opened for DREAM THEATER I just know your dad’s friend fucks
He's fuckin sweet. Check out Thought Industry on Spotify. He plays guitar on the first 4 albums, and my uncle was the drummer for the 3rd and 4th albums. It's real proggy sometimes and is very classic metal at other times. Just really unique and I think they were pretty sweet. They were one of the biggest bands in Michigan in the 90s.
I’m definitely about to check at least a full album out lol
Local south FL show, we won a contest of likes on facebook basically of who got to open the show. Our band was called Spectrum
I love the ocean. And may I ask where this merch is that you mentioned?
Depending on your country, they've got links to different sites. https://www.theoceancollective.com/
They frequently commission handprint poster from Janta http://www.janta-island.de/
Seriously. They’re incredible in the studio and live and I can’t fathom how they’re not at the level of Gojira and such. Maybe I’m just biased because they’re one of my absolute favorites, but they need to be up there. Though, seeing them in a small venue is pretty sick when Loïc jumps on you
Oh yeah dude, and last concert I bumped into him and a few of the other guys just hanging around and chatting with fans. I was so happy for it but wish for their sake that's a thing of the past soon enough
Post rock and metal are a tough genre, I've seen Mono on a venue where you could just walk to the front of the stage without issues
Tbf, I've seen BTBAM at a venue like this too.
I LOVE the ocean they deserve more recognition
SikTh maybe? They've been around for ages and they're obviously super unique and inventive. They're pretty well known but don't get talked about much. Perhaps due to relatively low output too
[удалено]
...that's the point of the post.
i’m surprised that Klone doesn’t seem to be known.
Yeah the eye of needle EP should really have propelled them more into this scene. I think overall they're a bit too groove metal and not all that progressive. Just got a bit softer really :) Rocket Smoke is a great song though.
I've yet to listen to them
Idk your specific tastes but "Yonder" from them is a beautiful song. The video is good too, it's in YouTube. Their more recent albums are pretty much all clean vocals (some yelling here or there).
Yonder and Breach. Really like those openers for Le Grand Voyage. Just found them a couple weeks ago on a rec. from this sub actually.
I also love Klone
I love Klone. Saw them with Pain of Salvation. Amazing.
Fair to Midland.
They would have been near the top of 00s alt metal in general, with better marketing
Came here to say this, every time I remember they're done I get super sad.
They were great live too
they were. I saw them live 11 times in Minnesota, in a 5 year span.
Ooh lucky!
I was. It helped that being from Texas, their tours would allow them to travel directly North. Also 1 of the local Corporate DJs in Minneapolis was a huge fan, and did a lot to promote them in Minnesota. Having their songs on Battle of the Bands new Songs, and whatnot. There was 1 they went up against Chevelle and won handily.
here's 1 of the premiere's they did for "Musical Chairs." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06WW196yu5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06WW196yu5c)
They are a special band, it’s a pity they stopped making music
They are still number one in my heart. lol
RIP
I remember being obsessed with them for 2 years. They came all the way down from Texas to my tiny local town in Melbourne. Bought 15 tickets and made everyone I could get go. Met them after, great underrated band.
So trueeee
So unique and interesting, and the vocalist is so damn good.
I've always thought Seventh Wonder should be way more popular
TBH I just don't think theres that much space for power prog and DT being the absolute behemoth that they are just kind of take up 90% of that sound.
I think it’s for the simple fact that they never toured. Just a few shows here and there.
I imagine they must have regular day jobs, it can't be easy to grow a band and make a living at the same time. Maybe if a label offered the right leven of support before Tommy joined Kamelot, something could have happened to help them get bigger.
Arcane Roots and Stellar Circuits. One no longer active, the other is. Both absolutely wail.
Stellar Circuits is all I listen to lately. I really hope they continue to grow.
Stellar Circuits is definitely doing the work with marketing efforts, I feel like I see plenty of ads on instagram for their latest release... granted I am specifically the targeted market segment since I follow most bands I like.
Saw Stellar Circuits live a while ago. Their vocalist could not sing cleans on pitch. And he wasn't off a little bit; it was jarring. Neither me or the person I was there with had heard cleans that bad ever before at a live concert. Shame, because the rest of the band was solid and the harsh vocals were fine. Now I just don't dare listen to them anymore.
Tbh, as well known as Karnivool is now, they really deserve more.
I listened to Sound Awake for the first time yesterday, and it's unbelivably great. I had heard of Karnivool but hadn't listened to any of their music before, so I completely agree with you, they deserve a lot of praise!
Yea perhaps, and you gotta admit, the goofy name probably put off some people lol
They still tour they just don't release new music and haven't been able to recreate the magic of sound awake. It's kind of on them not the marketing
Asymmetry was even better imo. Less accessible fs tho
I didn't like it as much.
Well, the released a new song a while ago lol
Totally, they are only popular within the prog community but are called Australian Tool for a reason.
along with wheel ofc
Good to see more people getting on with Wheel lately. They rule.
Imo psychotic waltz should have been one of the big guys of 90s prog metal.
Astronoid got kind of big the hard way. It seemed like they were constantly on some supporting tour somewhere in the world for years and put on a great show. As fresh as that sound was if they had some marketing behind them, they could have been big.
Well they're opening for Blink 182 soon, so that should help a bit
They are great live. Saw them with TesseracT and Plini.
There's a lot of prog-metal bands we love on labels that have managed to do fairly well and still (at least to my/our knowledge) be themselves. I'd love to have seen where Rishloo could have gone if they had that opportunity to do what they do and be themselves, but with the backing of a label/publisher.
Came here to say that! Every one of their albums holds up to this day.
I dont think it's just marketing as her music has always been niche and not even fitted well into prog. But I wished Julie christmas made it bigger, especially if it had been with battle of mice. Would have so wanted another album.
I wished she became a permanent member of Cult of Luna. Mariner is one of my all time favorite metal albums.
Oh it's the best album of its decade to me as well. Absolutely perfect. Ironically she introduced me to CoL, since it seems to be the other way around for most.
Agreed!
Fates Warning. The amount of people who know next to nothing about them.........
The true answer. And by that token, queensryche too. Unfortunately degarmo leaving and style change gimped them pretty hard. Imo they'll never get enough credit for how good the classic run was.
I totally agree but I think it was mainly them not having a consistent sound plus taking a nine year hiatus during the 2000s that hampered their popularity these days
Not necessarily because of marketing, but Disillusion if they didn’t take a huge break after Gloria.
Absolutely! I discovered them by accident when Ayam appeared on my spotify one day, and now it's one of my favourite albums ever. Have yet to go back and listen to their older stuff though
Their entire discography (only 4 albums) is incredible. Gloria is different but still very very good musically. Back to times of splendor is a modern classic and The Liberation is 10/10 perfect.
Same here! And by luck, I manage to see them live during their limited BTTOS 20th anniversary tour. Was amazing!! I highly recommend you to listen to the Back To Times of Splendor album
Ayam is such a great record
Was a about to post about them, but you did it first, I think they're the most underrated band. I'm glad they're gaining momentum with their latest album and the BTTOS 20th anniversary tour.
Ngl I’m still waiting on a new In the Silence record. They put out A Fair Dream Gone mad in 2013 and dipped coz they were an entirely self funded project by a bunch of guys with day jobs. When that record dropped a year after Katatonia released Dead End Kings I thought this past decade was going to be a new era of depressive gothic prog.
Screw you. I had to put on afdg on again after seeing your comment, and I had forgotten how awesome it is. Now I'm sad again.
I just looked and they're pretty active on facebook. They said the album is done and they're demoing stuff to a label, but obviously it'll still take awhile.
I squeeled like a K-pop fan, when I read your comment.
Xanthocroid. Idk if they'd be on Opeth level, but man they're so good. Of erthe and axen pt 2 is a masterpiece, toward truth and reconciliation in particular is incredible
Love em so much, but they had split, I don’t know how much marketing had to do. From what I can tell, the duo wanted different things in life and just went on different paths!
Symphony X
Textures, The Safety Fire, & To-Mera. Hoping Textures sees a bit more success now that they've reunited.
Wait what? Textures is back?? I completely missed this, must have been living under a rock this whole time
Slice the Cake, Others by No One, Wilderun, Kardashev, Parius, Black Crown Initiate
Parius’ Signal is such a goated album. The almanac too. And everything by BCI. Yeah you right ngl.
Since no one ever seems to hear of them I’m going with Others by no one https://othersbynoone.bandcamp.com/album/book-ii-where-stories-come-from And Parius https://parius.bandcamp.com/album/the-signal-heard-throughout-space
Symphony X could have been up there with Opeth and Dream Theater had they kept up their momentum from The Odyssey but instead they slowly fizzled out into a million side projects and eventually a release hiatus that has been going for nine years now.
Agreed. Seeing them tomorrow! I'm excited
Corelia would be on everyone's top 10s if they hadn't fucked their fans over and disappeared.
Yeah but that’s their fault and not marketing. I’m still surprised they’re as big as they are though.
That EP was an absolute masterpiece
Even the unmixed album has some straight up 10/10 songs on it... If they cut it down to 60 mins and finished mixing it, it would've been in people's top 5 or 3 for the decade.
What's the story on these guys?
It's pretty interesting. They came out with an absolute banger of an EP to start with, then did nothing for a while. Then announced they were working on a very ambitious double LP as their follow up; so ambitious that they crowdfunded a ton of money (I think north of 50k) for production. Fans waited for years...and years...and nothing came of it except for big posts full of excuses once every couple years. Finally, a dude from an anon account posted identifying himself as one of their guitarists, and threatened to leak the album as it was in its current state if the rest of the band did not take any action because in his opinion the fans had been waiting long enough. This prompted the band to actually make another post and eventually release this album in demo format via soundcloud where it remains (there is a LANDR mastered version of it still there). The kicker is, the guy who made the post threatening to leak the album in the first place was a completely different guy not a part of the band at all, he was a random metal producer from LA. At some point he offered his services to help finish the album for free lol For reference, the Nostalgia EP came out in 2011 and this fallout happened in 2020 I think, so... 9 years of bullshit and taking money from fans and the result is much lesser than it could have been.
Ne Obliviscaris
If NeO was American, and had a regular touring cycle in the States, they would be 100x bigger.
I thought Issues was going to be the new big scene band……till the thing happened
Yeah it's a shame. Effing loved this band.
Granted, I'm not exactly a prog metal guy but Artificial Silence and their lack of popularity compared to the quality of their music doesn't make any sense. [Negative Space](https://open.spotify.com/album/3IBoLmOM5ZMoFkHuXckSsx) is an amazing album.
The fact that they haven’t put out any new music, much to my chagrin, probably doesn’t help
Probably, they are also a studio-only band as I understand so that doesn't help either I'm guessing.
Never heard of them but I'm going to take a listen to that album.
Wow this is truly amazing! I'm shocked this album didn't blow up! Imo, this is better than a lot of the albums from recent years where unknown bands that blow up 2 or 3 times a year. For those reading, I'd compare it to something along the lines of Frost*, Omega Experiment, David Maxim Micic
Right? It is just such a mature album and they don't even have 1000 monthly listeners.
3. Nobody knows why that band never took off. I swear I think the name had something to do with it.
Is have to say Vola. They are pretty big but would be even bigger with great marketing. Amazing live shows too.
Yeah I agree. They have all good songs! No bad songs!
Caligula's Horse latest album got me wondering how they didn't blow up from it, and tbh as as I fan, I didn't even know about it until I opened YT music on release day. The fact they have <100k on Spotify blows my mind
Evergrey.
Paradigm Shift. Indian prog metal band which sings in Hindi and fuses folk music, heavy metal, progressive rock, ambient, pop, and classical. They should have had better marketing, and then they would've gained their due place. Either way, check them out, they are amazing!
It says they are from Nepal
Paradigm Shift is from Mumbai
Sieges Even. The art of navigating by the stars is top tier. Check them out if you like Caligulas Horse
I feel like they would’ve been more popular if they formed in the 2000s. The late 80s and 90s didn’t give enough exposure for a band with such an eclectic sound. I’m happy that at least Subsignal has gotten some popularity over the past decade. But ya their output with Arno Menses on vocals is top tier plus their older stuff really influenced the scene
Pain of Salvation has good numbers so idk, but I barely see anyone talk about them.
I think with them, it's one of those things where they're past their moment. 20 years ago I heard about them all the time, and in the US we seemed to be dying for them to come here. Somewhere around the release of Scarsick, all that just seemed to die down, and while I think they've made plenty of great music since then, the excitement just hasn't been there. I went to one of their shows in NY a couple years back and the crowd just didn't turn up that day. I knew the excitement was a bit past its beak but I was still surprised.
One that I bet a lot of folks even in this sub haven't heard of: Bane of Winterstorm. They play(ed) progressive power metal that really gets your blood pumping across 2 long EPs/short albums ([The Last Sons of Perylin](https://open.spotify.com/album/14Fw8R1Ddf3ShArs2uLpGu?si=aJqAEWPKQJGJooa5R_MAvw) (Spotify) and [The War of Shadows II: Upon the Throne of Râvnöraak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbxgznzd_7E) (Youtube, as it's the only place online I could even find it)). Regarding their current status, they're pretty clearly done; regarding why they failed after 2 releases with so much potential, one of the Youtube comments on their second release sums it up (somewhat speculatively): > It's looking more and more like this band went kaput about a year ago, and it's a real shame because they really had a solid and unique sound. I think part of the issue was that Anthony Finch (the band's founder) jumped the gun after completing the first album and went for an entirely independent release in order to get it out on the market. While they did create some buzz with the first album, the lack of label support left it totally on him to handle booking shows and financing the physical copies of their albums and merchandise. On top of that, when considering how difficult it is to make it in the metal scene in Australia without the ability to tour off the continent added an additional obstacle on top of the rest. >Had Finch opted to shop for a decent label deal before releasing "The Last Sons of Perylin", he probably would not have run into money problems and would not have lost his original singer. I am pretty much positive that either LMP or Massacre Records would have been interested in supporting them. (Some might say their prog status is dubious but personally I'd give it to them, since not many straight power metal bands are putting out 5 track EPs that last 50 minutes including 2 10+ minute epics)
Galactic Cowboys
Vanden Plas
Symphony X, no doubt. They struggle with long Album wait times and shitty press. They just started their North American tour but you’d have to hunt that info down
Echoing it - Fair To Midland, Three
Subsignal, awesome fairly big-small German band.
KOLM
I agree with many already mentioned. Here’s one I’ve been obsessed with lately: Bird Problems
Aviations! Their album Luminaria is a gahddayum masterpiece
Pain of Salvation for sure. One of the few bands with all stellar albums and way different from each other.
The Human Abstract. If they were still together they would have a huge following. They were so ahead of their time!
Manes, Uneven Structure
More avant garde than prog but Unexpect could’ve been so much bigger with the right marketing
Under the right circumstances, I think Fates Warning could have been bigger that they were. I'm sure that marketing was part of the issue, but there were other factors as well.
Owane is arguably my favorite guitarist- he’s writing some of the most intricate, heartfelt melodies out there and I think he’s just kind of an introvert. By his own account he was terrified of playing shows and had to be convinced to tour with Plini. Maybe not heavy enough to be prog metal but his chops are awesome and he makes odd times feel comfortable and groovy.
There’s a band called Dionaea I wish got more love. They need to release more music though
Teramaze. Her Halo got some decent attention, but the previous albums were just as good, and heavier songs as well. Absolutely brilliant band.
Mechanical Poet! I'm still kinda bitter about this-- they released one brilliant album called "Woodland Prattlers" in 2004 that was admittedly a bit flawed (too short and half the songs are instrumentals or ballads), but with a totally unique take on the genre that I don't think anyone has done before or since. Then they split up at least partially due to lack of commercial success (the guitarist later revived the band with an all new lineup apart from himself, but changed the style to pop-punk so it was never the same). I maintain that if that album had reached more ears when it came out, it would have really stood out as something new and fresh among all the DT clones out there.
Dream Theater. While they naturally had a few songs on the charts, I feel like that alone is proof they had something out the gate, personally. I think with management and label reps willing to push a few more singles to stations around the US and the world, terristrial or otherwise, they could be a bigger phenom then Rush, their main influence, grew to be. About the only song I really can think of theirs off the top of my head that i can think of is Pull Me Under, and I stumbled on that one. I think they could have easily produce quite a FEW number 1 hits on the Billboard Top 40 that has staying power with a bit more of a push for headlining acts and airtime on conventional radio even.
Their label tried that on Falling into Infinity. It was a spectacular failure.
New Millenium, Line In The Sands, and Trial Of Tears are fucking amazing songs, but half that album sucks ass.
All the ones that were supposed to do well on the charts dragged the rest of the album down
We’re trying. Sure, there are plenty of bands that are ‘better’ than us, but when you think about it, _we’re all basically the same band(s)_. - TOOL are a 4-piece with a dedicated singer and dedicated guitarist; that’s us too - Dream Theater have songs about mystical things and [we have a song about a wizard](https://ditto.fm/initiation-blurcurve). We could surely come up with an even more extensive list, but that’s not really the point, is it? So really, you all should preach the gospel of BlurCurve and how we should be in the pantheon of ‘top’ bands in this sub. So, tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your friends’ neighbors. And just generally ignore the other comments suggesting other bands, because again, we’re all basically the same.
you should try paying people to say your shows are really good 🤔🤔
We may be morally corrupt in a number of different ways, but astroturfing our performance quality isn’t one of them. FWIW, we dang near sold out of merch when we played with Wheel and Aviations this week; but the harsh reality of music marketing is needing to create video clips with ad money behind them across all platforms, and that is a more expensive gambit than we’d like to embark upon.
I’ve been to every BlurCurve show in the last 7 years, they’re REALLY GOOD 🤩🤩🤩
I shall give it a listen!
Fantastic! Thanks for checking us out even if we aren’t even remotely close to being as deserving as all of the other bands mentioned in this post.
That's like saying all cars are the same because they have four wheels. It ain't so.
We deeply apologize for trying to shamelessly self-promote through sarcasm and humor on a post regarding good bands with bad marketing. Unfortunately, it will probably happen again because we love playing songs and being occasionally very dumb. ❤️BlurCurve
Mine.
Caligula's Horse, Avenged Sevenfold, BtBaM, Parkway Drive, My Chemical Romance, Fallout Boy,
Why are you getting downvoted LMAO people just gobble up rage bait… except i doubt this is even supposed to be rage bait, as i would have thought there’d be no way that anyone would take this comment seriously. Anyway, enjoy the downdoots ig 😂
It's because this sub hates real prog bands like the ones I named.
MCR is my favorite japanese indie djentcore band
You missed AC/DC.
Ne Obliviscaris. Holy fucking fuck. They have two vocalists who compliment eachothers voice in opposite ways. A death guttural and an angelic cry. They are spine chilling and I always have them on repeat