Progressivism in Modern Metal; or, Metal as new Prog: Part 1 - UNFINISHED

MASSIVE CRITICAL UNDERTAKING. INCOMPLETE. WILL FINISH AS (ILLUSORY?) OBLIGATIONS ALLOW.

Remember prog rock? The self-important, bloated, masturbatory artifact from the 70s, purveyed by creepy art school students sporting outmoded moustaches? Whose proverbial throat was gorged by the supposed "godsend" of snot-snosed, safety-pinned brats making a ruckus for the mere sake thereof? King Crimson, Yes, ELP, Genesis? Faustian musical aspirations that had doomed the genre to complete ruin from its very inception?

Heralded: prog hath returned.

In fact, prog never left to begin with. While prog (not the notion of progression in music, but PROG FUCKING ROCK, WEEDLY WEEDLY WEEDLY) as it was initially conceived via such meisterwerks as In the Court of the Crimson King and Close to the Edge, and illuminaries like Van der Graaf and Can and the krautrock weirdos, etc., -- that is, exploratory, classically-inspired infusions of post-psychedelic rock, embryonic heavy metal, jazz, folk..., all striving to be bigger than themselves and all very thematic and voyage(read: trip)-inspiring -- is hardly alive and well today, the concepts and impetus behind it had existed since at least the mid-1960s and were in fact present and developing alongside it in a different, more nefarious genre...

Torrential downpours of black blood from ominously dark, swirling heavens over lakes of fire, brimstone, and layers of filth. Howling, impenetrable, ancient blizzards freezing somewhere over tundra in the abyssic nightrealm where none tread save the frostbitten wanderers. A bunch of hairy dudes sitting around in a jam room in England ca. 1970 stringing together lengthy, ambitious, progressive suites of heavily amplified, doom-ladden blues rock. Thus, Heavy Metal.

Progressivism was present in metal even in its most embryonic state. Indeed, metal doesn't get much more embryonic than the first Sabbath record, a decidedly proggy affair in its own right once you get past the towering horror of black mass that is the title track and the heads-down, no-frills crunch of "The Wizard." Or does it? Fact of the matter is, while Black Sabbath were busy laying the foundations for generations upon generations of bands to come, Vertigo, renowned UK label credited with purposefully giving the early British metal bands a voice, was busy calling bands in a similar vein "progressive." That's right, other bands that sounded like Black Sabbath, operating at the same time as Black Sabbath, in the same country as Black Sabbath. Truth be told, many of the early metal bands (including the Sabs) were touted by their respective labels as progressive, and most of them were on Vertigo as it was.

Warhorse, one of Vertigo's wrote lengthy, relatively complex, bouncy blues-rock tunes with surprisingly muscular riffs (for the time) and guitars aplenty.

MASSIVE CRITICAL UNDERTAKING. INCOMPLETE. WILL FINISH AS (ILLUSORY?) OBLIGATIONS ALLOW.