Where are the christian progressive metal bands?!

A few months ago there was this thread here that wanted to list christian top albums per genre. And it occurred to me that there was no mention of prog albums (at least up until some point). And with "prog" I mean the likes of Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Threshold, Haken and so on; "melodic prog" if you like. Both the variants with the longer songs and the shorter songs. I'm not counting the so called "progressive power metal" bands here.

This raised two questions:

1) Why would christian artists stay away from prog metal that much? I mean in general of course, because there are some christian prog bands. Sidenote: I see the same tendency in progressive rock, but this is largely masked by Neal Morse's incredible productivity with both his solo/band albums and Transatlantic. And all Kerry Livgren projects of course (Kansas, Proto-Kaw, Flagship).

2) Which christian prog bands do we know? I can sum up 7Days (although they're not that explicit), Affector(!), S91, Mehida/Wingdom. That's not an awful lot; other genres have way more representatives.

Any thoughts on this?

Neal Morse. Incredibly productive. Incredibly talented. If you don't have his last two ... The Grand Experiment and Similitude of a Dream, you must purchase them immediately. You owe it to yourself.

Before I heard of the "progressive" label, I referred to this style as "musician's music". It's my opinion that it appeals to musicians more than the general music listening public. 

Here are a few more bands I enjoy.

Wake of Redemption 




God's Equation 



Above Symmetry 

Professor_Valconian wrote:Neal Morse. Incredibly productive. Incredibly talented. If you don't have his last two ... The Grand Experiment and Similitude of a Dream, you must purchase them immediately. You owe it to yourself.

I know! And you could have known that I know, because I mentioned Neal and his band in my original post   Anyhow, those two albums are really great indeed! They are staples at my place (my wife enjoys them too).

Before I heard of the "progressive" label, I referred to this style as "musician's music". It's my opinion that it appeals to musicians more than the general music listening public.

It may also appeal to people with a really refined taste in music.

metaldude wrote:Here are a few more bands I enjoy.

Thanks for sharing! I will check them out later, right now I have Transatlantic's Kaleidoscope playing.

Andreas89 wrote:

Before I heard of the "progressive" label, I referred to this style as "musician's music". It's my opinion that it appeals to musicians more than the general music listening public.

It may also appeal to people with a really refined taste in music.

True. My point is that popular music has been driven by simple and repetitive hooks and progressions for almost seven decades. Progressive music is driven more by longer songs full of odd time signatures and key changes.

I'm actually not a huge fan of most progressive music (I guess I'm just a musical simpleton) 

There are a few that I really enjoy.

Fall of Echoes (from their album Red Tree)



Orphan Project (from their album Spooning Out the Sea)



Souljourners (from the album Mind Control)



Delorean (from the album Edge of Existence)

Check out Shadow Gallery, not specifically christian but some members are/were. Darkwater, Veni Domine and Torman Maxt are worth checking out.

Sorry. Skimmed your post. I read your point # 2 and didn't see Neal mentioned.

I can also confirm that Orphan Project is some quality music. Maybe not quite as proggy as some others, but definitely tends in that direction. I have both of their albums, and can hear a fair amount of Kansas influence, especially on their first ... Orphan Found. I highly recommend.

I would strongly recommend Affector:

These guys are more progrock than metal...but still pretty good.

I have all the Dream Theater CD and DVDs/BluRays. I would like to get some Neal Morse stuff too and based on the recommendations mentioned, I may get his 2 latest albums. I do like some prog rock and metal and I may check out the bands mentioned above.

Is Millennial Reign a prog band?

Millenial Reign is closer to power metal than progressive.

I believe Believer's Dimensions also fits the category. Though a bit older....... I still get the chills when listening to Trilogy Of Knowledge

Nyx74 wrote:I believe Believer's Dimensions also fits the category. Though a bit older....... I still get the chills when listening to Trilogy Of Knowledge

+1

One of the best Christian prog metal bands is Menahem in my opinion.



Another really promising new one is Narrow Gate.




Cosyns has lots of really good progressive elements in their music too.

https://cosyns.bandcamp.com/track/outward

Antithesis
Alethian
Warlord
Tourniquet
Believer
Haven
Savatage

You should check Skies Over Bethany. They are rocking

Thanks for the suggestions so far, some I can filter out for several reasons though.

Affector - Mentioned them already in my original post
Narrow Gate - I know them, they don't have an album yet. But promising!

Antithesis - too much on the power/thrash side
Millennial Reign - don't get me started on this band   they're more prog power metal anyway
Warlord - more like heavy/doom metal
Tourniquet  - cookiemonster vocals
Believer - same as far as I know
Savatage - not really christian, good band though!

OK, I listened to most of the suggestions (not all because youtube in Germany...). Some great stuff, sadly also stuff with cookiemonster vokillz. Didn't mean that by "melodic prog".

But what I did find interesting is that there were bands among them that have had a fairly short lifespan and a disappointing amount of releases. This raises the question, maybe this time more explicitly: why is "normal" prog metal and christian music such a bad marriage? I mean, just look at the number of well known active prog metal bands in the christian music scene. How many can you list? I can't think of any other metal subgenre that is so underrepresented in the harder regions of christian music.

A sidenote before I will try to trigger some of you: just because prog metal is "musician's music" hasn't stopped bands like Dream Theater and Fates Warning (and recent examples like Haken) from having a fairly large fanbase. So complexity should not be an excuse.

Or should it? I mean, let's speculate about this shortage of prog in the christian music scene. Are christians maybe less interested in complexity? Is the attention span of christian music lovers not that great? Or are christian artists in general not -that- creative?
Sounds a bit demeaning of course, but I like to see it as inviting you guys to think about this

I was very impressed by Narrow Gate.

 Thanks for posting this!

cailen wrote:I was very impressed by Narrow Gate.

 Thanks for posting this!

As was I - sounds very good.

Andreas89 wrote: Is the attention span of christian music lovers not that great?

Maybe I'm on to something here...