I had to try and find a way to kind of describe this "movement" in modern prog and couldn't really find a better way then calling it "djenty/modern progressive metal/rock", but basically the kind of sound I'm talking about is stuff like Leprous, Caligula's Horse, Haken, Pain of Salvation, Voyager, etc. and some not-archived stuff like Soen, TesseracT and more.

I'm looking specifically for bands with vocalists, so as much as I love Scale the Summit or appreciate stuff like Animals As Leaders, that's not really what I'm thinking about.

The reason why I'm asking is that I tend to feel that I shoudln't really enjoy that sort of music much, at least not on paper, as I tend to think that some djent bands tend to replace riffing by chuggy palm-muted metallic "djent" riffs almost entirely, and that's not something I enjoy. But bands like Caligula's Horse use the "djent" elements while retaining a strong metal riffing, and I love their album In Contact. I also love Leprous for basically everything they've done, even the less metal stuff.

Anyways. Thoughts on this "trend" or "movement"? And if you like it, what bands/albums do you prefer?

I have no idea about this supposed movement but I can highly recommend you Car Bomb

Seconding Car Bomb. Maybe Vildhjarta?

Between the Buried and Me maybe? Their early work is closer to mathcore (super chaotic at first), but nowadays they have more of a progressive metalcore sound.




Bands off the top of my head that also may be worth checking out for you: Soulsplitter (like Haken, they're not scared to throw in some more djenty elements), The Contortionist (more their later stuff I would say, unless you also enjoy progressive deathcore ), Corelia...

First off, thanks HeavenDuff for starting this thread, if you hadn't I would never have heard of Between the Buried and Me, thanks Fearoth for bringing them to my attention, they're fantastic, sort of A Textbook Tragedy and Bubblemath stopping off at a giftshop to buy some Cardiacs, whilst sounding not much like any of that, excellent.

Is non-metal stuff allowed? I'd highly recommend some mathy noise rock from the likes of Craw and Dazzling Killmen, Craw below.



As a follow up edit type thing, having just spent most of the morning going down a Between the Buried and Me rabbithole and having had a fantastic time doing so,
not only are they insanely technically proficient but creatively interesting too, I've come to this conclusion...
What's happened here is Fearoth has served up a 3 Michelin star equivalent gourmet meal with all the trimmings and I've offered up noodles exclaiming "I found these at the back of the cupboard, they're about 4 years out of date but they should be ok, also there's this here sachet of flavouring with them, it's mostly MSG and salt, how about it?"
It could be argued "plenty of people eat noodles", but probably in the absence of the gourmet meal.

VOLA from Denmark are really great, especially their recent album Witness.

https://volaband.bandcamp.com/

Yeah Vola and Car Bomb rock.

Frontierer are another chaotic good one:



This album (from an archives band) sounds literally like Meshuggah.

I don't care for this style of music generally but I'll second the VOLA recommendation, they're a good band who know how to balance the proggy inclinations with catchy hooks so it's not all braindead syncopated djent-chugging.

Kardashev are another band in this style which I find tolerable. Their EP The Almanac is worth hearing if you're interested in exploring this sort of style further. They released an album too, Liminal Rite, but I thought it was decent at best.

This is far from one sound, and I would say these three in particular don't have a ton in common.

But I would second VOLA, The Contortionist, Kardashev, and also suggest:

Æries - Arcanum
David Maxim Micic - Bilo 3.0
Destiny Potato - LUN
Disperse - Living Mirrors
Earthside - A Dream In Static
Rannoch - Reflections Upon Darkness
Red Handed Denial - Redeemer
Skyharbor - Guiding Lights
Spiritbox - s/t EP
Sybreed - Antares
Uneven Structure - Februus
Voices From the Fuselage - Odyssey II: The Founder of Dreams

More on the atmospheric side, with a lot of creativity and variety, though I think this overall sound is just not something a lot of people here are ever going to be into.

Frontierer are amazing. They are quite chaotic and maybe not what Heaven's after, but certainly worth a listen. Super awesome band.


A Life Once Lost is great but skip Iron Gag. Terrible album. A Great Artist and Hunter are my favourite albums.

Frontierer is a fucking frenzy, one of my favorite recent finds.
I'd also like to mention Humanity's last breath, kinda djenty, kinda deathcore-ish with plenty of digitized/electro effects, maybe a bit overproduced but i'm deff gonna listen to their new album

Hey folks! Sorry I posted my thread then disappeared for five days, haha! I wanted to dig into the bands suggested in the thread, but right off the bat I saw people recommanding mathcore (Car Bomb) and progressive metalcore bands (Between the Buried and Me) in the thread, and I guess these fit and are kind of adjacent to what I asked for, so it's all fine, I'm not complaining. However, in terms of personnal taste, I'm not really a big fan of bands like Car Bomb or Vildhjarta (or stuff like Ion Dissonance, Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah, etc.). And while I enjoy Between the Buried and Me, I'm looking more for metal bands (Caligula's Horse, Leprous, Voyager, Haken, etc.).

I don't hate the djent elements, but when riffs are basically replaced by thick palm-muted metallic chugs almost entirely, it's not really working for me. Car Bomb is an example of this for me.

Soulsplitter is a little more in ther realm of what I was looking for. They've been blacklisted on MA, but I think they are more rooted in metal then the "core" or rock side of djent.

I'm going to keep listening to the other recs in the thread, but I wanted to make a post right away to address some of the stuff posted. So basically I made it only to Fearoth's July 15th post, but will work my way down the thread while listening to the stuff that's been recommended, and comment on some of the stuff as I go.

It's always nice to discover new stuff for sure, and there is somewhat of a weird/funny feeling associated with discovering a band that's so established and popular and realizing they've been around for decades and you had never heard about them, haha! I had this happen to me a couple years ago when I discovered Bolt Thrower and completely went nuts over their music. It's my all time favorite band (dead tie with Agalloch), and I had been into death metal for YEARS before actually giving them a listen. No clue how that happened.

Anyway, started listening to your Dazzling Killmen rec, and holy shit is this interesting. It surprises me that bands like these flew under the radar so much. I love the mix of post-hardcore and math rock. Hell, this stuff is kind of sludge and grunge adjacent too. Like I can definitely hear some Acid Bath and Alice in Chains in there.

Listening to Craw now, and it's also quite interesting. These bands might be a little too much on the mathcore/post-hardcore side of the fence to become my all time favorites. A little too syncopated and chuggy, for my taste, but definitely not bad by any means imagineable. I actually quite enjoy these, and am always fascinated by what was going on in the post-hardcore scene in the 90's. Like I'm always fascinated that bands played stuff like this that early in the 90's. Craw also is quite sludgy! If you like this stuff and do not know Acid Bath yet, do yourself a favor and go listen to When The Kite String Pops!

Edit: However, these bands don't really fit the theme. There is an obvious connection between post-hardcore, early math rock and mathcore with djent, but bands from the 90's playing these kind of thick palm-muted chugs don't really fit into the whole "modern" prog metal style I'm talking about with bands like Caligula's Horse, Leprous or Haken.

Hi there, I was lucky to catch the first airing of the Bolt Thrower Peel Session around 88 maybe? Started listening to and taping John Peel shows around 86, around the time all the hardcore, grind and crust was getting popular.
A little micro-story here, I went to see Bolt Thrower at The Marquee in London (no longer exists) and halfway through the gig I launched myself off stage with an over abundance of enthusiasm completely missing the crowd and smashed into the ground.
My knees bore the brunt of it, both swollen and throbbing, I left the gig and hobbled my way to hospital, not so fun times.

Acid Bath not really my sort of thing, a bit too bluesy or something, a sludgey Soundgarden, I probably would have loved them back in the day, nowadays I much prefer really complex stuff that makes my brain hurt (I blame Voivod, they started it), or very dark, dissonant and aggressive, If it can do all of those things I'm ultra-chuffed.

Sorry I couldn't be much help on the recommends front, a bit behind the curve to what's new and shiny out there, that's why it was so nice to discover Between the Buried and Me, a fresh take on proggy metal.

Damn! So you went to see Bolt Thrower in their early days, huh? That's great! I was born in 89, so I never had the chance to experience all this, and when I got into Bolt Thrower they were already disbanded. Sucks that I probably won't get the chance to see one of my all time favorite bands play live.

It's nice to hear about these stories from guys who were around at the time! Sucks that you injured your knee at the concert though...

No worries about the recommandations, btw. I'm looking more for a discussion about this "scene" and to know the opinions of others on how they perceive it, what they like or dislike about it, etc. I liked the stuff you shared too. Interesting stuff! It's always interesting to dig into these older, more obscure bands.

And if you like Between the Buried and Me, you might enjoy some Protest the Hero as well.

Yes I very much do, I think SiKth were the first I heard doing that sort of thing what with me being from the UK and I loved it, I got into the American and Canadian stuff a little later.

Back to your search for new (or old) proggy metal, did you try doing a deep dive of https://www.youtube.com/@insideoutmusic
I discovered it a while ago whilst looking up some Devin Townsend stuff, some real gems to be had there, weeks worth of listening goodness.

I don't think anyone's actually ever combined progressive metal with djent. People just call djent progressive metal because they don't know what prog sounds like.

Ok? So you've ever listened to the band I listed? Voyager? Caligula's Horse?

Care to actually elaborate?

Progressive Metal is not Meshuggah or Periphery, it's Control Denied, Sanctuary, Atheist, Coroner, and Sadist.

I listened to Caligula's Horse and honestly what I've heard doesn't sound all that djenty, more groove metal or math-y if anything.

I think the epitome of the prog sound to me is Rush's YYZ, if that gives you any idea what I think is "prog".

Sounds like Mattergy should be right up your alley:

Kid, drop the attitude. I've been listening to progressive rock and metal for more then 15 years now. I don't need some rando on the Internet to try to school me on stuff I already know. That means all the bands you listed and then some.

I know what metal is, and the fact that some folks just resist so aggressively to even the slightest possibility that maybe some metal band might eventually maybe ever include djent elements to their sound, doesn't change the fact that the two genres are very much compatible and that some bands already mix the two.

So if you want to keep the discussion interesting and respectful, maybe stop assuming you know better then everyone else, yes?

Edit: I felt it was also relevant to maybe share examples of songs by Caligula's Horse that I find to be pretty much right there in-between prog metal and djent

Yeah, I remembered VOLA a little bit, being a kind of djentier version of stuff like Leprous or Caligula's Horse. I had not listened to their most recent album, Witness, from 2021. It's pretty good, to be honest. A little too much on the djent side for me, but still quite enjoyable. I'm listening to it right now



VOLA works for sure. Car Bomb is a little too much on the mathcore side of the equation, and have basically nothing to do with progressive metal at that point. I also gave that Frontierer track a spin, and I think it has even less to do with the progressive metal and/or rock genres. It's almost pure mathcore, dissonant syncopated stuff. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's very much outside of the sound I was trying to describe in my OP.



I also don't usually care much for that sound, and it's hard to described it as just one sound, really, but they all seem, at least to me, to be in this kind of modern prog/rock/djent trend, and there is definitely an overlap. A few bands in the genre really work wonders for me, like Leprous or Caligula's Horse, and I was looking for other similar stuff that I might enjoy, although I think these are quite unique bands.

Still, I revisited VOLA a bit, and I'm listening to your Kardashev recommandation right now, and they are in a somewhat similar vein, so definitely in the realm of the sound I was tring to describe in my OP. I'll give these a few spins and see if anything sticks. Thanks for the recs!