Posted: Oct 13, 2013 12:25 am
SafeAsMilk wrote:
Peter Gabriel era Genesis (Trick Of The Tail was good too), Bill Bruford era King Crimson (also first record), early Amon Duul 2, some Strawbs, Frank Zappa, Faust (if you count them as prog), early Gong, Soft Machine, Goblin, Van Der Graff Generator, Syd Barrett, Rush, Magma (all of it!), Queensryche, a bunch of stuff from that era that I'm forgetting just now...
I like Dream Theater's "Awake" a lot, but most of the newer prog metal stuff leaves me cold. Rhapsody is hilarious/awesome tho
How about you?
Bit of a more old fashioned prog snob myself, but always the more the merrier 
Well Dream Theater are my favorite band. The new album is actually really good. After the drummer left, they seem to have returned to more songwriting as opposed to just putting random flashy pieces together. Don't get me wrong, I love everything they do but this album is their best in almost 10 years.
The problem with a lot of these newer prog metal bands is their penchant for trying to resemble earlier Dream Theater, which is something even Dream Theater hasn't been able to do to well until recently.
Their Images & Words and Awake CDs set the standard for technical prog metal. I orignally left out the "technical" adjective but realized that one could argue Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime and Fates Warning's Parallels, which both predated Images & Words, were the first prog metal CDs. I love all of those bands that you mentioned. After Dream Theater, my favorite are Pink Floyd, Rush, Yes, Spock's Beard, Marillion, Genesis (up until Hackett left - I constantly refer to Phil Collins as the man who ruined Genesis
), and the list goes on. King Crimson and ELP are two of my favorites too. The Crimson ProjeKct, with Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, opened up for DT on their last tour. I first heard Zappa on my father's Mothers Of Invention albums. I thought it was a strange yet amazing sound. If you check out the website progarchives.com you could probably find a LOT of newer prog that pays tribute to the older bands. Did you ever check out Steven Wilson's solo stuff? Sorry, I started to rant. I could go on about music forever....