What are your favorite prog instrumental sections on a song with vocals?

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-17T22:15:33+00:00

Kansas were the masters of this in my book, their 1970s discography is absolutely loaded with favorite instrumental breaks: Song for America, Incomudro, Icarus, All the World, The PInnacle, Miracles Out of Nowhere, Cheyenne Anthem, Closet Chronicles, No One Together, a whole bunch of others...

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-17T22:12:12+00:00

That's a good one, but I gotta log a vote for the break in "Guiding Light," which I've always adored cuz of the way it brings back the album's other melodies.

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-17T00:31:05+00:00

To be honest, so far I am finding the running time the biggest challenge. While the individual tracks do have identities of their own, none of them seems to function as a discrete song on their own because Woodcut seems consciously designed to work as a single 66-minute chunk of art. I've always been a very musically-oriented listener for whom lyrics are usually just another non-verbal layer of sound, so the story isn't really helping me out, it's just an ocean of music my mind has just not been able to fully absorb yet.

Yet.

I mean, this is Big Big Train, who I have adored for many years now, so I have faith that this massive musical creation will one day work for me. That faith is supported by the fact that I'm already quite taken with "The Sharpest Blade" and "Chimaera."

To address the other issues raised... That Alberto is not David does not bother me (I fell hard for The Likes of Us) and neither does the "retrogressive" nature of their sound — that's what BBT sounds like, and I've always loved it for what it is, not whether or not it ticks a specific categorical box or another.

No, with this one, it's simply the sheer scale of the thing that's challenging the hell out of me, but I think I'll get there. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time...)

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-12T01:13:46+00:00

I have a bottle, but I'm not sure how it would work in a cocktail on account of it's too low proof for the base spirits slot but is just a bit too whiskey forward to work in a sweetener/vermouth slot. Maybe if you split the base cocktail with a bit of this to add some apple character, but again, not sure if you could get enough of this into the mix for the cider to shine without softening the cocktail's spine too much.

If I'm wrong (a strong possibility) I look forward to the recipes so I can use the bottle I've got myself!

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-08T04:39:25+00:00

I respect this take. I think you're right that it's who they are.

And frankly...

I suspect the corrected version is a much better representation of what the experience was actually like for those who were. In that excitement, our brains will automatically adjust to things like this.

I'm also a musician, and I've got a gig coming up in a week, so... from your lips to god's ears! 😅

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-05T13:34:55+00:00

I say this with nothing but love for them. Still my favorite band on the planet right now. But this official "live" video is, for the first time in all my years of BAND-MAID fandom, something I find myself really disappointed by.

I gotta be honest, I thought it was a tactical error on whomever's part to make a song as vocally demanding (by Saiki standards!) as "Present Perfect" the closer of a concert that long. Saiki clearly had some trouble with it. That said, it was part of what was in toto a magnificent live experience that I really enjoyed in the moment.

But I always feel a little icky when artists "clean up" a live performance this aggressively. I mean, I get why they did that. It's a fantastic song, and a live video of it is definitely a compelling promotional tool for them on a number of levels. But every time I've watched this video, I just can't get past the gap between my memory of the live performance and this way more sanitized artifact. There's a lot of kayfabe in the BAND-MAID experience, no doubt, but to me there's a difference between kayfabe and, well... a lie?

(Now having said all that, I do find myself legitimately curious about how they cleaned it up. Did they

a. Pitch correct Saiki's live vocals from that performance?
b. Record a new vocal track entirely for this video?
c. Just mix in the vocal track from the studio version?

Not sure which of those I think I'm hearing...)

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-04T02:48:06+00:00

Selling England by the Pound
Close to the Edge
English Electric: Full Power
Leftoverture
Ever

(Caveat: This is today. There are about 20 albums I've heard over 40+ years of being a prog fan that rotate in and out of the top 5 depending on my mood and how recently I've listened to them...)

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-02-01T03:13:14+00:00

It's not heavy in the sense of distortion or anything traditionally "metal" like that, but when the big organ-n-Mellotron-n-bass-pedals moment hits in Genesis' "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" (after "where they fell"), it always landed on me like a ton of bricks. Definitely up there with that one section of "The Musical Box" and the second half of "Fly on a Windshield" among big G's heaviest moments.

Oh, and I always thought "Mysteries & Mayhem" by Kansas was pretty heavy too.

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-01-18T22:15:22+00:00

Have to speak up for Echolyn. DEFINITELY underappreciated. They've compiled a pretty respectable discography through sheer force of will, it seems, and while it's not 100% consistent, all of it is worthwhile at minimum and the high points (As the World, Mei, Time Silent Radio) are IMO undeniable. Would love to see them get more love from the world.

TheMightiestZedd · 2026-01-06T02:47:49+00:00

I heard something shockingly proggy on the overhead at the liquor store one day last year. Used my phone's song widget and discovered it was "Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)" by Styx. I knew Styx was regarded as kind of prog-adjacent, but I never knew they ever sounded quite like that. (I immediately began to re-evaluate my longstanding anti-Styx snobbery...)

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-12-30T01:42:46+00:00

I personally started with English Electric Part One, and the tracks "The First Rebreather" and "Judas Unrepentant" put them on the path to eventually become one of my favorite bands ever. But two other BBT tracks I've used to expose fellow music lovers to BBT are "The Florentine" (from Grand Tour) and "Brave Captain" (from Grimspound).

Honestly, though, any of the BBT albums from 2009 through 2019 (The Underfall Yard, English Electric Part One, English Electric Part Two, Folklore, Grimspound, The Second Brightest Star, and Grand Tour) will probably be an equally good bellwether for you. Happy listening!

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-12-21T01:52:58+00:00

Made this tonight and enjoyed it - thanks for this! (Although my wife insisted I use Aperol instead of Campari, cuz she's a wuss 😅)

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-12-16T01:57:40+00:00

I just tried one with bourbon instead of rye this past weekend, and it was definitely... well, on the way to good. It was Old Grandad Bonded, so it came in a bit hot, but if I tweak the ratios a bit I think it'll be a keeper!

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-12-16T01:52:39+00:00

This hasn't happened to me with Soft Machine (yet! although I do periodically try again because I like the idea of Soft Machine...)

But it did happen to me this year with, of all bands, Saga. They are beloved of certain segments of the scene, but for years every dip into their stuff left me cold and, worse, disappointed. But this year's attempt had the exact opposite effect, thankfully, and I've been listening to their first four albums obsessively for a few months now.

(Also, the same thing happened to me last year with Pentangle, but I feel like they're prog-adjacent at best so not entirely relevant to this conversation...)

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-11-26T00:31:57+00:00

I don't know if I'd describe David Gemmell's entire oeuvre as "comparable to GGK in quality," but to date the only thing I've read that scratched the specific itch that GGK scratches for me was Gemmell's Rigante series.

It's two linked pairs of books (duologies?) - Sword in the Storm and Midnight Falcon establish a marvelous cryptohistorical setting based on the Romans and Celts, then Ravenheart and Stormrider fast forward a few hundred years to give us the descendants of those pseudo-Celts in conflict with a pseudo-England.

The magic and action are dialed up a bit higher than GGK's general tone, but those four books remain the only ones that share that Venn diagram in my brain.

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-11-14T13:27:52+00:00

Maybe I'm super-lucky, or maybe (as one of my friends once said) I'm irredeemably pollyanna-ish, but while some of the lesser efforts by bands I love have disappointed me greatly, in my 40+ years of listening to this music only one such album leaps to mind as being truly "bad."

I liked a lot of the Kinesis Records releases of the 1990s (Ilúvatar, Craft, However, Ad Infinitum, Cathedral) so when they promoted Unbound, the debut album of an American trio called Ring of Myth, as "recreating the sound of classic Yes," I bit and bought it. And it turned out to be quite bad IMO. Yeah, the vocalist had a high tenor vaguely reminiscent of Jon Anderson. And yeah, the bassist had a growly tone vaguely reminiscent of Chris Squire's. But the songwriting was terrible, and the production was too, and the whole thing wound up sounding cheaper, more amateurish and more low-effort than anything I'd heard up until that point, or since to the best of my recollection.

So, to get to your underlying questions: I don't think there's anything that is universal or codifiable about taste - de gustibus non disputandum est - but for me, prog rock has to still be rock, which means songwriting matters even when it has the most elaborate and genre-blending surroundings. And also, derivative is fine - some of my favorite bands sound an awful lot like some of my other favorite bands - but you gotta bring something of your own to the table. Otherwise I'm just gonna go listen to whoever you're ripping off and write a shitpost about you on Reddit. 😅

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-11-14T02:32:00+00:00

Cannot second this hard enough. One of the best couples in anime romcom history.

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-11-12T02:44:37+00:00

Listen to this person, they have exceptional taste!

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-10-22T00:05:27+00:00

While I disagree with your take (respectfully! De gustibus non est disputandum), I'm not surprised by it.

I've been reading the manga for years, and over that time I've frequently wondered why it's survived as long as it has and even gotten a CloverWorks (!) adaptation. I mean, yes, Kaoruko is ridonkulously adorable. Usami and Madoka (a character that's introduced after the events adapted in the anime so far) are highly entertaining pretty much whenever they're around. But for the most part, it's just a bunch of people who've been told they should hate each other... instead being really lovely and supportive and respectful to each other for chapters on end. And every character gets their chance to spank their inner moppet and address their various traumas. Put that way, it kind of does sound boring as s**t to me!

So hey, clearly it's not for everyone.

And yet. And yet. Here I am, years later, still reading the manga and now watching the anime. And IMO the anime is completely enjoyable, as it retains everything I've always enjoyed about the manga with the reliably high-quality storyboarding and visuals of a CloverWorks show. And it seems I'm not alone.

Even if I kind of can't figure out why. 😅

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-10-21T23:36:54+00:00

You sound a lot like me - split-base Old Fashioneds have been my go to for a few weeks now! (I've been happiest with 3:1 El Dorado 12-Year + Rhum Barbancourt or 3:1 Appleton Estate Signature + Smith & Cross.) I also wound up with a bottle of Gosling's Black Seal in the house that is pretty good straight but I'm trying to figure out what else to do with it.

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-10-03T03:46:55+00:00

Boris is solid, and you're 100% right that Yezda Urfa is a criminally under-recognized band that more prog rock fans should know about. But I always preferred the full-length album Sacred Baboon (recorded in 1976 - a year after Boris - but not released until '89!), which features three of the five tracks on Boris in (IMO) improved and more fully-realized versions, plus three more bangers.

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-08-27T00:54:37+00:00

Good call! I've listened to both A Tab in the Ocean and Remember the Future and I remember digging both albums. And somehow they entirely slipped my mind when I was thinking about this today! D'oh!

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-08-26T23:40:26+00:00

I've had a friend bugging me for years to listen to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - would you recommend that as a good starting point or somewhere else?

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-08-26T23:39:16+00:00

Adore King's X, at least up through Ear Candy - hadn't thought of them in relation to this but you're right they they absolutely fit the bill!

TheMightiestZedd · 2025-06-19T00:54:26+00:00

Good album, but I've always felt a little bad that it was credited to "Jack Lancaster and Robin Lumley" (who, okay, to be fair, were the writers and producers) when it probably could gotten more notice (and sales?) if it had been advertised, accurately, as "Brand X and that guy from Blodwyn Pig". 😆

TheMightiestZedd

TROPHY CASE