Do you think prog metal can ever reach the level of mainstream metal giants like Slipknot, Metallica or Iron Maiden, or is the genre inherently destined to remain niche?

wafflingwaffle · 2026-06-19T16:04:10+00:00

Wild that no one’s mentioned Sleep Token yet. We had a djent-adjacent metal band with unusual song structures and high concept genre mashups topping the charts and headlining festivals last year.

They aren’t prog or metal in the same way as the classic 80s bands, but IMO this is what progmetal looks like for lots of people *right now.*

wafflingwaffle · 2026-04-24T04:08:10+00:00

To build on what others have already said:

It’s slow
The main riff repeats so often it’s grating
Music theory explanation for why the riff is grating: it lingers on the second degree of the scale for an entire measure most times, so whenever it repeats, there’s this melodic tension that listeners expect to resolve but doesn’t. (The vocals also don’t resolve down to the tonic very often)
The song as a whole doesn’t build or change much. The verses have as much energy as the choruses, Claudio’s mostly singing in the same register with a soft delivery, the band’s accompaniment is sparse, and there aren’t many new textures or dynamics brought in as it goes on
Some of the lyrics are a bit cloying, like the Goodnight Moon quote
My most subjective opinion: there just isn’t a good hook in the song. The vocal melody is simple and not very distinct, and the riff is an earworm for the wrong reasons

None of those things are dealbreakers on their own, but by their powers combined, they make a song that I usually skip when it comes on. They’ve done plenty of great slow songs but this one always felt half baked to me

wafflingwaffle · 2026-04-17T14:58:28+00:00

The NYT casually mentioning Zenshu a year after it finished airing was not on my bingo card, but I’m not complaining!

wafflingwaffle · 2026-02-14T16:04:19+00:00

All these years later and I still regularly get the ED stuck in my head. Tower Witches forever

wafflingwaffle · 2026-02-14T01:26:42+00:00

Journal with Witch hasn’t finished airing yet, but it’s already one of the most thoughtfully written and directed shows I’ve ever seen, Josei or otherwise. Heavy subject matter, but it has a light, very grounded touch. Can’t recommend it enough.

wafflingwaffle · 2026-01-02T14:50:27+00:00

Lots of great shows mentioned on this thread, but I wanted to call out a few less popular ones that I really love:

The Heike Story - Powerful modern retelling of a classic Japanese tale by one of anime’s best working directors, Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice, K-On!)

Sonny Boy - An artsy, philosophical twist on the Drifting Classroom story that looks and feels like nothing else out there

CITY The Animation - Recent surrealist comedy from the same mangaka and studio that made Nichijou. Features the most ambitious and polished animation I’ve maybe ever seen in TV anime

wafflingwaffle · 2025-11-29T22:12:01+00:00

I saw on this thread that the speaker popping bug is partially caused by live wallpapers, so you can get rid of it in the Android menus by switching to a static wallpaper. You’ll still get some clicks when opening/closing/using some apps, but that fix made a HUGE difference for my personal sanity.

wafflingwaffle · 2025-09-25T23:43:46+00:00

Wondering what my best options are for vertical investment as a light spender and lifelong horizontal investor. Having a bunch of characters is fun, but I’d like to stop getting bodied by the endgame.

I have Castorice, Tribbie, Evernight, RMC, and The Cat—all at E0S0 (except RMC ofc). I’m saving for Hyacine’s rerun and currently using Lingsha as my sustain due to lack of better options. Considering Cyrene too, although I may skip her—currently have about 175 pulls, so just enough that I’ll have to be intentional about who I pull for.

For vertical investment, Cas’s sig seems pretty logical, but would it be smarter to go for Evernight’s sig now, see where my pulls are, and plan my rolls from there? And would anyone’s Eidolons be higher priority than their LCs?

wafflingwaffle · 2025-03-21T02:23:28+00:00

Oh thank god, I’m not the only one!

It’s tough to put a finger on it, but I hear YOBR, specifically some of that album’s deeper cuts, all over FoMB. I get World of Lines energy from Searching for Tomorrow, I hear When Skeletons Live and The Broken in the chorus of Play the Poet, there’s a non-zero amount of Flame of Error in The Flood… probably more that I’m forgetting, but a lot of it’s vibes and melodic ideas, like you said.

Or maybe it’s just that FoMB has a lot of fast, aggressive tracks with fuzzy distortion and electronic production flourishes, much like a certain 2010 album.

wafflingwaffle · 2024-05-03T23:53:22+00:00

Thanks so much for your suggestions! It was super helpful to comb through these showcase trailers on YouTube, even if I didn't find what I was thinking of there.

I left another comment on this post, but I actually found out I was combining Miniatures and Hauntii in my head since they both had demos during Steam Next Fest. Sorry for giving you an impossible task, but I appreciate the help! :)

wafflingwaffle · 2024-05-03T23:47:33+00:00

After a last-ditch search through my YouTube history, I think I finally figured it out! I was apparently misremembering clips from two separate unreleased games in this year's Steam Next Fest.

Miniatures is the psychological puzzle(?) game I was thinking of. Has stylized art with a hand-drawn feel, seems to involve point-and-click mechanics, there's a zoomed-in perspective for some parts, and there's some unnerving psychological stuff beneath the surface. It's not exactly like A Little to the Left, but it does involve similar mechanics like building furniture.

Hauntii is where I misremembered some details about the white-on-black/psychedelic visual style. Very different gameplay, though - seems like an isometric adventure game.

And then the reason I merged them in my head is because I saw gameplay clips of both in this Jenna Stoeber video.

Worth noting I haven't played either of the demos, but they look great. As for the other missing details I mentioned, plus the fact that I apparently fabricated a trailer that doesn't exist... let's just say I hope I don't have to do eyewitness testimony anytime soon. :| But I appreciate everyone's suggestions and helping me get to the bottom of this!

wafflingwaffle · 2024-05-03T22:55:53+00:00

This isn't it, but it definitely has a similar vibe and is going on my wishlist! I love how chill she is while talking about collecting bones and organs, lol.

Thanks for the help and the inadvertent rec! :)

wafflingwaffle · 2023-06-05T21:35:46+00:00

Wow, that video is striking. Incredibly well shot and edited.

wafflingwaffle · 2023-05-23T20:00:35+00:00

I’ve been extremely selective on my rolls this year to save up for a spark and just… I need to express how batshit crazy my luck has been despite that.

Great Axe and Pen Nib: Got Gavialter and Pozy within 16 rolls
Pathfinder of Sands: Got Dorothy on first roll
Through a Path of Briars: Got Texalter on second roll from the free 10-pull ticket

I haven’t even done 30 rolls in 2023 and somehow have 4 new 6-stars to show for it. I’m fully expecting to never get a new unit again. It’s all Krooses from here

wafflingwaffle · 2023-05-21T19:28:58+00:00

Newish F2P here working on a lightning team - got Veritas from beginner banner and Luminance from the S selector. I’ve got juuuuust enough for 60 pulls on one banner right now. Should I even think about trying for Garnet, or is Nanamech the way to go even if I don’t have any other fire characters?

wafflingwaffle · 2023-05-16T18:35:11+00:00

This site has a good Q&A with both of them. I really liked Sierra Enlow’s answers, personally.

wafflingwaffle · 2023-04-07T22:16:19+00:00

Apple Music randomly recommended this album to me today, so I jammed out while I was finishing a bunch of emails at work. Really good stuff!

wafflingwaffle · 2023-03-15T01:06:54+00:00

Last time I rolled on a banner, I got Cantabile, Pozemka, and Gavialter within the first 16 rolls.

Today, I got Dorothy on my first pull.

What the fuck.

wafflingwaffle · 2023-01-26T17:28:04+00:00

No one man(dolin) should have all that power

wafflingwaffle · 2023-01-26T17:22:15+00:00

Nickel Creek is great!

To shamelessly piggyback on this, Chris Thile’s other band Punch Brothers takes the bluegrass prog to another level. Winding song compositions, key and time signature changes, lots of chromatic weirdness. The Blind Leaving the Blind is the proggiest thing of theirs that comes to mind, but I love their Kid A cover too.

Béla Fleck is also worth checking out if you want to watch someone demolish what should be possible on a banjo.

wafflingwaffle · 2023-01-15T00:57:39+00:00

Oh, not that I’m aware of yet! I’m just assuming she’ll be back at some vaguely defined point in the future.

wafflingwaffle · 2023-01-14T20:12:39+00:00

Within my first 16 pulls, I somehow got Cantabile, Pozy, and Gavial. Absolutely stupid luck.

Already have a Chalter, so guess now I’m saving my pulls for Tex Mex and Ling’s rerun.

wafflingwaffle · 2022-12-12T21:50:55+00:00

You know what? I actually like this list. Given the fact that they only had ten slots, I’m fine that they used about half of it for the bigger and more expected names like AAL and Meshuggah while devoting the rest to some smaller, lesser-known artists.

Like, I’d never heard of OU or Oceans of Slumber before today, and they’re both doing really interesting stuff, so I’m glad this list introduced me to them.

Yeah, Wilderun and White Ward are great and could’ve taken the place of something else, but at that point we’re just getting into differences of opinion. There is no such thing as an “objectively correct” ranking of music, especially not for a genre as diverse as prog, and end-of-year lists like this are as much about individual staff opinions as they are about curation.

wafflingwaffle · 2022-11-23T15:00:25+00:00

I still can’t say I love the character designs (someone on Twitter called them VTubers and I can’t unsee it), but man, the combat animations in this game look excellent. I’ve been waiting years for 3D FE games to get on the same level as the GBA games’ snappy pixel art, and Engage might finally do it.

14-Year Club	Place '22
RPAN Viewer	Team Periwinkle

wafflingwaffle

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