I like PT and Dredg quite a lot. Nice to have something more mellower to listen to now and then.

Here's one:

Smaxone
http://www.smaxone.net/

This was recommended to me by a die-hard devy fan. A danish act with one of the singers from Mnemonic. I listened to Regression and you can definately hear some major influences from the OM and City era. The similarity is almost eerie.

The only producer I could compare to Devin as far as the immensity of his sound is Trent Reznor. Trent tends to go for less tradtional guitar tones though.

I would put Peter Tatgren (or at least Hypocrisy's new album) and whoever produced Gojira's new album on that list since they both sound huge

Everyone keeps saying it, and it's true: there is nothing quite like DTB.

The people who have mentioned Silverchair's "Diorama" album are on the right track, though. Forget all their earlier albums, it's on Diorama where Daniel Johns finally comes into his own and is able to express an incredible range of emotions and styles. There are similarities to DTB (and indeed other Dev albums such as Ocean Machine & Terria), mainly in the epic arrangements and lavish orchestration. Where Dev assaults our ears with multiple guitars, keyboards and ever-thickening of background vocals in a (mostly) metal-flavoured stew of beautiful brutality, Daniel Johns shows his vision of rock music through more of an orchestral film soundtrack filter. Diorama & Accelerated Evolution don't sound the same, but they're kind of conceptual and ideological cousins.

Obviously, Opeth are closer to DTB in the loud guitar department, especially on Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries.

And you just can't go past Porcupine Tree for, well, pretty much anything really. Every PT album I own (barring the very odd "On the Sunday of Life) is just gorgeous, perfect rainy-day music. I'm now waiting desperately for the reissues of "Stupid Dream" and "Lightbulb Sun" to be released, so I can complete my PT collection.

Recently I've started getting into instrumental progressive music. Stuff like Godspeed You Black Emperor whose songs typically last 20 minutes or more. If you've never heard them before, let me elaborate a little bit: when I say "progressive" I don't mean anything along the lines of Dream Theater or Spock's Beard or Yes. Rather, GYBE employ more of a droning, shoegazing vibe. The songs usually start out quite sparse, then gradually add small sections of instrumentation until piece by piece everything builds up into a lavish climactic explosion of beauty. I can highly recommend "Yanqui U.X.O." and "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven". For a sample of GYBE music, watch the start of the movie 28 Days Later. There's a bit at the start of the film where the main character's walking through a completely deserted London - the soundtrack which accompanies that scene is pretty typical of Godspeed You Black Emperor build-it-up-then-burn-it-down instrumental approach.

Another band along similar lines is Explosions In The Sky and in particular their album "The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place". Great album, only 5 songs but all hovering around the 9-minute mark. Kind of like Sigur Ros without vocals. I've got it playing now; fuck, it's good. Probably my favourite album at the moment.

For a heavier version of Explosions In The Sky, try a band called Pelican. Less beautiful than either GYBE or EITS, more distorted ugly feedback, but just as haunting and epic.

For a heavier version of the same thing but with vocals, see Isis.

I also gotta say, despite not sounding anything like DTB and also having by far the longest album title in my iTunes library, the new Coheed And Cambria album "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness" is quite insanely, eerily good. Took a couple of listens to warm up to, but I find most really good albums are like that.

On the much heavier side of things, "Alaska" by Between The Buried And Me is pretty good. Especially the song "Selkies: The Endless Obsession" which is kind of Opeth-flavoured in parts.

And so far, the Unexpectedly Good Album Of The Year Award goes to Finch's "Say Hello To Sunshine". Don't know what it is exactly, I just really like it.

Ro

Excellent. I was with ya right until Coheed And Cambria.

From then on, 'tis unknown to me but I will check 'em all out in time.
Good post.

Just downloaded a couple random Pain Of Salvation tracks..Used and Latertius Valette and OMG that fucking rules!
You guys just about all have my EXACT taste in music, (besides Dev) it's eerie.

Devon, I discovered PoS only about a year ago, and they quickly became one of my all-time favorite groups. I started off with their album One Hour By The Concrete Lake. The songs Inisde and The Big Machine are two of the best vocal performances I've ever heard. May I also suggest Lilium Cruentus, Diffidentia and Iter Impius off Be. In fact, the Live Be DVD/CD is better than the studio CD! I've never, EVER preferred a live version over a studio recording. That's how amazing it is.

And then buy Remedy Lane and all the others.

pink floyd's the division bells has certain production sound that reminds me of dtb stuff as well as a similiar vibe to the songs. very good record. i've played both pink floyd's division bells album and dtb albums seems to mix toeghter in a way.

[Blazingmonga]

pink floyd's the division bells has certain production sound that reminds me of dtb stuff as well as a similiar vibe to the songs. very good record. i've played both pink floyd's division bells album and dtb albums seems to mix together in a way.

Absolutely, yeah. A bit Floyd fan that I know actually gave me this album to listen to because he thought it sounded like Terria. It does! Its mostly the thick vocals that sound like Terria. Good album! Though it does bore me these days, it doesnt have the longevity of Terria heh.

Not sure yet if it's taboo on this board, but i'm surprised nobody has mentioned Dream Theater. If the guy is "green" to prog metal, than you MUST check this band out. They are more technical and contain more solos than DTB, but the music is very melodic, has clean emotional vocals (if a bit more in the upper register)...and they and can be quite heavy.

Get 'Awake' definitely... or 'Images and Words' for a more DTB-ish sound (I.E. not that much wanking, heavy, melodic, thick sound). Their new stuff is insanely technical and less melodic (although I still love it.)

I like PT and Dredg quite a lot. Nice to have something more mellower to listen to now and then.

Here's one:

Smaxone
http://www.smaxone.net/

This was recommended to me by a die-hard devy fan. A danish act with one of the singers from Mnemonic. I listened to Regression and you can definately hear some major influences from the OM and City era. The similarity is almost eerie.

Thanks for the heads up on this... I listened to that track and this is definately something I'm going to try to pick up.

Dream Theater are ick. I can't even finish one of their albums because the guitar solos are self indulgent, the keyboards are annoying and I want to rip James Labrie's vocal chords out so he can never tarnish my ears with them again.

Dream Theater are ick. I can't even finish one of their albums because the guitar solos are self indulgent, the keyboards are annoying and I want to rip James Labrie's vocal chords out so he can never tarnish my ears with them again.

Haha yes. That is why I wasnt sure to post that... Dream Theater usually stirs up extreme reactions... people either love them or hate them. To each his own... but if you dont mind some crazy soloing and are new to prog metal, this band is essential to check out... and a lot of Dream Theater fans dig the Devy Townsend band... so they might be worth checking out... just trying to help..

To each his own!

Dream Theater are ick. I can't even finish one of their albums because the guitar solos are self indulgent, the keyboards are annoying and I want to rip James Labrie's vocal chords out so he can never tarnish my ears with them again.

Haha yes. That is why I wasnt sure to post that... Dream Theater usually stirs up extreme reactions... people either love them or hate them. To each his own... but if you dont mind some crazy soloing and are new to prog metal, this band is essential to check out... and a lot of Dream Theater fans dig the Devy Townsend band... so they might be worth checking out... just trying to help..

To each his own!

hehe yea, I think they're worth listening to since if you like them they have a lot of talent... but to me it's talent used in the worst possible way ^^

I'm gonna have to have a listen to Porcupine Tree now, they were one of the first live bands I saw. They were actually the support band, but when I head they were supporting I was like "what? who the hell are they?" and I don't actually remember what they sounded like now...but yeah I'll have a listen to em now. I'm gonna check out almost every other band posted here also, some of them sound pretty interesting.

Good thread. If I come across anything devin'ish, I'll post it here...I very much doubt I will though.