10 best obscure prog/power CDs you own

[J. Golden]

Listening to Deaf Dealer on YT and it sounds like early Maiden and quite a bit of Brocas Helm. Great shit though especially the vocals.

Listening to Glacier on YT and it sounds close to Deaf Dealer. The singer is much higher. They loved to gallop in the old days didn't they! I think I like Glacier more than DD. I just wish the production wasn't SO 80s as I'm not cult enough to appreciate that terrible sound!

ESP sounds cool. That band had some colossal hair! The song I listened to had another great galloping riff and bass roll. It seems if you didn't use gallop in the 80s you were the exception but nowadays not too many bands use gallop even Maiden hardly uses gallop.

Yes the gallop was important. Nowadays a band needs the same Protools drum sound, the same lame computer graphics album cover, and have a keyboard in the band.
Glacier I think are really on the lines of early Fates Warning/ early Queensryche.
The 80s simply produced the best metal though I know most who post here disagree with that, no matter they are wrong. HAHA The power metal in the 90s had it's moments, but now well I'd rather listen to cows fart than most of what is out there. I think Evergrey has really been the only power metal band to really grab me since the 90s (yes I know the first two were late 90s). Every other power metal release I have heard since I could take it or leave it. Strangely I own a lot of power metal from the past two decades. But if I ever say trimmed the fat from the CD collection a lot would be cut away. HAHA
There are a couple of othe exceptions, I really like Tad Morrose.

 

[zinescene]

10. Ice Age - The Great Divide
9. Aztec Jade - Frame of Mind
8. Bride Adorned - The Grey Eminence (Demo)
7. Event - Electric Skies
6. Holy Mother - Toxic Rain
5. Steel Prophet - Dark Hallucination
4. The TIles - The Tiles
3. Timothy Pure - Blood Of The Berry
2. Opus Atlantica - S/T (Some may argue this isn't obscure you I dont recall many if any discussions on this band.

and finally, one of my favorite all time CD's

1. Stranglehold - ELemental British Power Metal that was phenomenal!

Honorable Mention:
Monolith - Monolith (Prog Rock release from Musea Records)
Crucible - Tall Tales (Prog Rock ala Jethro Tull)
Vigilante - CHaos -Pilgramage
Machinery - Impulses of Aggression
Beyond Reality - Lost Shades of Light
Release - Release
Paranoise - Private Power
Symmetry - Watching The Unseen
New Sun - Affects

 

[TribunalRecords]

Vauxdvihl- To Dimension Logic
Payne's Gray- Kaddath Decoded
Digital Ruin- Listen
Veni Domine- Fall Babylon Fall
Siam- Prayer
House of Spirits- Turn of the Tide
Sanvoisen- Exotic Ways
The Quiet Room- Introspect
Psycho Drama- The Illusion
Cea Serin- Where Memories Combine
Letter X- Time of the Gathering

seriously, have you been looking at my CD collection?!?!?!

 

[Fire breath]

10. Ice Age - The Great Divide
9. Aztec Jade - Frame of Mind
8. Bride Adorned - The Grey Eminence (Demo)
7. Event - Electric Skies
6. Holy Mother - Toxic Rain
5. Steel Prophet - Dark Hallucination
4. The TIles - The Tiles
3. Timothy Pure - Blood Of The Berry
2. Opus Atlantica - S/T (Some may argue this isn't obscure you I dont recall many if any discussions on this band.

and finally, one of my favorite all time CD's

1. Stranglehold - ELemental British Power Metal that was phenomenal!

Honorable Mention:
Monolith - Monolith (Prog Rock release from Musea Records)
Crucible - Tall Tales (Prog Rock ala Jethro Tull)
Vigilante - CHaos -Pilgramage
Machinery - Impulses of Aggression
Beyond Reality - Lost Shades of Light
Release - Release
Paranoise - Private Power
Symmetry - Watching The Unseen
New Sun - Affects

Wow someone else in the world has heard of Stranglehold. I used to have that cd and loved it in the beginning but don't know about phenomenal! After awhile I got really tired of it. I don't know what it was about the album that pissed me off to sell it but it's long gone now thoug I do have a cd-r of it somewhere. I really like Opus Atlantica as I recall especially the amazingly catchy tune Holy Graal. That's the one with really puny AOR vox from Pete Sandberg but very catchy nevertheless anyway. Steel Prophet is a very cool band but I wouldn't call them that obscure. When they were releasing albums regularly they were pretty well known and got quite a following before Rick Mythiasin left. Speaking of Steel Prophet, the spin off band New Eden and the album Obscure Master Plan was quite good and I still own that one to this day. Destiny's End were even better than New Eden with their debut Breathe Deep the Dark album which I remember playing to death when I first got it. The follow up album was nowhere near as good though. Destiny's end was the true successor to Helstar though before they came back a few years ago as Helstar.

 

[dionysus11]

Nation- Chased by Time
Phantom's Opera
Phoenix Rizing
ShockMachine
DragonHammer
PhantomLord- Circle of the Wasted
Hemisphere- Mind's Door
Storyteller's Rain
VII Gates- Fire, Walk with Me
Exhibition - The Sign of Tomorrow
Kevin Moore- Soundtrack to the film Okul
Ion Vein- Reigning Memories
Gothic Knights - Up From the Ashes
Dyslesia - Who Dares Win
Freternia - A Nightmare Story
Ascension Theory - Regeneration
Majesty - Sword and Sorcery
VainGlory - 2050
Cydonia
Winterlong - Valley of the Lost
Twilight Kingdom - Adze
Horizon - The Sky's the Limit
Rusty Cooley (signed by whole band)
Outworld ep (signed by whole band
Edge of Forever - Feeding the Fire
Mundanus Imperium - The Spectral Spheres Coronation
Mrs. Hippie (signed last year by Joacim)

These were mostly blind buys through catalogs years ago, and the Cooley and Outworld were of course from ppusa 6. Most of the albums really sucks, and I wish I had saved my money, but some Nation, Edge of Forever, Outworld, Horizon, and Phantom's Opera are pretty good.

 

[Fire breath]

Hey dionysus, this was the best albums remember. We're not supposed to post albums that suck!

Phoenix Rizing is easily my fave from your list. Ion Vein is also very good. Vainglory 2050 is good too with that rough voiced chick, i forget her name, Kate something maybe. Nation I like the other disk Without Remorse far more.

 

[labrekk]

Michael was indeed a member at one point.

As for the power, how about Voice? "Trapped in Anguish" or "Golden Signs" perhaps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3m4U45D7Ac

VOICE was a killer band, with an excellent singer. I like all of their releases, the best one being TiA.

 

[labrekk]

Listening to Deaf Dealer on YT and it sounds like early Maiden and quite a bit of Brocas Helm. Great shit though especially the vocals.

Listening to Glacier on YT and it sounds close to Deaf Dealer. The singer is much higher. They loved to gallop in the old days didn't they! I think I like Glacier more than DD. I just wish the production wasn't SO 80s as I'm not cult enough to appreciate that terrible sound!

ESP sounds cool. That band had some colossal hair! The song I listened to had another great galloping riff and bass roll. It seems if you didn't use gallop in the 80s you were the exception but nowadays not too many bands use gallop even Maiden hardly uses gallop.

Deaf Dealer-Keeper Of The Flame is an excellent album from the Canadian band. The unreleased album from 1987, Journey Into Fear, is probably even better, with an improved production. Too bad it never got released...

DD recently reformed, but with the original singer (not the ones on the albums, but the one from the early demos), and the dude was not too good IMO...Too bad the guy from KotF didn't come back.

 

[FatesFan]

here's some more I love


Explorers Club - Age of Impact

T-Ride - S/T

I own and love them both........nice picks.

 

[dionysus11]

Hey dionysus, this was the best albums remember. We're not supposed to post albums that suck!

OOPS Sorry i was just posting albums that i had i thought were odd, guess i should have read it a little better

 

[zinescene]

Wow someone else in the world has heard of Stranglehold. I used to have that cd and loved it in the beginning but don't know about phenomenal! After awhile I got really tired of it. I don't know what it was about the album that pissed me off to sell it but it's long gone now thoug I do have a cd-r of it somewhere. I really like Opus Atlantica as I recall especially the amazingly catchy tune Holy Graal. That's the one with really puny AOR vox from Pete Sandberg but very catchy nevertheless anyway. Steel Prophet is a very cool band but I wouldn't call them that obscure. When they were releasing albums regularly they were pretty well known and got quite a following before Rick Mythiasin left. Speaking of Steel Prophet, the spin off band New Eden and the album Obscure Master Plan was quite good and I still own that one to this day. Destiny's End were even better than New Eden with their debut Breathe Deep the Dark album which I remember playing to death when I first got it. The follow up album was nowhere near as good though. Destiny's end was the true successor to Helstar though before they came back a few years ago as Helstar.

Destiny's End could have made the list as well. Great band. I agree Steel Prophet released a lot of albums but they never got much love IMO.

 

[edgeofthorns]

After reading through this thread I feel like I don't know what the hell I'm talking about! 99.9% of these bands I have never heard of!

~Brian~