Post Reply - EARLY Progressive Metal!

Time Signature wrote: Watch Tower... if they're obscure enough. Lethal are another early kind of progressive power metal act. The Japanese act Vigilante might also be relevant.

Some more info and suggestions:

Watch Tower: progressive thrashy metal with high pitched vocals and mind-bogglingly odd time signatures. Their debut "Energetic Disassembly" is from 1985 while their second and, so far, last album "Control and Resistance" is from 1989.

Lethal: power metal with powerful, acrobatic, high pitched operatic vocals - there is a general epic feel to it, and they make use of odd time signature every now and then. I'd definitely recommend "Programmed" from 1991.

Vigilante: in the same vein as Fates Warning with a lot of guitar harmonies and heroically soaring vocals. They are a more recent band, but I guess that they count as obscure. I have "Edge of Time" from 1999 and I would definitely also recommend that.

Legend (US): Their 1979-album "�f the Fj�rds" has been described as one of the very earliest progressive metal releases, so that might be worth a listen, too.

Royal Hunt: started out in 1988 and has released a whole bunch of albums - their style is progressive melodic power metal.

Unleashed Power: progressive thrash metal - they were mostly active in the 90s and released "Unleashed Power" in 1994 (so, I guess they do kind of qualify for mention in this thread) and "Mindfailure" in 1997.

And a bunch of acts that I haven't heard but definitely want to check out myself:

Fort�: Now this is a bit of a long shot, because I have not heard this album for ages, but I seem to remember the debut by American thrashers Fort�, "Stranger than Fiction" as being somewhat progressive - it's from 1992.

Prime Time: another shot in the dark, because I have never head them, but their first two albums, "The Unknown" and "The Miracle", are sometimes described as progressive power metal. They were active in the late 90s, so not exactly early prog metal, but definitely obscure.

Lob of Lemmings: their only album "Just Human" from 1993 is supposed to be progressive thrash metal.

Carisma: described as progressive melodic metal, they released "In a Moonland" in 1992 and "1825" in 1996.