[Rick and Roll]

Enough of this tongue-biting, it's starting to bleed -

I am still dumbfounded as to why one finds Pirates pretentious, overblown, all of those other "record-review" hackneyed names. Find another song like it. Stuff like Zep's "Achilles Last Stand", and anything off of KC's Discipline - it's truly an original. I can see if you don't like it - but you all make it sound it like "Love Beach"! I think it's cool - a symphonic tune that rocks - pretentious, moi?

No, Roger, you're not over-simplifying. I like really like Enchant, but they could be written off to top-40, too. In fact, I can't see how they are even prog - yes, they owe their sound to Kansas and Rush (the opening riff of "Paint The Picture" is a "Xanadu" ripoff) - but it seems like since Steve Rothery played and produced 2 cuts from their first record, it's automatically prog. Come on. It's just good pop. I dig the Smithereens - but if they put out a 14-minute song called "Baby lets roll in 9/8", I still wouldn't consider them prog.

Starcastle to me is derivative and unexciting. Call them prog if you will, I don't have to like it. Good point about the dark & ominous observation. Add "ethereal & moody" to that list. Chop Porcupine Tree's records in half (no, not literally you wouldn't be able to play it), and you get a solid, meaty effort without the filler so deperately needed by some people to make it prog. It's like Marillion. They are no more or less prog since Fish left - they just decided (except in rare cases) to stop writing good music. Man, they were rolling - and then Fish left and they lost their edge.

Now I need to go put on some Tool to clear my head.