The Storm of Progress(ive)

"Grim-faced and forbidding
Their faces closed tight
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm
Race the oncoming night
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity
Pause at a light
Then flow through the streets of the city"
- Rush - The Camera Eye

Rush and other progressive rock/metal bands espouse the wondrous textures and timbres of eclectic rhythms and melodies, crafting their instrumental mastery for eyes to gape and have ears struck down in disbelief - but what about lyrics? Often overlooked as peripheral or perfunctory, evocative lyricism in progressive metal has undergone a decline since the heady and erudite days of Rush, the early Dream Theater, Pink Floyd and others. However, despite some band's classification by others residing outside the progressive realm, could poetic lyrics substitute for poetic showmanship and composition? Case and point, Dark Tranquillity in Hedon:

"Enter Suicidal Angels;
How hungry we've become;
like animals naked in shame
Fed with the hooves of apocalypse
that galloped down, disordered worlds behind

From word to a word I was led to a word
that spanned over cultures in rage
Crimson masses, sleeped in decadence
holding our tongues to the thirsty sun
So, it the future still open?
Then enter, hornet, from our hive-dark hearts
to draw down the end from within"

The image of nihilistic angels swooping from the heavens to desecrate the human spirit is like Zamyatin's "dynamite that explodes eternally" - it just immerses you in dread and inevitability. The gothic music just heightens an already existent atmosphere. Katatonia in their "so simple it's brilliant" aesthetic of pure lyrical brilliance is exemplified in the following passage which requires no music to move and inspire.

"Old light and new colors
Your picture hangs in the night
Is this the right time to set one free and go away
In the emptiness behind you I will walk about
Surely you'll miss me, but long live the doubt

What will replace us?
What will be our memory of this time?
Second hand impressions
Hand them over so we can let it die

I remember one time when we were abroad
I was laughing at a book I had bought
But you were standing against the hotel wall
Frozen in an unknown thought"
- Katatonia - Burn the Remembrance

Beautiful.