I do love me my US prog, huge echolyn and HTM fan among many others, Somehow I missed a bunch of great "modern" US prog over the decade or so, I'm now discovering some real gems that eluded me previously.
On my last Montreal trek this fall (seeing Hackett and Arena), I scored some great used US prog including Little Atlas' "Wanderlust (which is wanderful!), Persephone's Dream's "Pan" which is a great slice of symph, and Discipline mainman Matthew Parmenter's solo "Astray" (I am a big Discipline fan so grokked this immediately). Great finds.
Locally, stumbled across The Underground Railroad's "The Origin of Consciousness" which struck me as a wonderful amalgam of echolyn-like compositions and harmonies with Holdsworth-like guitar! (Coincidentally, my undergraduate thesis was inspired by Julian Jayne's seminal work of the same name that inspired the UR album).In heavy rotation, along with their other release "Through and Through" (thanks Disco Dave!) and satisfying that East Coast nineties prog itch while we await some new echolyn efforts!
Also turned onto John Galgano (IZZ)'s solo disc "Real Life is Meeting" and Paul Bremer's "the Witness". I'm a big fan of IZZ, have seen them several times and these releases are delightful (thanks again DD!)
I'm sure I've missed many more great modern US prog releases but I'm making up for lost time. There is something unique about the US symph prog sound, especially the East coast bands, that resonates with me, possibly my Joisey roots!
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