Still one of my favorite album outros.

Taurus is good, but it's my least favorite track on the album. Elephants Never Forget is a fantastic epic on there. Best song of the year so far.

Gorillaz - Demon Days

It was the first album I ever listened to back in 2006 when I was 10. I've been a huge prog rock/prog metal nerd for quite some time now, but Gorillaz were the first band I ever got into. I still have Demon Days & a few other albums from them in my catalog.

Dunno if you saw, but Haken released a new album a few weeks ago and it quickly became my new favorite from them. Maybe give it a try if you haven't already.

The Dear Hunter - Cascade (From their 2016 album Act V: Hymns With the Devil in Confessional. Album title lyric sung at 0:47 in the video.)

Leprous - Distant Bells (From their 2019 album Pitfalls. Title sung at 1:24.)

Kyros - Two Frames of Panic (From their 2020 album Celexa Dreams. Title sung at 0:37 & 1:57 in the video.)

Haken - Carousel (From their 2020 album Virus, and in case you're wondering, no, the title has nothing to do with covid. The album was written & finalized in 2018/19 and is just a coincidence. Title sung at 1:27.)

Phantogram - Black Out Days (From their 2014 album Voices. Title sung at 0:49.)

Genesis - Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (From their 1973 album Selling England by the Pound. Title sung at 0:44.)

Native Construct - Mute (From their 2015 album Quiet World. Title sung at 0:59.)

Between the Buried and Me - Obfuscation (From their 2009 album The Great Misdirect. Title sung at 8:36.)

Mine comes from more post-2000s prog: Haken, Leprous, BTBAM, Steven Wilson, Thank You Scientist. I've come across a lot of prog bands who don't have my particular happy medium of technicality & emotion, a lot of bands who I thought were decent and I would enjoy it if I heard their music somewhere, but not enough to the point where I needed to come back to them or add their music to my catalog.

Mine comes from more post-2000s prog: Haken, Leprous, BTBAM, Steven Wilson, Thank You Scientist. I've come across a lot of prog bands who don't have my particular happy medium of technicality & emotion, a lot of bands who I thought were decent and I would enjoy it if I heard their music somewhere, but not enough to the point where I needed to come back to them or add their music to my catalog.

I'm a huge prog rock/prog metal nerd and have gone through so many bands that had a bit of a spark, but one or 2 nitpicky things about them just didn't do it for me: Opeth, Riverside, Rush, Uriah Heep, Big Big Train, The Pineapple Thief, Ayreon, Anathema, Gazpacho, Bent Knee, the list goes on for miles.

When you listen to prog rock & prog metal, your head goes in every direction.

Hope you enjoy the rest! You're gonna have a blast with these albums, I just know it.

Thank you, I'm glad to hear you appreciated my post. I made some edits to it 'cause I forgot to add a few annotations.

Check these bands/artists out, starting with the albums listed:

Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015) *One of my all-time favorite albums. A true compelling and well-written musical marvel.

Thank You Scientist - Terraformer (2019) *The most fun and energetic prog album I know of. This band will blow you away.

Haken - The Mountain (2013) *Haken (Pronounced "Hay-ken") are my favorite band. They're more prog metal, but they incorporate a lot of rock elements in their music, with this album standing out the most in their discography in that regard.

Wobbler - Dwellers of the Deep (2020) *These guys are basically the lovechild of Yes & Jethro Tull. Highly influenced by 70s prog, but they're outstanding.

Leprous - Malina (2017)

Vulkan - Mask of Air (2011)

Check these bands/artists out, starting with the albums listed. They're a mix of prog metal & prog rock:

Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015) *One of my all-time favorites.

Haken - The Mountain (2013) *From this album, their song Falling Back to Earth will be one of the most fun and epic songs you will ever hear. Band's name is pronounced "Hay-ken."

Leprous - Malina (2017)

Thank You Scientist - Terraformer (2019)

Vulkan - Technatura (2020)

Caligula's Horse - In Contact (2017)

Old or new prog?

That's because you have big music publishing and labeling companies who need to promise more to their investors. They are a business first and have fiduciary responsibilities to the people invested in them. They have to make projections, and a company doesn't get invested in if they don't keep growing. Like any company, they adhere to the most secure methods to ensure continuous growth, so they base their growth & the amount of investment money they've attained on what music has worked before. And that's when they've reached the point where the music they make has become less about, "What emotions do I feel right now that I think can connect with different people?", and more about, "What music is going to appeal to the most people that an algorithm can share with as many listeners as possible?" And having algorithms that can do that is a big game changer in the present world of streaming digital music. The music is safe & easy, so it's low risk to the investors. And that's why today's pop music is incredibly shallow & stale, and the level of creativity is as dry as dirt. Reduce the risks to guarantee success. It's all about money and business growth. They do not care about how creative music can be. Not one iota.

Most people who aren't children who listen to this music are either A: Simply not that into music and will just listen to whatever's popular to pass the time (Turning on the radio during their commutes, playing "accessible" music playlists at parties, etc.), B: Care less about musical ingenuity and more about whether or not the music is trendy and if they can dance or get laid to it, or C: Just really like it and don't feel the need to delve deeper into the music genres, even though they definitely should do that because it would help broaden their horizons and augment their appreciation for the genres they listen to instead of just listening to whatever the record labels and radio broadcasters shove down their throats.

The pop music industry has trained the masses to expect less from how far creative minds can stretch. In the world of art, music can sustain our minds and emotions like nothing else, so when big industries are steadfast in selling the most basic & least inspiring music they can because it's easy to make and will guarantee financial success, they're straight-up deceiving you. They know they don't have to try hard or push creative boundaries because the music they've been selling for so long has worked, especially in recent decades since growing populations have developed short attention spans (Great job Tiktok) and could care less about deeper, innovative, and instrumentally & lyrically challenging music.

To escape this, I listen to modern prog rock & prog metal, where the level of writing and musicianship is god-tier, and takes actual attentiveness to absorb & enjoy, and I genuinely love it.

Leprous - The Sky is Red

Gojira - The Art of Dying

Uneven Structure - Funambule

I implore you to spend a week getting your mind blown by progressive metal band Haken. Start with their 3 best albums: Fauna, The Mountain & Affinity. You will have a blast listening to them, trust me.

Leprous - The Sky is Red

Agent Fresco - Dark Water

Jakub Zytecki - Eternal Fact of Water

Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015)

Haken - Bound by Gravity

Like a lot of people, DT got me into prog. I was starting college at the time (2014) when I began exploring their discography after hearing Panic Attack for the first time. DT were my gateway band to so many other fantastic prog bands & artists, my current top 10 favorites being Haken, Leprous, Between the Buried and Me, Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson, Thank You Scientist, Gojira, Vulkan, Caligula's Horse, David Maxim Micic, and TesseracT. My only regret is not getting into prog sooner.

I may not be as into DT's music as much as I was when I first started listening to them, but I still have a handful of their albums in my catalog that I occasionally come back to. Octavarium remains one of my all-time favorite songs too.

So op, if you like Dream Theater that much, I'm sure you've already listened to Haken, but in case you haven't, check out their 2013 album The Mountain. Their music is out of this world. They also just released a new album a couple weeks ago called Fauna and it is now my most favorite album from them. Band name is pronounced "Hay-ken."

Haken

Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015)

Haken - The Mountain (2013)

Thank You Scientist - Terraformer (2019)

Vulkan - Mask of Air (2011

Leprous - Malina (2017)

These albums are all worth your time.

Haken - Veil