rare prog from early 70s

Cool thread for finding some "new" good progressive music bands... I'm only familiar with the obvious one's to be honest. (Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull etc.)
 
Slightly off topic perhaps, since these guys aren't old, but they're reasonably obscure:

Diagonal

Absolutely fantastic amalgamation of everything that was great about 70s prog, they sound like a mix between Red/In the Court-era KC, Iron Butterfly, Pink Floyd amongst others. Definitely worth checking out. They ought to do for an old school prog revival what Witchcraft did for 60s/70s occult doom. You can listen to the entire album on the band's Last FM page I think. Just received my vinyl of their new album in the post today.
 
thank god for spotify. just queued some eloy, black bonzo and gentle giant after a quicky in this thread.

edit: gotta say that gentle giants octopus is packed with great stuff!
 
Free Hand is awesome. It's definitely my favorite of theirs, followed by The Power and the Glory and then Octopus.

I've checked out so many prog bands lately I can't list them all. I will mention Present, Samla Mammas Manna, Bubu, Gnidrolog, Yezda Urfa, to list just a few.
 
Hmmmm, I'm not sure if any of these were mentioned. Sorry if they were.

Univers Zero (was probably already mentioned): Dutch band of unrelenting darkness. One of the members of the Rock In Opposition "club".
Dun: An instrumental French band. Heavilly inspired by Magma but with influence from bands such as Zappa as well.
Shub-Niggurath: The French Zuehl band not the Mexican Death-Metal one. Crushingly dark stuff.
Present: Another very dark French band. Not from the 70's but actually from the 80's...

I'm actually quite the prog connoisseur but I'm really just not feeling it tonight. :/
 
May anyone explain what's this Avantgarde thing to me?? don't get it ! how does i sound like. I listened to Celtic Frost (which i loved it) and i thought they are trash or something like that, but in wikipedia they say they are "Avant-Garde" !!
 
The reason is that Celtic Frost, in their album Into The Pandemonium, had experimented with different influences on Thrash Metal base at the time no other band can dare to. Frost is the basis of '90s metal genres; Gothic Metal,Doom/Death Metal,Funeral Doom Metal,Symphonic Metal etc... Now the genre Avant-Garde Metal is used for the bands, who have progressive approach but processed differently from traditional Prog-Metal acts, adding more varied and non-metal influences to their music. Like The Sham Mirrors-era Arcturus or Kayo Dot or Jazz-influenced era of Ephel Duath.
 
Pavlov's Dog ? Some may find the stuff REALLY bad and admittedly, the lyrics are not that great, but instrumentally this band is pretty good. Guitar harmonies remind me of Blue Oyster Cult, the vocalist is for those who LOVE or enjoy Geddy Lee, and mellotron abound.

Pavlov's Dog Bio with Mp3
 
The whole avant-garde thing is basically bullshit. It's essentially progheads feeling that the "progressive" tag doesn't make their music sound superior enough and thus trying to inflate their ego a little more. Some avant-garde metal bands are a little more unique but others are not. Diabolical Masquerade, for example, gets tossed on the list because they split up a few normal songs into a bunch of songs and all the progheads thought it was just so damn innovative. Essentially anyone who uses the term thinks music is a competition.