Let's Talk About Progmatism: The Video

I made a video essay

Good morning,

Today I am proud to present the first ever Lamniformes Hi-Fi video essay. The title of this video is a molten and everchanging property, as is demanded by the hungry beast of the YouTube recommendation engine, but to me this video will always be called “Let’s Talk About Progmatism”. Fittingly it is an adaptation of my three part series from the fall of 2024 also titled “Let’s Talk About Progmatism”. Shortly after finishing that series my friend Zack Berinstein hit me up to join him for barbeque in the West Loop. Anytime Zack suggests BBQ I know we’re about to have a productive conversation. As we worked through our ribs and assorted sides Zack hit me with a doozy: what if we turned those three newsletters into a video essay? Sign me up. After reworking the original copy into a script, rehearsing that script, shooting over two days, and editing over many, many more, we bring you the fruits of our labor.

Over a brisk 30 minutes this video argues why and how music culture must move beyond the simple binary of rockism vs poptimism and instead embrace the radical potential of PROG. Topics discussed include: Richard Rorty, the differences between prog as genre and as a philosophy, Peter Gabriel’s flower costumes, the wisdom of Immortal Technique, and much more. There are lots of visual gags, so while you may be tempted to put the video on in the background while you make dinner or hit the gym I’d encourage you to carve out the time to watch it with your full attention.

Before we get to the video I need to establish that while I am the writer of the script and the “on screen talent”, the majority of the sweat equity on this project belongs to Zack. Zack acted as producer, cinematographer, lighting and audio technician, editor, and, due to my enduring moodiness about self-promotion, marketing coordinator. I really can’t thank the guy enough. If you want a full list of Zack’s credits as well as his detailed notes on the production of this video please peruse his official companion document to the video.

Finally, if you want to follow up this video with a deep dive into the artists discussed, I made an accompanying playlist because LMAO of course I did. You can find that playlist on Apple Music or YouTube. If you use Spotify and/or need me to tell you how to copy the playlist to your streaming platform of choice, buddy you ain’t going to make it. I’ve had the playlist on in the background while writing this letter and let me tell ya, it’s some real “oops all bangers” stuff.

Without any further ado, PROGMATISM:

Thank you for watching, and please feel to subscribe for more like this in the future.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Listen to this year’s diary on Apple Music.

“Tremble” by Chamber (A Love To Kill For, 2023)

I remember editing some early coverage of Chamber back at Invisible Oranges. Glad to see that they’re still at it at least as recently as 2023, admittedly a lifetime when it comes to hardcore bands. They’re a lot more fidgety than I remembered. What I dig about this song is that it has two completely different kinds of rhythmic payoffs at either end of the song that both illicit equally scrunched-up riff faces. First is the blast beat section that gives way to a funkier and chopped up version of the same riff. Then at the end of the song they take a rhythm that feels set-up for another break down and instead kick into a short two-step pace before cutting off. This is smart stuff!

“Crosseyed and Painless” by Florence Adooni (Naive Melodies, 2026)

I’m only vaguely aware of the original track, Remain in Light being a record I typically enjoy when someone else decides to put it on, but whew boy do I love this cover. The drums are ripping it, but keep the volume low enough for the rest of the band to still sound laidback and casual. I’ve got my eyes and ears on Adooni’s originals from here on out.

“Trapeze” by Roc Marciano (656, 2026)

All due respect to Roc who sounds great as always over this reserved and dusty sample, but Errol Holden takes this song and runs with it coast to coast. “Scream the Devil/Aaron Neville, high-pitched”, I mean, come on. They had to fade and phase the guy out or he’d have lit the whole tape on fire.

“Unravel” by Poppy (Empty Hands, 2026)

I got so distracted by the amen break-work in the verse that I didn’t even realize that this song was in 6/8 until the chorus, that’s some slick stuff! As always what I enjoy about Poppy is that I can tell that I’d like the song even if it’d been recorded as a pure pop piece without the metal elements, which makes the metal stuff a nice bonus instead of the sugar that keeps me engaged with a song lacking those same pop fundamentals. Quite a brisk ending, too.

“sense (is)” by Hemlocke Springs (The Apple Tree Under The Sea, 2026)

Sometimes making the chorus less loud than the verse makes it hit harder. This song should do real numbers at Halloween dance parties this year. I can assure you that if you’ve listened to a lot of pop music that you’ve heard nearly every turn that this song takes, but you probably haven’t heard them all deployed together and with such effortless grace. The syncopation! The minor to major resolutions! Just gorgeous.

\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /

Here are five micro reviews of albums from my vast Rate Your Music catalog. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links.

Painkiller by Judas Priest (1990) - Heavy Metal

WARNING: Do not listen to this in warm weather or you may be inspired to commit the following reckless acts: shotgunning 12 beers, operating a chainsaw while riding a motorcycle, welding while shirtless, swinging a metal chain over your head for 40 uninterrupted minutes. Priest’s final album of the original Rob Halford run, before he exited both the band & the closet, is essentially their final word on the sound of 80s metal and proof that they could hang with the younger, heavier bands they inspired. It’s all killer no filler right from the jump. By law if a metal band hires a hot new drummer they should start their next album with a gnarly drum intro. Double kick has never sounded better, and never needed to get faster than it is on this record. The lyrics are the usual from Halford, extolling the virtues of rocking hard and the attributes of various badass guys he made up. Few albums make me grin like a bigger idiot than this one. An essential metal classic.

Enemy of The Sun by Neurosis (1992) - Alternative Metal¹

Boy did I pick the right year to dust off the Neurosis discography, eh? This is the album where they graduated from being a very ambitious hardcore band to being, well, Neurosis. Here’s where their rhythm forward, hypnotically repetitive, sample spiced, low-tuned guitar & triple-singer attack truly came together. Their lyrical content is just as multifaceted, plucking liberally from Christianity, Buddhism, pagan and indigenous spiritual practices to articulate a philosophy of self-discipline. It’s very bay area, from a time when that meant white guys with dreads and bad acid instead of quarter zips and micro-dosing. What strikes me most about this record coming from their later material is how together they sound here. Every singer chimes in on nearly every song, and the whole band sound like one furious roaring flame. Special attention must be paid to Jason Roeder’s drum performance however. This band simply would not work without his ability to groove at slow tempos or his signature approach to playing the toms. I used to treat this as just a warm-up to Through Silver In Blood but these days I think it’s one of Neurosis’s best. “Raze The Stray” goes crazy hard. If you skip the percussion jam at the end of the album you are false and cannot entry. Great record.

The Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse (1997) - Indie Rock

This band, and this record in particular, had such a seismic impact on my friends that shelved it for years in order to avoid reliving high school. With fresh ears I can hear why this one made such an impression. It’s a major glow up from their debut, despite not being significantly different. The band just sound more rehearsed, more intentional, more self-assured. I’m not the biggest fan of Isaac Brock’s songwriting, but the rhythm section is KILLER, and Brock’s guitar playing gets a lot out of his limited bag of tricks (harmonics + whammy bar into infinity). “Doin’ The Cockroach” into “Cowboy Dan” has to be an all time indie rock one-two punch. Love “Trucker Atlas” too. The band do a great job of evoking the mundane repetition of road life. Really I can’t say enough about Jerimiah Green, without his drumming I doubt this band would been nearly as big. I imagine there are probably younger listeners who retroactively want to call this an emo album, at the very least they called my friends emo bands when they tried to sound like this album, but to me it sounds like a natural extension of what bands like Pixies and Slint were pushing towards earlier in the decade. Good stuff!

Twilight In Olympus by Symphony X (1998) - Progressive Metal

Ah, Symphony X, the preferred metal band of boys who think about the Roman Empire daily and run a mean White/Blue control deck. For some reason, I’d filed this as a lesser release from them. No clue as to why. Besides “Lady Of The Snow”, a song that I’d rather die than be caught listening to in public, this has everything a Symphony X fan could want. The first four songs in particular are a hell of a run, all blessed with terrific choruses and catchy melodies nestled inside the neo-classical filigree. Pretty neat that they wrote an anti-AI song in “Church of the Machine” all the way back in the 90s, despite seeming like the kind of band that would now use terrible slop with abandon. Russell Allen sounds phenomenal, both as a ham sandwich howler and in his AOR-worthy stacked harmonies. Usually when people praise Symphony X’s technical skills they refer to the bands bonkers soloing, but I’d like to instead highlight their nasty control of rhythm. “Dragon’s Den” pulls off some Meshuggah-esque polymeter work, while “Through The Looking Glass” shows off some classic prog dexterity. This is some top shelf dork metal, just please don’t listen to that closing track.

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater (2002) - Progressive Metal

For my money this is the best record of the Portnoy & Petrucci production era, and boy does Turbulence give you your money’s worth. The first four tracks are as much fun as you can have with Dream Theater’s music without being a member of the band, striking a perfect balance between keeping up with the cutting edge of alternative rock and heavy metal and maintaining DT’s core identity. Track five is an interminable ballad (auto skip) and then, whew, track six is a 42 minute long song cycle about the DSM that gets its own separate disc. It’s reasonable to ask why anyone would be compelled to write and record such a thing. My theory is that this is the first album where Dream Theater embraced their destiny as a Christian rock act. Across the record they emphasize human frailty, the importance of humbling yourself to higher power, and not meddling in God’s affairs, before ending on a lesson about treating other people’s struggles with grace. In this light their prodigious technical skill can be seen as an expression of dedication and devotion, kinda like gospel chops. No wonder both do so well at Berklee! Whether you can get past this and enjoy the prog madness depends on your stomach for sentiment and your desire for odd time signatures. Personally, I lose it every time the breakdown in “The Glass Prison” hits and I’m not afraid to admit it!

1. Post-metal isn’t real, and the world isn’t ready for my take that Neurosis are nu-metal, so you’ll have to deal with this instead.