I find the production on AFD's a bit dated; the drums in particular. I can't explain exactly what it is about those drums, but there's something, some reverb or the way they've been mic'ed up that makes them sound very, very 80s. It doesn't help that the album's never been properly remastered to give it a bit more punch. I'd be fascinated to hear the 1999 AFD redux - it's the thing I'm most curious about from the Chinese Democracy sessions. I'd even, I think, take a leak of that over a leak of Checkmate.

Of all the albums, the one that sounds least dated is the acoustic portion of Lies - probably because it's difficult for a stripped-down acoustic track to date.

UYI hasn't dated nearly as badly as AFD, IMO. It feels a bit redolent of the early 90s in places, but that's probably just my mind free-associating when I hear it, and conjuring up memories of Nintendo and Terminator 2 and Slash in plaid shirts.

The Spaghetti Incident... well, let's just say that Izzy's absence really makes that album suffer. I'd love to hear the original mixes, with Izzy in place of Gilby.

The jury's still out on Chinese Democracy, really. I think it sounds very of the moment, though - which is interesting, given that it was recorded over the course of a decade.

Stepvhen wrote:

Progressive:
favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters: a progressive mayor.

thats a definition of progressive the word...but prog rock is something entirely different

Progressive rock bands pushed "rock's technical and compositional boundaries" by going beyond the standard rock or popular verse-chorus-based song structures. The Oxford Companion to Music states that progressive rock bands "...explored extended musical structures which involved intricate instrumental patterns and textures and often esoteric subject matter." Additionally, the arrangements often incorporated elements drawn from classical, jazz, and world music. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme."  Progressive rock developed from late 1960s psychedelic rock, as part of a wide-ranging tendency in rock music of this era to draw inspiration from ever more diverse influences.

dreamtheater is prog rock...prog metal to be precise...Rush is also prog rock...i definately wouldnt classify SG (Grunge) nor NIN (Industrial) as being progressive rock