Concrete Prophet- Phreeze Phrame

This is a real-time review of "Freeze Frame" by Concrete Prophet, a really cool progressive rock band. The video can be found here. It took me forever to post this, because it sort of slipped out of my mind I suppose. I will pause the video at certain points and type thoughts. OK, here goes:

0:13 - the opening riff. With a snare hit from the drummer and a declaration of love from the audience, the opening riff is introduced. It consists of four power chords (F#, E, B, A) that contain notes only found in the F#m pentatonic scale. The rhythm is the three-against four polyrhythm found in almost every piece of music. Creative, huh? Once I realized that progressive music was supposed to be creative, I swore off that sure-fire endorphin generator in my songs.
0:20 - Visual aspect of the band: being part of the extended audience, I can form an opinion about the band from its visual appearance. The singer looks powerful, and the guitarist looks like that guy from Two and a Half Men. The bassist is tall, has what appears to be a six-string bass that sounds like John Myung's from Dream Theater.

0:30 - I see the bassist has started playing a nice little high line that sounds like an arpeggio of an A, an E, and a B major chord. There's some harmonic sensibility. The cameraman appears to know the song.

1:00 - The guitarist has been playing a slow tapping thing focusing on the C#m chord, and the drummer's hanging out on what sounds like a rimshot; he starts doing some cool cymbal work. The singer comes in; I can't discern the lyrics or his ability at this time. The bassist stops, the cymbals continue in a subtle example of layering. My favorite kind of layering is by people like Neal Morse and Phil Keaggy-you never actually think "Oh, it's quiet now," because there are no sudden changes. I still can't accomplish that.

1:20 - the bassist now plays a rhythm guitar part- an E chord with an F#m on the pickup. This is starting to reinforce the C#m/E tonality laid down by the guitarist.

1:30 - The bassist plays an A, an E, and an D (chords still- not there's anything wrong with that) and the singer's melody helps remind us of the A key. The singer's volume overall decreased, meaning he overcompensated for the increasing volume of his voice. The bassist taps some inaudible note, complementing the guitar switch from fingerpicking to an actual chord, like with a third and stuff. It looks awkward and possibly just for show. More three-on-four polyrhythms. I like the singer's operatic voice.

2:00 - Back to the verse and ambiguous tonality.

2:30 - The singer is very engaging. The drummer is like, "Yeah, I know what's up."

3:00 - Big chord! Distortion! The singer has fun for a while then the guitarits resumes his tapping, only starts a beat earlier. It sounds pretty cool.

3:10 - The drummer and bassist start rocking out a little. The pattern changes...the singer dances around a little...then some faster tapping! Sounds good. Bassist doing sweet stuff. Head banging! Main riff again!

4:05 - Chorus again! This time, it's intense. Everybody's letting it loose a little. Near the end of the chorus, the bassist and singer are being awesome.

4:30 - Main riff again, little one-beat drum solo, the half-time for a bit. The singer joins in. Lots of applause.

Debriefing: Nice stage presence by everybody. The singer's doing a killer job, he's the AV master. The bassist is doing chords and runs and supporting parts and tapping and the works-I tawt I thaw thome thwapping in the final chorus. The guitarist is like Phil Keaggy or Steve Howe - he knows Howe to shred and Phil up space, but is more musical than that. I did make that up just now. OK, enough adulation, this is what could be better. I can't really see how this is progressive metal- it has one time signature, standard structure, no keyboard player (thus, no dueling solos, although I'm sure the bassist could handle it) and a five-minute length. All-around great job, if you classify it as straight-up rock. Expect more to come.