Progressive tends to be a rather level, peakless experience mild and middling. It's certainly the last genre I thought would generate anything exciting, until a chubby-cheeked German called Timo Maas came along. Sound becomes spectacular. Still, a curious blankness lingers. Eliminating the aspects of rave that harked back to youth movements like hippie and punk, progressive achieves a kind of purity.
Sound becomes spectacle.
And that's not progressive in any sense of the word. Simon Reynolds Tell us what you think. E-mail this story to a friend. To advertise in Music contact Christa Dwyer or Carol Eicher .