I'd driven past the Railway Hotel in Fremantle many times, and had heard it mentioned in various conversations with fellow music-lovers and musicians, but I never made the connection that the old and stereotypically "bogan" looking pub unceremoniously placed in the middle of the Fremantle docks was the same as the fairly revered band venue my friends had talked about. This was the first of many moments of cognitive dissonance I was to experience through this night of four seemingly mismatched bands united under the banner of "progressive". But then, what decent night of progressive music doesn't invoke those feelings, hey?

Unfortunately I arrived late and only managed to catch a few songs of opening band and "melodic prog newcomers" Slowlight's set. Said set was also cut short, unfortunately, due to technical problems. Namely, problems with amplification meant that the keyboards (which occupy a central role in many Slowlight songs) were out of comission.

I hesitate to judge or produce any kind of critical appraisal for the band or their performance, but nevertheless I could gather that Slowlight produced the sort of "pop-prog" you might hear out of Pain Of Salvation in their less ponderous moments. The songs also took a pleasing bluesy turn in several moments. Singer Talia Hardaker has all the looks of an archetypal metal/prog "diva", but her voice has a great gutsy quality which was definitely welcome, especially as I was expecting the typical high register histrionics which tend to go with female-fronted bands of Slowlight's stripe.

Each member, particularly guitarist Scott Kay and drummer Leonard Barker displayed both solid chops and a tendency to restraint in service of the song, although at times the band felt ill-at-ease with transitions in the music. I imagine that given time and on-stage experience, the necessary cohesiveness and song-writing skill that currently eludes them will fall into place.

The raw materials are certainly there for refining, and I look forward to catching them with all instruments functioning. As an aside, I was disappointed with the lack of keys, as keyboardist Mike Dann uses a Roland Juno-D, which my fellow gear-geeks will agree is totally bitchin'.

Second on stage were Perth technical death metal veterans Dogs Of War. I won't lie, before this set, I had more than a few pre-conceptions about Dogs, and very few of them positive. Tech-death is a very hard (sub-)genre to effectively differentiate oneself from the crowd in, and innovation is a rare thing. As far as I was concerned Dogs Of War were just another band who weren't contributing anything new to the genre. Old recordings leaned too heavily on the Meshuggah influence and weren't close to the tightness that the genre necessarily demands. And while Dogs' performance at the Railway didn't quite convert me to glowing praise, they did earn a few begrudging foot-taps and head-nods.

Of course, I still have my gripes. Firstly, slap-bass is unnecessary, and quite frankly ridiculous. Stop it. Also to file under "unnecessary" was the occasional "soft" or "melodic" interludes, perhaps designed to show off the singer's versatility or differentiate Dogs Of War from other, more one-dimensional bands. The actual result sounded more like a horrible throwback to the bridge of every Limp Bizkit song—apologies if this was actually the intended effect.

But it wasn't all bad. Since my last encounter with them, the band's technical skill has come more into line with their considerable ambition. They engaged the crowd admirably, getting existing fans suitably into it, considering their second-on-stage status, and making new fans along the way. The Meshuggah influence so writ-large over older material has receded, giving way to a more balanced set of inspirations which blend to form a sound at least largely individual to the band, if not completely innovative.

For me, the main glimmer of light from Dogs Of War's set was in the second last song, when the band momentarily abandoned the self-serious mentality and indulged in some Five Star Prison Cell-esque genre-bending, with healthy lashings of wah pedal and wry humour, something which the band had exhibited in between-song banter but had not crossed over to the music until then. In my opinion, playing with audience preconceptions like this would go a long way towards making a serious mark on an overcrowded style.

Next up were Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving, whose EP Tiny Fragments—which the band played in full in the course of their set—has previously been reviewed on OzProg. In the interest of disclosure, just let me say right now that I am an absolute mark for Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving, and I find it very hard to describe the experience of seeing this band without lapsing into histrionics and those "this-band meets this band on acid!" comparisons commonly found in the average amateur music review, so apologies in advance.

As good as Tiny Fragments is, the spectacle and power of seeing the band play live is another beast altogether. It may be a terribly overused word when it comes to describing progressive music, but on Friday the 25th of August 2008, Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving delivered a truly majestic performance.

Opening with the eighteen-minute title track from their EP, which bursts out of the gates in syncopated odd-time fits and starts before dissolving into laid-back piano figures punctured by bursts of noise similar to the involuntary spasms of a Tourette's sufferer, and eventually running the full gamut of prog, metal, jazz, lounge, noise-rock, math-rock, post-rock—They're like Don Caballero decapitating Explosions In The Sky with a John Zorn record! 80's cop show theme songs as performed by The Dillinger Escape Plan!... ahem, pardon me—and probably several other genres I wasn't aware existed over the course of its three parts.

The saving grace of Tangled Thought's fruit-salad approach to song structure is the establishment of several recognisable melodies and themes in their music which are returned to throughout, as well as what seems like an innate knowledge of when a certain tangent has run it's course, thus avoiding listener fatigue. The song's third part in particularly evolves from a sensitive mini-ballad, crescendoing—Between The Buried And Me-like—into another syncopated odd-time section, this time delivered in blunt-force shots of guitar, drums and dissonant piano, and dissolving suddenly and unexpectedly.

The finale of "Tiny Fragments" is one of those live musical moments where in the aftermath, you realise that you've forgotten to breathe through the entire thing. It is a rare group that can evoke moments of heartbreaking poignancy, overwhelming grandeur, and jaw-dropping virtuosity, but Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving do, and in 9/16 at that.

Headlining the Railway show, in a lead-up to the launch of their first full-length release, Avalon, are Perth metal royalty Chaos Divine. The Chaos boys were seemingly in a playful mood in what was a relatively low-key gig for them, and it showed in the between-song banter and their interaction with each other, and with the crowd. Despite this, the owners of the best guitar tone in Perth still delivered a professional and incredibly heavy set consisting of some old stuff, some new stuff, and one very interesting cover.

When a band announces that they are about to be covering an Opeth song, feelings of pessimism are not uncalled for. But to their credit Chaos Divine delivered as good a rendition of "The Baying Of The Hounds" that any band who is not Opeth could hope, in particular covering the absence of keyboards in the band admirably. One thing I noted with surprise was how well singer Dave Anderton handled the clean vocal sections, something which never quite reached the forefront of Chaos Divine's older work. Might this be a good sign for the new songs?

I guess we'll find out when Chaos Divine launch their new album, Avalon on the 12th and 13th of September.