Stride.. I must recommend this amazing new band. I borrowed their CD "Imagine" from a friend and CANNOT stop listening. They play killer, smooth, melodic metal. Some might say Prog (their influences are mostly prog rock and metal) but they certainly have a wide appeal to their sound.

Check out their myspace page and listen to a song or two. I recommend starting with the title track "Imagine" since it's the album opener and introduces the band well. All songs are amazing though (even the ballads, lol). This is a really high quality, professinal band. The compositions are tight, all instruments are impressive and the vocals, wow: soaring, smooth male vocals. If you like prog, classic power, heavy or any quality melodic metal then try Stride

http://www.myspace.com/stride1

Hey no replies here...that's to bad. Just downloaded four tracks from this band yesterday. They are all from Imagine and they're really good. They're really emotional in some way and the music is just great. I can understand why you couldn't stop listen to them back then.
The myspace link is not for their page btw

Oh yes, for some reason they removed their myspace page. I hope that isn't indicative of band activity...

Here is their main page link: http://www.strideonline.com/http://www.strideonline.com/

Imagine is a brilliant album of melodic progressive metal but I also ended up buying their Christmas album "Bah Humbug" which is comparably good. It's mostly all instrumental, in the style of heavy guitar-hero lead carols... and kicks the Trans Siberian Orchestra's ass

If I can find Imagine I'm pretty sure I'll buy it right away...might check out that christmas album as well.

Stride were a fantastic band. Years later I still listen to both "Music Machine" & "Imagine" on a regular basis & i was hoping to hear a new album from them sometime soon but it appears they have disbanded I couldn't find much info on this, all i found was one line that bass player Mike Martin wrote on his myspace page "Due to many internal issues, STRIDE dismantled and went separate ways." A real shame...

They disbanded?...that's not good news I really like their music, but it's just so hard to find here

I think they are disbanded Their myspace page is gone and when I tried contacting the band they never replied. The left a nice legacy though, and a wonderful/fun heavy metal christmas album

Yeah looks like it unfortunately Haven't been able to find that christmas album yet but I'll keep searching