If you like Peart, you’ll LOVE Portnoy. In fact, there are a lot of guys like that, it’s just that Peart is the most well known.
Dream Theater (Portnoy’s band) has about 12 CDs out since the 80s. They’re just less famous than Rush. In fact, they do some Rush covers in their act, and they do them flawlessly and even cleaner than Rush does them!
Neal Morse and ‘Transatlantic’ are not as heavy as Portnoy’s day job (Dream Theater) but is still full of progressive goodness. 23 awards from Modern Drummer magazine and one of the youngest drummers elected in the Rock Drummer Hall of Fame will tell you he is "not too shabby".
Excellent. I have heard of Dream Theater but I’ve never purchased any of their music. Any suggestions for a first CD? Thanks!