Hmm. After listening to the two tunes now, I'm torn between two opinions:
1.) Great effort, incredible chops, excellent production, good potential
2.) It just doesn't move me. I can't pin down why that is; I think my best guess is that it's prog for sake of being prog. So, if there was ever a check list of what makes a song "modern prog", the tunes had them all checked off.
rumborak