I really question if you actually read SilverSword's post.. He was saying that both of those bands are, in fact, Progressive Metal. I should mention that use of keyboards or harsh vocals, or lack thereof, have little to no impact on whether or not a band is classed as "Progressive". Harsh vocals would only contribute to whether the band was Progressive Metal or Progressive Rock. The more relevant features in Progressive are odd time signatures, frequently modulating key signatures, and pretension. However, that's a bit of an aside. I think SilverSword's point was more that two bands can be in the same genre but superficially sound almost nothing like one another, particularly in genres that have had a long time to evolve. As for emo being a genre, it most certainly is. The tag tends to be misused often in place of more appropriate terms such as Pop-Punk (All American Rejects) or Metalcore (Bullet for my Valentine). Follow stevepole's advice and actually read up on what you're talking about. Emo stems from punk, and early emo bands do actually share a lot of similarities with punk. Over time, however, a lot of the punk element of emo has become less apparent, and so it'll be harder to notice it in modern emo.