The 25 Greatest Prog Metal Albums of the 2010's: 20-16

Background: Any list of this nature should strive to reflect the consensus surrounding the artwork being evaluated. Unfortunately, progressive metal is a genre which, given its experimentation and often independent production and distribution, resists the formation of such a consensus. Still, an intense survey of various musical press outlets, album rating websites, and social media forums yielded enough of a picture that, coupled with my own evaluations of the music, was conducive to the formation of such a list. I have limited this list to one entry per artist in order to mitigate any partiality I may have towards specific artists.

Link to Spotify playlist with the Recommended Tracks for each album

20. Elder, ‘Lore’

Recommended Tracks: Compendium, Lore

We’ve all heard the refrain before: rock n’ roll, or “guitar,” music is long dead and actually still dying. Cliché as it may be, the claim is backed up by the Billboard numbers. Those rock acts that do manage to top the charts, acts like Coldplay and Imagine Dragons, have grown to use the guitar and the traditional trappings of rock as an accessory to music that is increasingly electronic based. Wittingly or not, Nick DiSalvo, the front man and, on this record, sole guitarist of Elder, has stepped up to prove that the almighty riff is still King. Armed with a monster stoner rock guitar tone and a killer rhythm section, , the album’s 5 sprawling tracks aim to take the listener on a journey across colorful and ambitious soundscapes, a feat made all the more impressive given the core ensemble of musicians is essentially a power trio. Rock may have died in the mainstream. Independent progressive metal revived it.

19. Vektor, ‘Terminal Redux’

Recommended Tracks: Cygnus Terminal, Pillars of Sand, Recharging the Void

As prog-metal Youtuber ‘Mike the Music Snob’ recently explained, many bands earn their prog label simply on account of their sounding “like other progressive bands that we’ve heard before.” While this may be true even of certain bands and albums featured on this list, Vektor’s ‘Terminal Redux’ is an album that is squarely in the category of prog metal albums that innovate and advance the genre forward. The music on this record is bonified uncompromising thrash metal. But the riffs and chords are allowed to venture into exceptionally emotive places, even full on major scale passages. Perhaps most impressively, the thrash metal manages to successfully convey the drama and emotion of the album’s detailed and ambitious storyline about a lauded but megalomaniacal spaceship commander who harnesses a cosmic power to first save humanity, but then pursue domination.

18. Tesseract, ‘Altered State’ (2013)

Recommended Tracks: Of Matter – Retrospect, Of Mind - Nocturne, Of Mind – Eclipse, Of Energy - Singularity

The most important movement in modern progressive metal has been the proliferation of the so-called “djent” style; “djent” being an onomatopoeia for the sound that emerges when playing highly syncopated palm muted guitar riffs on down tuned or extended range guitars accompanied by polyrhythmic percussion. While the excesses of the style/genre have been the fertilizer for a thriving internet meme sub-culture, the movement did succeed in bringing desperately needed innovation to metal riffing across many of its sub-genres. ‘Altered State’, Tesseract’s 2013 release, is one of the best examples of the djent style and the level of innovation it was capable of releasing on the metal world. Impossibly complex yet still infectious grooves are coupled with reverb heavy synth and clean electric guitar generated ambience in order to move listeners into an ‘altered state’ of consciousness. While it may take a few listens, this album is sure to expand your appreciation for just how much can be accomplished when “djent” and rhythmic experimentation are utilized tastefully.

17. Thank You Scientist, ‘Stranger Heads Prevail’ (2015)

Recommended Tracks: Mr. Invisible, Blue Automatic, Psychopomp

Thank You Scientist have pushed progressive metal into previously uncharted territory. By forgoing the standard keyboardist accessory piece and swapping in a violinist and several wind instrumentalists, Thank You Scientist bring ska-punk, jazz fusion, and jam band sensibilities to a genre that has been historically resistant to those elements. While the band’s first record ‘Maps of Non-existent Places’ could be considered something of a classic, ‘Stranger Heads’ brings more varied and experimental song writing to the fore thus resulting in one of the most colorful listening experiences you will ever encounter. Thanks to the success of their most recent 2019 release ‘Terraformer’, Thank You Scientist is poised to become one of the powerhouse prog acts of the next decade.

16. Animals as Leaders, ‘The Joy of Motion’

Recommended Tracks: Kascade, Another Year, Physical Education

The trio of musicians that is Animals as Leaders is arguably the most technically gifted group of musicians to appear on this list - quite an impressive feat when you consider that technical proficiency is essentially a requirement for achieving prog metal greatness. Tosin Abasi, the band’s founding member and primary song writer, emerged from the 2000’s metalcore scene with an 8-string guitar ready to djent (see previous Tesseract entry). Of course, Tosin’s inhuman playing abilities and impressive musical imagination ultimately made it impossible for him to limit his musical expression to any one sub-genre. He thus turned to jazz and avant-guard metal to breathe a new kind of life into his compositions.

On ‘The Joy of Motion,’ Animals have crafted an album that is simultaneously brainy and sophisticated but still capable of supplying some more down to earth fun to its listeners. While it is very unlikely this highly experimental and technical form of music would ever find much success in the mainstream, ‘The Joy of Motion’ still managed to capture an outsized audience for the group.