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Genres Heavy Metal Progressive Metal

Progressive Metal

Metal for people who like long songs. Odd metres, concept albums, and musicianship as the point rather than the means.

Active years
1988 – present
Origin
USA
Family
Progressive Metal
Bands here
29

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Images and Words Dream Theater, 1992 The landmark

    The record that made progressive metal a genre rather than a description. Five conservatoire-trained musicians, a singer with a four-octave range, and a hit single in odd time — which should not have worked and did.

    Listen to Images and Words

  2. Destroy Erase Improve Meshuggah, 1995

    The record djent came out of, filed under progressive metal because in 1995 there was no such thing as djent and Meshuggah have spent thirty years saying they are not it. Polyrhythms played with the precision of a machine shop, and still the strangest-sounding album in this family.

    Listen to Destroy Erase Improve

  3. Operation: Mindcrime Queensrÿche, 1988

    A concept album about a political assassination that actually works as a story. Predates Dream Theater and is more listenable than most of what followed.

    Listen to Operation: Mindcrime

  4. Lateralus Tool, 2001

    Rhythmically the most interesting thing in the genre, and the only prog metal record your non-metal friends already own.

    Listen to Lateralus

What it sounds like

Long songs that go somewhere. Odd time signatures, tempo and key changes mid-piece, instrumental sections that exist to be admired, and arrangements that treat a seven-minute track as short. The playing is the point: this is the genre where musicianship is on display rather than in service of the riff. Clean singing, usually high and technically accomplished. It is not especially heavy, dark or aggressive by metal standards, and much of it is closer to seventies progressive rock with a modern guitar tone than to anything extreme. Whether you enjoy it depends almost entirely on whether you find virtuosity thrilling or exhausting, and both reactions are reasonable.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 3 out of 5
  • Aggression 2 out of 5
  • Technicality 5 out of 5
  • Darkness 2 out of 5
  • Melody 4 out of 5

Where the name came from

Borrowed directly from 'progressive rock' (prog rock) — a 1970s term for rock that 'progressed' beyond pop structures, embracing classical complexity and ambitious concept albums. Dream Theater applied this philosophy to metal beginning with their 1989 debut When Dream and Day Unite.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Dream Theater USA
  • Queensrÿche USA
  • Tool USA
  • Opeth Sweden
  • Fates Warning USA

And 24 more

  • Symphony X USA
  • Threshold UK
  • Porcupine Tree UK
  • Pain of Salvation Sweden
  • Watchtower USA
  • Nevermore USA
  • Spiral Architect Norway
  • Sieges Even Germany
  • Vanden Plas Germany
  • Leprous Norway
  • Ayreon Netherlands
  • The Gathering Netherlands
  • Voivod Canada
  • Devin Townsend Canada
  • Annihilator Canada
  • 3 Inches of Blood Canada
  • Striker Canada
  • Subterranean Masquerade Israel
  • Amaseffer Israel
  • Winterhorde Israel
  • Deity's Muse South Africa
  • Flor de Loto Peru
  • Ahoora Iran
  • Meshuggah Sweden

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

  • Canada Canadian Progressive & Extreme Metal 5 bands
  • Israel Middle Eastern Metal 3 bands
  • Netherlands Dutch Symphonic, Gothic & Death Metal 3 bands

What it led to

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.