10 Greatest Prog Metal Albums 

Thank you, Jim!!!! I appreciate the shout out!!!

Fantastic Jim! Blackwater Park is totally deserving of that spot! I would have placed Empath higher personally but I appreciate how difficult such a list is to place! Nice honourable mention of ADHD! ❤

Hey Jim, good call including a Mastodon album, definitely masters of prog. Hushed & Grim is a great album but personally Crack the Skye and Bloody Mountain are top of their pile for me. Similarly for Gojira, Fortitude is really solid but From Mars to Sirius and The Way of All Flesh are superior. Finally, Lateralus is top 3 overall. Anyway, all shades of brilliance!

I absolutely love Riverside!

So glad you talked about Wilderun! Veil of Imagination has been my favorite album of the past 10 years or so. I feel like they never get talked about, and I wonder if it’s because they just fall through the cracks for most people. Too folky/symphonic for the metal crowd, too metal for the prog crowd? But glad to see you mention them. Here are some other of my favorites: Opeth: Blackwater Park Dream Theater: Awake Caligula’s Horse: In Contact Alkaloid: Liquid Anatomy Blood Incantation: Hidden History of the Human Race Haken: The Mountain Exivious: Liminal (more metal fusion than prog) Other albums on the periphery: Dodecahedron: kwintessens (proggy avant garde black metal) Afterbirth: In But Not Of (proggy death/post metal) Thanks for the great video!

Love it! I haven’t heard a lot of these bands so I literally paused your video at each artist and added the albums to my new Apple Music playlist Prog Metal.. I of course added the entire catalog of Tool, Gojira, and Mastodon.. can’t wait to play these

Really enjoyed this video and plan to check out some of these. I'm lean more towards prog than heavy, although I've tally been enjoying some Porcupine Tree lately. I would like to suggest that maybe you could do a reaction video to a one-off album by Guilt Machine, called On This Perfect Day. It's one of Arjen Lucassen's projects from 2009. It stands out for me as one of his best collaborations, and it's one of my favorite albums overall. Would love to share this with you!

Many thanks for drawing my attention to some of these that I would otherwise have never found. Much appreciated!

I'm pretty new to prog metal, so I only knew 3 of these albums, so thanks for some suggestions. Already listened to some Opeth after this video, and already like what I've heard. Despite Muse being my favorite band, I would go with "On top of the world" as my Dream Theater pick, as that was the first album I've ever heard, that changed how I feel about music. Also unsure whether Seventh Son would be my Iron Maiden pick, I think I prefer Book of Souls or Somewhere in Time more.

I’m glad you included Hushed and Grim!

Super solid list Jim. Some entries are matching with mine, some are not, but it does not matter. There are no bad or undeserving albums in the list.

It would be difficult for me to pick an album as my favourite tracks are spread across three, but Jinjer have to be in the conversation about best prog metal bands. Most attention is understandably directed at singer Tatiana Shmayluk's incredible vocal abilities, both clean and growls, but the entire band is supremely talented. Check out I Speak Astronomy, a six minute epic which clocks up four different time signatures in the first minute, including a brain-mangling 6/8, 7/8, 6/8 three bar riff with the last bar divided into four one and a half beat intervals.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your wilderun Suggestion! Never heard of them and now i Listen this album on repeat😂. Amazing!!!

Great list! My favourite genre! Here's my top 10: 1. Protest the Hero - Kezia 2. Between the Buried and Me - Colors 3. Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory 4. Haken - Aquarius 5. The Human Abstract - Digital Veil 6. Tesseract - Altered State 7. Native Construct - Quiet World 8. Today I Caught the Plague - Lore 9. Caligula’s Horse - Moments from Ephemeral City 10. Art by Numbers - Reticence: The Musical

Great list. Thank you. But if I had to choose a Mastodon album, it would always be Leviathan. Amazing Moby Dick-themed album.

I cant tell you how happy I am with your choice for number 1. Couldn't agree more!

Elder!! Great band!

PS: oops, forgot Pain Of Salvation - In the passing light of day 😅

Not sure whether I could give you a list, Jim, as I'd agonise about what was prog, what was metal and what was prog-metal. Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and many others are plainly metal, but have all done proggy stuff. Do they count? Similarly, some King Crimson, VdGG and even Genesis (The Knife) is metal. For me, the start of prog-metal is Dream Theater and any albums in a prog-metal list would have to post-date Images and Words but even then, a top 10 list is too difficult. Number one though is Metropolis Part 2: Scenes from a Memory and that's as far as I'm going!

Ok now that I know you put Opeth #1 (correctly), I will listen to the rest of the albums! :D

I will write before I read any comment. I'm sure if you get 10 or 20 comments, you will get 10 or 20 different lists. And as I follow your countdown I realize, that although our taste often is very similar, our lists look very different in the end 😆 OK, let's start with the honorable mentions, as you did: I also have Riverside, but the album is Second Life Syndrome. Next is Relocator - Relocator, a german progmetal project featuring Derek Sherinian. Another band you'll find in many lists is Fates Warning, and the fans are divided - is the original singer John Arch the better or Ray Alder ... I like both, but I like the "rawness" of album nr 1 Night on Bröcken, many will say Awaken the Guardian is the masterpiece. Threshold's Hypothetical belongs in this list. Nevermore's Godless Endeavour is another great one, I think somebody else already requested this album. Prospekt, another band of my progmetal mixtape, their album is The Colourless Sunrise. And last but not least the cooperation of John Arch (ex Fates Warning) and his former mate Jim Matheos deserves to be mentioned: Arch/Matheos - Sympathetic Resonance. So here is my Top 10 of today. If there's a Top 20, there would be more Dream Theater, but other than you, Octavarium is not in my Top 5 of their albums .... for reasons 😁 And I can say that my Top3 are pretty safe on the "throne" 🤘 10. Wheel - Resident Human 9 . Bigelf - Into the Maelstrom 8. Redemption - cannot decide between Snowfall on Judgement Day or This Mortal Coil 7. Vandenplas - Christ 0 - from Germany .... also on the channel this year 6. Communic - Waves of visual decay - not know to the channel, great band from Norway ... just be patient 😆 5. Ayreon - The Universal Migrator pt 2 4. Opeth - Ghost Reveries 3. Dream Theater - Metropolis pt2 - Scenes from a memory 2. Rush - Moving Pictures 1. Dream Theater - Awake A special project, which also deserves to be mentioned includes your favourite Haken. In 2017 Mike Portnoy toured with his Shattered Fortress "band" and performed his complete 12 step suite ... It was him plus Eric Gillette of Neal Morse Band and the whole of Haken except for the drummer (of course 🤣) I saw this live and it was awesome 🤘🤘

Not a bad list, Jim! I can't agree 100%, of course, but you've got some good ones in there! Not sure I know enough prog to make a list of ten myself, if I'm being honest. 🤣

I'll have to check some of these out.🤔 Are you familiar with Oceansize, Jim? They made some magnificent music in the prog realm. If you don't know them, you absolutely should.👍

Hi Jim, Let’s see if we can agree on this 😅 I don’t ever heard of some of the bands or albums you name. Riverside and Elder are great. Yes, Mastodon album is a great one. I love Empath. Octavarium is great too. Yes, this is a proggy Maiden album. I love the Mountain too. Old Opeth and Tool are no go areas for me. I miss 😢 these albums. They would be in my top ten studio albums. Ayreon - Into the electric castle. Or 01011001. Nightwish - Endless forms most beautiful IQ - the road of bones Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime. I also miss live albums or are you doing a top ten ten of them too?

i know who are the greatest band 🌀 i'm just here to know some interesting and new stuff for me from the folks here with a good music taste.. Thanks for this content !!

NO TRANSATLANTIC??? I'm really surprised and disappointed e.g. "The whirlwind" didn't make it on your list but understand all the other great music on earth the choice is very hard. 😉 May I suggest another amazing album, which was also selected and honered as prog rock album of the year in Germany 2023 e.g. by stone prog magazine which is "Marek Arnold's Art Rock Project" which btw was also available in beautiful limited blue double vinyl (knowing you are a fan of that, unfortunately sold out a.t.m.) containing brilliant music including participation of more than 50 guest musicians such as Derek Sherinian, Marco Minnemann, Craig Blundell, Laurence Cottle, Peter Jones and many many more. Worth to check this one out really! 💯

Excellent choices!

Well, I agree with Tool's Lateralus in the top 10, and Innate Passage would be a contender for me too. Otherwise....., I mean I do like most of these albums but hardly any of these are top 10 material for me. I have a Porcupine Tree album in my top 10 too but Deadwing isn't even in my top 5 PT albums. Interesting choices. We all hear things differently, thank god ;-)! My top 10, no particular order: Psychotic Waltz-Into the Everflow, Tool-Lateralus, Fates Warning-Awaken the Guardian, Sieges Even-Steps, Spiral Architect-A Sceptic's Universe, Porcupine Tree-In Absentia, Dream Theater-When Dream and Day unite (yes, I heard the debut when it came out and it's still my fav DT), Giant Squid-Metridium Fields, Cynic-Kindly bent to free us, Voivod-Dimension Hatross. Cheers

Wilderun!! Amazing pick, amazing band!

New to me is Porcupine Tree. Although I haven't heard all of their songs, what I have heard is great! How did De-Loused In The Comatorium not make the list? The sounds on this album are unlike any of those on the 15 you've highlighted. Aside: On the official Mastodon youtube channel, the album cover is animated.

fun, jim! Ohh well can't really put much input into this afterall! not such a metal guy.. good to see tool getting a look in :) hi to your boy !

I didn't hear you say it, but did you make a point to only include one album from a given artist?

Mmmm i can just give my top 10 at mo too...not easy...lots of Opeth....but they are the best! Elder Innate Passage (i thnk it will grow into being regarded as essential greatness! Love this album.) Watershed Opeth A Dawn To Fear Cult of Luna (Like Opeth two or three albums can be in my top 10 prog metal sometimes) Ghost Reveries Opeth Magma Gojira In Absentia Porcupine Tree Veil of Imagination Wilderun (yeah its so good) Love of Life Swans Images and Words Dream Theatre My no1 is Still Life Opeth Got lots of Mastadon and Tool after listening to both with you Jim first of all but they never seem to become my faves (though of course from my list above you succeeded with Elder and Wilderun and get this.....Dream Theatre! Love octovarium now and just got Awake in the post today😅. Still got Empath on my wishlist. Id have Seventh Son as my proggy pick too from their discography 👍 Blackwater Park is about 5th on my Opeth list.... But then they do have so msny great albums.

You know your prog music man ❤‍🔥

No1: Haken - Visions

You should listen to a band called "The Ocean"

I seem to be the only Wilderun fan that thinks Veil of Imagination is their worst album! It's okay, but I like Sleep at the Edge of the Earth and Epigone a lot more

You forgot Pain of Salvation In the Passing Light of Day.

❤

Sorry Jim....you can't have a "10 greatest Prog Metal Albums List" without QUEENSRYCHE: OPERATION MINDCRIME as #1!!! ...just saying....