Editorial - "Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums of All Time"

Recently, PROG Magazine published their “Top 100 Progressive Albums of All Time”, and proudly, many modern progressive metal acts can say that their albums made the list. While none placed any higher than #25 (Dream Theater, “Images and Words”), a healthy amount of acts managed to produce albums worthy of the world’s praise. Readers of the magazine were invited to submit their own Top 10 lists, and PROG compiled the submissions, ranking the albums from one to one hundred by popular vote. The resulting list (which can be found here) is understandably laden with rock acts, and while I don’t disagree with many of the artists or albums that made the final cut, I couldn’t help but notice that the metal representation was minimal and limited to only a select few bands.

Consequently, I started wondering what my own list of the greatest progressive metal of all time would look like, and I immediately began to scribble down some of my favorite works by some of my favorite artists. Once I was finished, I realized that I had exactly twenty-five nominees, and while I began to attempt to rank my selections, I also realized my folly in just such an effort. Truly I tell you, trying to rank these albums is akin to choosing one child over another. Each album is spectacular from start to finish, produced fantastically, and brilliant in art concepts, arrangement, and composition. So, instead of futilely trying to sell you, my beloved readers, some line about how one album is somehow “better” than another, I have decided to not rank my choices whatsoever. No, there will be no numbered list here; only MY Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums of All Time! Enjoy!

Keep it metal, class dismissed!

Geoff Teach

Owner and Editor

Teach’s Class of Metal

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3 – “Wake Pig” (2004, Metal Blade Records)

Animals As Leaders – “Joy of Motion” (2014, Prosthetic Records)

Baroness – “Yellow and Green” (2012, Relapse Records)

Between the Buried and Me – “Colors” (2007, Victory Records)

Between the Buried and Me – “The Great Misdirect” (2009, Victory Records)

Between the Buried and Me – “Parallax II: Future Sequence” (2012, Metal Blade Records)

The Contortionist – “Exoplanet” (2010, Good Fight Records)

The Contortionist – “Intrinsic” (2012, Good Fight Records)

Cynic – “Focus” (1993, Roadrunner Records)

Cynic – “Traced in Air” (2008, Season of Mist Records)

The Human Abstract – “Nocturne” (2006, Hopeless Records)

Mastodon – “Leviathan” (2004, Relapse Records)

Mastodon – “Blood Mountain” (2006, Relapse Records)

Mastodon – “Crack the Skye” (2008, Relapse Records)

Mudvayne – “L.D. 50” (2000, Epic Records)

Periphery – “Periphery” (2010, Sumerian Records)

Primus – “Sailing the Seas of Cheese” (1991, Interscope Records)

Primus – “Pork Soda” (1993, Interscope Records)

The Room Colored Charlatan – “Primitives” (2014, Subliminal Groove Records)

The Safety Fire – “Mouth of Swords” (2013, Inside Out Music/Century Media Records)

Scale the Summit – “The Migration” (2013, Prosthetic Records)

Tool – “Aenima” (1996, Zoo Entertainment)

Tool – “Lateralus” (2001, Volcano Entertainment)

Tool – “10,000 Days” (2006, Volcano Entertainment)

White Arms of Athena – “Astrodrama” (2011, Prosthetic Records)

#Editorial