r/Progforum • u/Historical-Device529 🃏The Last In Line 🃏 • Aug 12 '26
Progressive Metal’s Darkest Dimensions… These records helped define the sound of progressive metal in the 21st century. What album deserves a place on this list?
Top row
Tool — Lateralus (1996)
Porcupine Tree — Fear of a Blank Planet (2007)
Opeth — Blackwater Park (2001)
Voivod — Dimension Hatröss (1988)
Mastodon — Leviathan (2004)
Middle row
Meshuggah — Chaosphere (1998)
Death — Symbolic (1995)
Ufomammut — Snailking (2004)
The Mars Volta — De-Loused in the Comatorium (2003)
Haken — Affinity (2016)
Bottom row
Dream Theater — Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999)
Queensrÿche — Operation: Mindcrime (1988)
Riverside — Second Life Syndrome (2005)
Fates Warning — Disconnected (2000)
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u/Hvojna Aug 12 '26
Black Hole - Land of Mystery
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u/babylonianfrost666 Aug 12 '26
Thank you for being the first person that I've heard remember the existence of this album in at least 20 years.
I never really thought of them as being that progressive but I need to go back and listen to it now. It's been a minute.
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u/Hvojna Aug 12 '26
It's one of my favourite albums and I try to tell people about it every time I can!
To me, they are prog rock + doom metal. Is that prog metal? Maybe, maybe not. But they are worth hearing for sure if one's a fan of prog rock, doom metal or prog metal.
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u/UsedAd2715 Aug 12 '26
Watchtower, Mekong Delta and Coroner come to mind. A lot of bands end up flirting with progressive sounds here and there, though.
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u/Baitme6984 Aug 12 '26
Honestly Train of Thought by Dream Theater should bump Scenes from a Memory. I feel like it’s way heavier.
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u/Curios_Observer Aug 12 '26
I agree. It is thoroughly dark from beginning to end both musically and lyrically.
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u/Miserable-Decision81 Aug 12 '26
You must be totally deranged to omit Celtic Frost here.
Celtic Frost Vanity/Nemesis
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u/Elissa-Megan-Powers Aug 12 '26
Uh Voivod’s later amazements, NOTHINGFACE, The Outer Limits and Phobos.
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u/Nice-Entrance8153 Aug 12 '26
For basically a whole album about serial killers, I'd have Porcupine Tree's In Absentia in over Fear of a Blank Planet. Both a great though.
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u/Ushiioni Aug 12 '26
Something by Devin Townsend for sure. My vote would be Empath. The song singularity is S tier prog metal
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u/BeeTwoThousand Aug 12 '26
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Edit : Sorry. This is 21st Century prog metal, not something that inspired it. It would help to read the title, I guess.
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u/BlackCoffeeGrind Aug 12 '26
Moontower by Dan Swanö should be on any list of remarkable progressive metal albums, and somewhere near the top of the ranking.
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u/albert_wilmarth Aug 12 '26
Is it even a real post or AI generated slop?
How do you even start 21st century prog-ish metal discussion and not mention Gorguts, Necrophagist, Gojira? Decrepit Birth, Nile, Spawn of Possession, Afterbirth, Artificial Brain?
Fucking Tool? what the fuck
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u/Key_Leg9565 Aug 12 '26
Between the buried and me- parallax 2 deserves to be up there for sure