Progressive metal, often called prog metal, is a mix of music styles that combines heavy metal and progressive rock. It uses the loud, aggressive sound of heavy metal with the complex, creative, or classical-style music of progressive rock.
The music usually shows the very skilled playing of the musicians. It often includes unusual musical notes and complicated rhythms that change often and have unexpected beats. The use of many different rhythms at once is a key feature in the djent subgenre.
This genre began in the late 1980s but became popular in the 1990s. Some successful bands include Dream Theater, Watchtower, Queensrÿche, Tool, Symphony X, Shadow Gallery, King's X, Fates Warning, and Mastodon.
Characteristics
Metal Hammer describes progressive metal as a genre with fewer limits compared to other heavy metal styles, meaning new and different sounds from unexpected places often appear each year. The publication noted that in the 1980s, metal adopted elements from progressive rock, creating a new type of music that combined loud and aggressive sounds with very complex music, ambitious ideas, and unusual themes. According to AllMusic, early bands like Fates Warning and Queensrÿche developed their styles by combining their love for Yes and Rush with their admiration for Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
Most bands in this genre have very different musical influences compared to one another. Bands such as Dream Theater, Planet X, and Puya include jazz elements, with long solo sections where musicians take turns playing solos. Some progressive metal bands also include ballads and acoustic music in their songs. Loudwire stated that the genre is not influenced by current trends.
Orphaned Land, a band from Israel, began as a melodic death-doom and melodic death metal group that blended Middle Eastern rhythms and melodies with a progressive style. The band was always considered progressive because of the Middle Eastern elements in their music, which use time signatures not commonly used in Western music, long and complex song structures, and microtones. As the band grew, they later played in a more traditional progressive metal style, similar to Opeth and Symphony X, while keeping their "oriental" style. Steven Wilson, who lived in Israel and played in Blackfield, found Orphaned Land to be "something special" after listening to their album Mabool and later helped produce and engineer their album The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR.
Lyrics in progressive metal are influenced by fantasy and literature, like the progressive rock of the 1970s. Themes may also include space and anti-capitalism.
History
Progressive metal became a unique style of music, mainly developed by musicians in the American heavy metal scene during the early-to-mid-1980s. Bands like Queensrÿche, Savatage, Fates Warning, Watchtower, and later Dream Theater and Symphony X helped shape the genre. Over time, many groups added their own creative ideas to the style.
The roots of progressive metal began when early heavy metal and progressive rock bands combined their sounds. In the 1960s, King Crimson used hard, experimental sounds while still connecting to the basic power chords of hard rock, as seen in their song "21st Century Schizoid Man." Canadian band Rush helped link hard rock, English progressive rock, and heavy metal. They started by imitating Led Zeppelin but later blended progressive rock techniques with blues-based power chords. Their 1976 album 2112 showed both technical skill and a heavier sound than traditional English progressive rock.
In 1984, American bands Queensrÿche and Fates Warning released their first full-length albums. Both added more complex musical ideas to their work. Queensrÿche’s The Warning (1984) and Fates Warning’s The Spectre Within (1985) used different methods, such as sound experiments or intricate structures. By 1986, both bands created important albums: Rage for Order and Awaken the Guardian. In the years that followed, they continued to develop the genre with albums like Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime (1988) and Fates Warning’s Perfect Symmetry (1989).
Progressive metal also appeared in the U.S. thrash metal scene. Bands like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth—known as the "Big Four" of thrash metal—used progressive influences in their music. Other bands, such as Toxik, Overkill, Dark Angel, Forbidden, Heathen, and Testament, also explored complex, technical styles. Canadian band Voivod used experimental and psychedelic sounds in their work, while Texas band Watchtower combined thrash metal, syncopation, and progressive rock in albums like Energetic Disassembly (1985) and Control and Resistance (1989). These ideas later influenced death metal bands like Atheist, who helped create technical death metal and progressive death metal.
In the 1990s, bands like Psychotic Waltz and Dream Theater further developed progressive metal. Psychotic Waltz blended Watchtower and Fates Warning styles in albums like A Social Grace (1990) and Into the Everflow (1992). Dream Theater advanced their own style with When Dream and Day Unite (1989) and later albums like Images and Words (1992) and Awake (1994). King’s X, who started in Christian rock, mixed hard rock, metal, and progressive rock with influences from funk and soul in their early albums.
European bands like Germany’s Sieges Even and Switzerland’s Coroner also contributed to the genre. Sieges Even explored technical and angular progressive metal in The Art of Navigating by the Stars (2005), while Coroner, formed by Celtic Frost roadies, released influential albums like Punishment for Decadence (1988) and Mental Vortex (1991).
In the late 1990s, Dutch band Ayreon (led by Arjen Anthony Lucassen) and Swedish band Pain of Salvation brought new ideas to the genre. Ayreon created theatrical rock operas like Into the Electric Castle (1998), while Pain of Salvation used eclectic, unconventional styles in albums like One Hour by the Concrete Lake (1998).
Puerto Rican band Puya combined jazz, salsa, and progressive metal in their 1999 album Fundamental. Swedish bands Edge of Sanity and Opeth helped merge progressive rock with extreme metal. Edge of Sanity’s Crimson (1996) was a 40-minute concept album, and Opeth’s Blackwater Park (2001) gained critical praise. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree collaborated on Blackwater Park after being inspired by Opeth’s earlier work.
Derivative forms
In the late 2000s, bands like Periphery, Tesseract, Animals as Leaders, and Vildhjarta helped make the "djent" style of progressive metal popular. This style was first created by the band Meshuggah. It is known for fast, forceful, and rhythmic guitar patterns that often use unusual time signatures. These patterns are played using guitars with more strings than usual. Guitars with extra strings are also used in other types of progressive metal. Artists such as Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Dir En Grey, and Ne Obliviscaris have used seven-string guitars in their music, even though they are not part of the djent movement. Dream Theater was among the first progressive metal bands to use seven-string guitars.
Progressive doom is a type of music that combines elements of progressive metal and doom metal. Bands that play this style include King Goat, Below the Sun, Sierra, and Oceans of Slumber.