Is there anything more compelling than being a diehard progressive metal fan? After all, the clue is in the name: this is a genre that, for decades, has refused to sit still, and every year its artists present new sounds that dazzle even the most cynical observers.
2024 has continued that trend in majestic form, with some of heavy music’s boldest bands making big moves that have pricked ears worldwide. Here are the most intrepid of the intrepid. From Opeth to Oceans Of Slumber, Slift to Sólstafir, these are Metal Hammer’s top 10 progressive metal albums of the year.
10. Leprous – Melodies Of Atonement (Inside Out)
Over the past 10 years, Leprous had been evolving from the guitar-heavy prog metal of their early days to a more textured, symphonic, song-based sound. If some ardent fans felt alienated by the development, Melodies Of Atonement brought them right back. The Norwegians’ eighth album dragged their past aggression into their current songwriting ethos, standouts like Atonement and SIlently Walking Alone boasting riffs that hit just as hard as their choruses.
Leprous didn’t regress, though. Self-Satisfied Lullaby opened with an impressive stack of vocal harmonies, while Faceless conveyed one of the album’s most memorable melodies with nothing more than singing and pianos. The band may have looked back, but it was evident that they were still walking forward into new, exciting territory. Matt Mills
9. Dvne – Voidkind (Metal Blade)
2021 album Etemen Ænka put Dvne on the tip of prog connoisseurs’ tongues. Equal parts Mastodon, High On Fire and Hawkwind, it was a cosmic achievement in free-flowing post-metal, tethered together by a Frank Herbert-inspired concept.
Three years later, Voidkind did what any good follow-up should: feeling familiar but fresh at the same time. The French/Scottish collective’s expansive vision remained, as proven by Summa Blasphemia and Eleonora, the dovetailing duology which opened it. However, where Etemen… patiently built to its crescendos, new tracks such as Abode Of The Perfect Soul didn’t fuck about. It felt like, at any moment, Voidkind could hit you with a riff so mighty it launched you to the next galaxy over. Matt Mills
8. Slift – Ilion (Sub Pop)
On paper, Slift’s third album should not work. The Toulouse space rockers expanded their vision to multiple dimensions, pulling from metal, prog, hardcore and even jazz music. The end result was a mind-warping, 80-minute trip with not even a chorus in sight.
Yet, for all of Ilion’s genre-smashing wildness (Nimh was a metal monolith while Confluence featured a sparse sax solo), the band behind the delirium held it together. Singer/guitarist Jean Fossat always sang in a seemingly alien language through layers of distortion. Meanwhile, his bassist brother Rémi and drummer Canek Flores flaunted inhuman talent, scurrying at lightspeed through every single song. It’s as if a far-off civilisation beamed this trio to Earth to demonstrate what rock can really do. Matt Mills
7. Caligula’s Horse – Charcoal Grace (Inside Out)
On Charcoal Grace, Caligula’s Horse got to have their cake and eat it too. The Australian prog quartet had spent the preceding decade on a pendulum, swinging between expansive works and immediate, metallic songs. It wasn’t until album number six that they finally did both at once.
Their spirits dragged down by the pandemic, the band presented their darkest music to date, but did so through a series of bold suites. The four-part title track typified this black ambition, weaving between metal and prog for 25 minutes, while frontman Jim Grey sang about an abused child refusing to forgive their parent. Mammoth bookends The World Breathes With Me and Mute reaffirmed the album as a bleak yet essential masterpiece. Matt Mills
6. Sólstafir – Hin Helga Kvöl (Century Media)
Sólstafir have only ever sounded like Sólstafir. Whether it’s with the punkish black metal of debut album Í Blóði Og Anda or the windswept rock they’ve mastered since, the Icelanders have always been restless and distinct. On Hin Helga Kvöl, they effectively summarised 22 years of forward-thinking.
Where the title track and Vor Ás hurried back to the band’s extreme roots, Blakkrakki pointed to their classic rock influence using a sharp, AC/DC-esque hook. Their more panoramic side came into view during Freygátan’s sparse verses, where vocalist Aðalbjörn Tryggvason plucked heartstrings without speaking a word of English. Then, for a boundary-busting finale, Kuml used newfound Nordic horns and spoken-word to declare this four-piece still aren’t done evolving. Matt Mills
5. Devin Townsend – Powernerd (Inside Out)
After embracing his softer, more melodic edges on 2022's Lightwork, Devin Townsend was back to his most batshit maximalist tendencies on PowerNerd. One of the most unique and instantly recognisable forces in metal - if not music full stop - what ensued was 11 tracks that were somehow both pulverising and gorgeous.
From the invigorating thunder of its titular opening track to the oh-so-chunky force of Knuckledragger, almost gospel tinges of Gratitude, the album is a sonic journey in the truest sense of the word, yet somehow also some of the most straight-ahead, "this is what I do" type songs Devy has put his name to. Rich Hobson
4. Oceans Of Slumber – Where Gods Fear To Speak (Season Of Mist)
Oceans Of Slumber might've ditched their death metal elements on 2022's Starlight And Ash, but a decade-long absence from extremity clearly wasn't on the cards. Instead, by way of balance their most explosive elements have been dialled up on Where Gods Fear To Speak, exploring a classic, 90s DM sensibility amidst their usual doomy, proggy fusion.
The result is, frankly, spectacular. Oceans Of Slumber's deployment of heft and melody has always afforded them a dynamic and exciting sound, songs soaring on Cammie Beverly's vocals or otherwise plunging into ferocious riffs and that's especially apparent on Gods..., songs like Run From The Light playing with the interplays between sounds while Poem Of Ecstasy hits some truly vicious passages. Add some sublime string-work on Don't Come Back From Hell Empty Handed and I Will Break The Pride Of Your Will and it's a recipe for absolute success. Rich Hobson
3. Nightwish – Yesterwynde (Nuclear Blast)
Yesterwynde feels like the album Nightwish have been threatening to make for over a decade. Floor Jansen has more than excelled in her role as frontwoman, becoming as iconic a force as the band she now sings for, but in Yesterwynde the band have produced some of their most complex and impressively theatrical material since their career-making early 2000s output.
The nine-and-a-half minute single An Ocean Of Strange Islands lays out their ambitions plainly; a cinematic quality burst of symphonic grandeur with near-Broadway sensibilities and some thundering riffs, it tees up some of the band's most anthemic material to date. While they sadly won't be touring the record, the fact they've produced such an immediate record based on themes of time, memory and history is testament to their power to spin gold. Rich Hobson
2. Lowen – Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran (Church Road)
As written in the ancient semi-mythological text the Shahnameh (also known as the Persian Book of Kings), many thousands of years ago, a Mesopotamian King sought dominion over a paradisal land inhabited by beautiful women, sorcerers and demons. His plan, driven by greed, was vanquished by the storm-summoning white demon, Div-e Sepid. This epic story of magic and power forms the backdrop to Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran, the debut album of rising prog metallers Lowen, whose release stands as one of the most exciting, wonderfully-complex and head-turning projects of 2024.
Brimming with mountains of progressive-doom riffs, calamitous percussion and poetic magic-singed lyrics, Do Not Go To War…is a rallying warcry of times forgotten, led by frontwoman Nina Saeidi whose entrancing, powerhouse vocal lays testament to the powerful themes that enrich the album so deeply.
As well as myth, the record is a reclamation of identity and an exploration of Nina’s dual-heritage as an exile of Iran living in the UK. While there’s undoubtedly an entrenched sadness to it, there’s also colossal strength, marked by wells of turbulent aggression and churning riffs that at times feel so consuming they could swallow you whole. Not only is this one of the finest releases of 2024, but it's one of the most exciting beginnings of any prog metal band we’ve seen in quite a long while. Liz Scarlett
1. Opeth – The Last Will & Testament (Moderbolaget/Reigning Phoenix)
Over the course of their career, Opeth’s catalogue has become increasingly dichotomised. While their initial death metal-centered albums are often considered as belonging to their growl-laden golden era, their offerings from 2011’s Heritage saw them step further into their proggier sensibilities, opening the doors to an entirely new legion of fans whilst earning complaints from those who just wanted another rendition of 2001’s Blackwater Park. When news broke that Opeth’s fourteenth studio album would once again see them incorporating growls, fans were unsurprisingly excited - though, rightly, frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt expressed his irritation over how reductive their reliance on heaviness really is, asking Youtuber and guitarist Ola Englund “Is that all we are?”.
The Last Will And Testament, then, meets fan’s expectations, while also simultaneously blowing them into space (or in this case, into a kind of Victorian-style dimension that mirrors the shadowy inner workings of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel).
The album contains many odes to their past, while also laying down the blueprint to hopefully an even more theatrical future. It’s a unified showcase of all their best qualities: Åkerfeldt’s vengeful god-like growls, their weighted labyrinthine instrumentation, channelling elements from both old and newer eras. There’s moments of unexpected absurdity in the form of perplexing oddball riffs and even flute solos from Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson.
In a year where prog metal has continued to innovate and break into the mainstream in even its most extreme forms, Opeth reminded everyone they were the standard-bearers for an entirely new school of progressive metal. Liz Scarlett
