progressive metal

Label: Insideout MusicRelease date: 10/23/2020Album length: 109.07 minGenre: Progressive Metal/Art RockRating: 9.5/10 Devin Townsend, the Canadian oddball of a thousand musical faces, wrapped up the "endless" year of 2020 by…

Label: Gentle Art Of MusicRelease date: September 18, 2020Production: Victor Bullok & Jan ZehrfeldAlbum length: 51.17 minGenre: Jazz/Avantgarde-Metal/Progressive MetalRating: 10/10 German jazz, funk and prog metal…

Label: Wells MusicRelease date: October 9, 2020Production: Dean WellsLength: 69.11 minGenre: Progressive MetalRating: 8.5/10 Teramaze are Australian modern prog-metallers who put out their first album way back in the mid-nineties.…

Label: Frontiers Music Srl.Release date: October 9, 2020Production: Simone MularoniAlbum length: 55.50 minGenre: Progressive MetalRating: 9.0/10 DGM are Italian progressive metallers, today a relic of the vibrant prog-metal movement…

"A brilliant progressive, all-instrumental metal album that's everything Petrucci isn't allowed to be in Dream Thater, and yet you know full well that without an album like “Teminal Velocitiy,” there would never have been a Dream Theater."

"The new live document reflects a new era for the band, which is standing on the threshold of a fresh creative chapter. They crowned it with their latest studio album - the first with vocalist Tom Englund (Evergrey) - and this superb live…

"Vanishing Point's new album "Dead Elysium" picks up the story right where its predecessor "Distant Is The Sun" (2014) left off. Fans had to wait a long time for it again, but the wait paid off."

“»Empire«, which was produced once again by Peter Collins, just like »Operation: Mindcrime« (with Jim Barton handling engineering duties) in Vancouver, Canada, remains a timeless musical achievement even after 30 years, embodying the…

"“Vector” was a story of birth, growth and development, while “Virus” is its opposite. It's the story of a not-so-honorable final lap of the human era. A new chapter packed with thrilling artistic brilliance from British progressive metal…

"Ideas woven into colorful progressive metal instrumentals, steeped in a staggering grasp of neoclassical lessons, all of it riding vehemently on the wings of razor-sharp alertness and the sensuality of Latin temperament and instinct. A fan…

"'Worlds Beyond', the debut album from Swedish progressive metallers Paralydium, is a bold manifesto from a young, ambitious band, marked by great chemistry between the building blocks of its sound, a polished focus and a collection of very…

"This is an album that's been very skillfully brought up to date in the studio, and it's a bridge to everything that bound Arch and Matheos together on their past albums. Definitely a bridge back to early Fates Warning too."

"On his new self-released studio outing, this outstanding musical gem of a talent keeps deepening, widening and nurturing the expressive qualities of his previous three albums, holding onto a top-shelf standard of musical artistry dressed…

"Artistically, AlogiA have outgrown their previous studio efforts in maturity with the new album."

"So Ivanhoe haven't changed all that much. Albums come out painfully slowly, but the style stays recognizable and unmistakably theirs. A traditional German-bred progressive metal record, the kind you practically need a lantern in broad…

For an English version, please scroll down the bar! John Arch (on the right in the photo above) is something of a cult figure from the classic days of heavy metal! Between 1982 and 1987 he sang in the first incarnation of the…

After more than two decades, the most revered album in the story of Lucassen's ever-ambitious Ayreon project has finally got a live version, and it's remarkably faithful to the studio original. That's news that's bound to delight most fans…

As if 24 years hadn't passed between the new and previous studio album, but three at most. Welcome home, boys. Let's hope “The God-Shaped Void” isn't your last act.."

" Sons Of Apollo have grown as a band. The songs feel far more detailed, defined and, for all their progressive looseness, tighter too. Whether this is the creative zenith of the prog-metal Apollos or not, time will tell, but artistically…

Despite a far-from-cheerful setlist, Leprous managed to conjure up a genuinely special atmosphere at Graz's Explosiv club, keeping the crowd on their feet right to the end. And credit where it's due — support acts Klone and Maraton were…

Periphery's Hail Stan is definitive proof that the band's energy isn't fading. The whole album brims with creativity and experimentation, and it still sounds unmistakably like them. It's all backed by a lush production where Periphery hold…

Location: Vienna (Wien) / Simm City / AustriaDate: Monday, 02.12.2019 This December isn't just packed with the seizure-inducing, vomit-triggering strains of Last Christmas, Silent Night, and New Year's Kiss — thankfully, it's also full…

Anyone who can happily accept that “Legacy of the Dark Lands” isn't a 'traditional' Blind Guardian album, but the work of the fully orchestral Blind Guardian Twilight Orchestra project with no metal elements, will enjoy it from start to…

"On another occasion, Mattias invited the locals to help him sing the verses of 'Freak of the Week.' He suggested they make it easier on themselves and replace the tricky English words in the chorus with the names of some Italian pizzas."

Opeth have once again crafted a masterpiece full of standout moments: in the songwriting, the lyrics and the atmosphere alike, and in two different languages at that. For anyone who knows the life and work of Mikael Åkerfeldt and his…

"The Ghost Experiment – Awakening is exactly what you'd expect from a progressive metal band as good as Vanden Plas."

Venue: Ljubljana / Orto Bar / SloveniaDate: Sunday, 13 Oct 2019 Finnish melodic death metallers Omnium Gatherum have always seemed to get less attention than they deserve, overshadowed by some of their more established compatriots. They…

With a setlist running over two hours, Between The Buried And Me delivered an excellent cross-section of their entire career while showcasing incredible tightness and extreme stamina.

Location: Kranj / Transtation SubArt / SloveniaDate: Saturday, 07.09.2019 Swedish progressive metal outfit Soen grows more popular with every passing year. The band first caught attention largely through drummer Martin Lopez, who…

Location: Vienna / club Flex / Austria Date: Saturday, 10 August 2019 American progressive rockers Coheed And Cambria are pushing hard to promote their latest album Vaxis I (review HERE). The focus is mostly on the US leg of the…

Location: Roncade (Treviso), New Age Club, ItalyDate: Friday, May 10, 2019 New Age Club in Roncade, a stone's throw from Treviso in Italy, has always been one of the handiest concert destinations: you can reach it by car from…

“Empath” takes us on a fun, thrilling ride through every corner of Devin's restless soul and all his many musical mutations, then wraps it all up with an epic masterpiece that's exactly what you'd expect from a musical genius like him.

"After two excellent albums, “Hymns for the Broken” (2014) and “The Storm Within” (2016), both truly top-notch, the question was whether Evergrey could hold on to that incredible creative streak and carry it over to a new record. The…

“Distance Over Time” is once again a more listenable moment in Dream Theater's career. No artistic progress, then. But in everything it embodies, it's a Dream Theater album from head to toe. And of course, a very good Dream Theater album.…

"“Lotus” is yet another excellent studio album from Soen. With it, the band keeps hardening its artistic focus and expressive stance. It feels remarkably unified, and it's the most focused of everything they've released so far."

"The Verdict" is a good album. It has a different character, which is a good thing, but it could once again get some fans turning up their noses.

A packed Flex club in Vienna, hosting Tesseract, Between the Buried and Me and Plini, showed there's growing interest in bands that put the unusual and the diverse front and center.

Germany's prog heavyweights The Ocean prove they're in top form again in 2018, and the innovative new album shows it too. Without a doubt one of the best live bands on the scene right now.

With the Caligula's Horse, Circles and I Built The Sky show, Zagreb's KSET club got a taste of the promising Australian progressive scene.

With Sonder, Tesseract kind of blend elements from their past albums. The band is still technical, atmospheric, melodic and unpredictable, but the album as a whole doesn't hit as hard as the first two.

Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / SloveniaDate: Thursday, November 16, 2017 Years ago, it was hard to imagine that modern progressive bands could fill even a smaller concert hall. Acts like Animals As Leaders, Scale The Summit and…

"Anyone who knows the studio original of the cult ‘Awaken the Guardian’ well will be blown away by how evergreen it is and how incredibly expressive and punchy this album still is after thirty years. The same goes for the stage performance,…

"»Lykaia« is yet another gorgeous album, full of polished melodies that are ambitiously, experimentally loosened up with the exploratory value of progressively and technically complex musical figures. "

"Enslaved proved once again that they're world-class musicians who've got pretty much no equal in Norwegian black metal."

"'Theories of Flight' is the album that caught Fates Warning fans off guard. Not because the band couldn't have made it, but because nobody could really have expected this kind of artistic masterpiece after 34 long years of holding their…

"The regular part of the show flew by in a flash. Vai came back out for the obligatory encore and "modestly" asked the audience: "Can we play one more song?" The band then launched into the sorely missed Firegarden Suite, or rather the…

Album length: 57:56 Production: V. Santura and Obscura Release date: February, 2016 Label: Relapse Records Rating: 10/10 German progressive death metallers Obscura have been through a lot of changes in the past four years.…

Label: Roadrunnner RecordsRelease date: 01/29/2016Producer: John PetrucciAlbum length: 130.23 minGenre: Progressive Metal The double concept album »The Astonishing« is the most ambitious project in the history of American prog-metal…

"“Tellurian” is basically a jazzed-up, metalized upgrade of the artistry on the band's debut. Soen build on their recognizable stylistic sound, which can be traced back to the final era of Lopez's time in Opeth. "

" After a studio drought of almost a decade, Fates Warning dropped their long-awaited comeback album "Darkness in a Different Light" last year, and promoting it is still the backbone of their current European tour."

"Zak was, as expected, a chapter all his own. With his beautifully preserved vocal cords he sounds almost identical to twenty years ago, and with his enviable stage charisma he carried half of this rather demanding, acoustic-flavored Circle…

Label: Elektra RecordsRelease date: 23.09.1997Producer: Kevin ShirleyAlbum length: 78.12 minGenre: Progressive Metal "Falling into Infinity" was a troubled fourth album that nearly tore apart one of the key and most exciting rock…

" The prog giants keep marching on, come what may, and we're left with one more fond memory and the wait for the next tour. "

"Whenever Dream Theater play, it's a blast to see so many slack-jawed faces on the faces of the music doctors, who just can't get over the boundless technical know-how of four champions of their instruments"

Label: Roadrunner RecordsRelease date: 09/23/2013Produced by: John PetrucciAlbum length: 69:05 minGenre: Progressive Metal Dream Theater, the prog titans whose shockingly original sound at the turn of the '80s into the '90s threw…

"Fates Warning have once again delivered an extraordinary trip through the depths of their unique formula, which, teamed up with the sonic perfection of Orto Bar, turned into a mecca for prog metal fans near and far for a good hour and a…

"Steve Vai in the best possible shape, this time on the stage of Trieste's Politeama Rossetti theater. Unforgettable! Where the limits of musical expression lie, only he knows. And that's exactly what always draws us to Vai the most. A…

"Even though both Beardfish and Sound of Contact lived up to the big expectations, the Spock's Beard guys proved in the end who the 'main men' were, more than justified their status as the evening's headliners, and above all confirmed once…

"Meeting Threshold was unforgettable and one of a kind! We probably saw them in Ljubljana for the first time, the last time, and never again."

"You can't miss it when His Excellency, the musical alien and guitar guru of elusive caliber with that one-of-a-kind art charisma, Steve Vai, appears onstage in front of you. All you can do is travel with him. And at the speed of light.…

"I never thought anything could surprise me after Cynic, Atheist and Pestilence played here. And then they casually announce that Fates Warning are coming to Orto bar"

Location: Pordenone / Palasport Forum / ItalyDate: Monday, February 20, 2012 The decision to go to this gig was a no-brainer, light as powder snow. Seeing the champions of technical prog metal again is always a thrill, especially…

Location: Backstage / Munich / GermanyDate: 05.10.2011 Symphony X, the progressive metal standard-bearers from New Jersey (USA), put out a brilliant new studio album this year called "Iconoclast". It keeps the magic of its…

Label: Roadrunner RecordsRelease date: 12.09.2011Producer: John PetrucciAlbum length: 77.05 minGenre: Progressive Metal Dream Theater are the kings of a seriously seductive and technically demanding corner of music. When it comes to…

"This album is a kind of 'half-brother' to the rest of the Fates Warning discography. In terms of exploring and expanding its own artistic character, it brings nothing special at all. But that's hardly important, because both Matheos and…

"Vanden Plas in every village!"

Location: Graz / Orpheum Teater / AustriaDate: 04/28/2010 The supergroup Asia was born in the eighties as a conglomerate of four outstanding musicians from kindred musical philosophies, rooted mainly in progressive rock. They'd all…

Label: Roadrunner RecordsRelease date: 06/23/2009Production: Mike Portnoy & John PetrucciAlbum length: 75.22 minGenre: Progressive Metal When you spin a new Dream Theater record in your CD player these days, only two questions…

Location: Vienna / Planet Music / AustriaDate: 20.10.2007 The most tempting lures for metal shows among our northern neighbors, Graz's Orpheum and Vienna's Planet Music, served up a gourmet treat for metal ears and a neck-muscle…

Label: Roadrunner RecordsRelease date: 04.06.2007Production: John Petrucci & Mike PortnoyAlbum length: 78.45 minGenre: Progressive Metal Unbelievable! What is there even left to say about Dream Theater? Every two years like…

Label: Elektra RecordsRelease date: October 26, 1999Production: Mike Portnoy & John PetrucciAlbum length: 77:06 minGenre: Progressive Metal From the opening chords of Regression, the fifth studio album by American quintet Dream…

"Through this fantastic blast of raw aggression and pure old school U.S. speed metal, you can feel the total enthusiasm of a band that, with its arrival on the metal scene and its unique approach, showed from the debut onward that there…

Label: Atlantic RecordsRelease date: 07.06.2005Production: John Petrucci & Mike PortnoyAlbum length: 75.46 minGenre: Progressive Metal "Octavaruim" is a "progressive Dream Theater-style" defined rock album from head to toe, and…

Label: Electra RecordsRelease date: 11.11.2003Production: John Petrucci & Mike PortnoyAlbum length: 68.19 minGenre: Progressive Metal Jaw-dropping! Shock. That much aggression from Dream Theater isn't exactly an everyday thing.…