“When do the vocals kick in?!”
“Why does this song never end?!”
“How the hell do you bang your head to this shit?!”
When I was a teenage progressive metal fan, these were the questions I heard ad nauseam. As much as heavy music was considered outsider art during my awkward school years, loving the bands who played 20-minute tracks in 9/8 time was fringe even beyond that. The kids who adored Ed Sheeran didn’t understand Metallica, then the kids who adored Metallica didn’t understand Between The Buried And Me.
It was a trickle-down economy of shitting on music tastes and mine was at the bottom of the U-bend.
Jump-cut to 2025 and, blimey, the world feels different now. The West is plummeting into neofascism to the sound of incels’ vindicated applause, while artificial intelligence threatens the very meaning of human creativity. But, more staggering and unprecedented than all of that, prog metal is in vogue now!
There’s a part of me that wants to be bitter about it. Maybe if I see yet a-fucking-nother TikTok trying to explain the mythology behind Sleep Token’s lyrics, I will be. Moreover, though, I’m grateful that prog metal has entered its golden age: an era where eclecticism and complexity aren’t things to be ashamed of, but which thrust its practitioners to mainstream goodwill and festival headline spots.
For many, the explosion of prog metal to arena-scale success became tangible post-pandemic. Footage of Jinjer frontwoman Tatiana Shmayluk howling through Pisces wowed millions of people and quickly made the Ukrainians a big deal. In 2023, the aforementioned Sleep Token became the metal band, winning viral success with their masks, sensual sounds, and leaps from pop melodies to Meshuggah-ey riffs that many had never heard the likes of before. Gojira enjoyed their first tour through 10,000-plus capacity venues across Europe around the same time.
Although that may have been when mainstream metalheads took notice of these forward-minded bands, the truth is that your social media algorithm had long been teaching you to love sonic technicality – and you probably didn’t even know it!
Think about it: from the mid-2010s onwards, how many virtuoso guitarists and drummers popped up in your Youtube, Facebook and Instagram feeds? How many more inspired stunned news stories from magazines such as this one? And how many more still were further circulated by other content creators, who sat mouths agape as Rob Scallon defied physics with his left hand and buttered toast with his right or whatever.
Social media has been instilling a penchant for proggy chops in many people for quite some time. Meanwhile, the seemingly inevitable apocalypse caused by climate change has probably made you sad, angry or hopeless at at least one point. Then the pandemic made everyone sadder, angrier and hopeless-er. An appetite for music that’s jointly intricate and intense has been brewing for a while now. Combine that with the obvious mainstream dalliances of Sleep Token (frequently dubbed metal’s Bon Iver) and the hip-hop-indebted Polyphia, and the climate is perfect!
This brings us to the present day. In 2025, the ascents of numerous prog metal superstars will be reaffirmed, while the release schedule looks full to bursting with new albums from the genre’s elite forces.
Let’s start with the most staggering achievement: in June, Sleep Token will headline the UK’s near-100,000-capacity Download festival alongside veteran rock icons Korn and Green Day. It’s also been heavily hinted that the masked pop-prog-metal sex cult will release their fourth album before they grace the stage in Donington, potentially giving not just their genre but all of heavy music its tentpole release for the next 12 months.
Djent-influenced metalcore frontrunners Spiritbox will enjoy a similar levelling up. Next month, the Canadians play their biggest-ever UK show at the 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace. The gig will be followed by second album Tsunami Sea, set to surf in on a wave of hype strong enough to drown Godzilla.
Also happening next month is the release of the new Jinjer album, Duél. It will be their first studio project since Wallflowers in 2021, with the band having admitted that the Russian invasion of their home country slowed them down creatively. Something special this way comes nonetheless: bassist Eugene Abdukhanov recently told Metal Hammer that Tatiana’s vocals are so good they move him to tears.
February will herald Dream Theater’s Parasomnia too. The sleep-themed album will be the New Yorkers’ first in 16 years with founding drummer Mike Portnoy. The blue-bearded beast returned to the fold in 2023, after playing for almost every other rock band in existence.
More is expected from everybody’s favourite baying Frenchmen, Gojira, later down the line. Last September (a couple months after the band’s fire-spewing show at the Olympics’ opening ceremony), frontman Joe Duplantier said they were in the middle of making some “ambitious” new music. When that will materialise is TBA, but what’s certain is that the wildmen will decimate Derbyshire’s Bloodstock Open Air in August, alongside modern metal greats Trivium and Machine Head.
Polyphia are set to make some bold musical moves as well. The genre-shredding instrumentalists have already buddied up with Deftones and Steve Vai, and, talking to Rock Sound last summer, guitarist Tim Henson revealed that they’ll team with Babymetal on their next album.
“We’ve been talking to Serj [Tankian] from System Of A Down,” he added. “We love all kinds of music, so it’s fun to reach into all these different things.”
Filling out the calendar will be new stuff from sludge/prog giants Mastodon, who are currently working on their first album since 2021: a “supernatural horror” concept piece. “I don’t see a world in which it does not come out in 2025,” drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor says in the new issue of Hammer.
And that’s just the big guns! Karnivool are set to make their debut atop the bill at Bristol’s Arctangent festival in August and deliver their first album in 12 years. Plus, Leprous are currently trekking across Europe on an Evening With run in some of the biggest venues they’ve ever played, whereas Animals As Leaders are about to celebrate 10 years of beloved album The Joy Of Motion on the road.
Naturally, there’s still way more to be announced over the coming months, but it’s already plain to see: 2025 will be a banner year for progressive metal. The genre will get catapulted to the apex of festivals, cram venues of all sizes, and offer landmark album after landmark album. Take that, other kids at school!
Read more about the metal albums to get excited for in 2025 inside the new issue of Metal Hammer. Order your copy now and get it delivered directly to your door.
