Adam's Blog #1: Progressive Metal

I've oft thought about starting a blog here on MMA. Nothing too regular, just some place to put my musings and observations on the metal world, possibly some presentation pieces every now and then. We'll just see how this entry goes.

I was recently browsing my best of year list for 2015 on Rate Your Music as part of putting my submission together for the upcoming Collab's Top Albums of 2015, when I noticed something that based on previous years was really odd:

I did not have any traditional progressive metal albums rated higher than four stars. By traditional I mean an album that is first and foremost a progressive metal album and not, say, a progressive power metal album or a progressive death metal album, as I nearly always see such albums as having more to do with the other genre, than progressive metal itself. Thus discounting Wilderun's excellent second album Sleep at the Edge of the Earth (placed at #7) from counting as a progressive metal album. 

Sleep at the Edge of the Earth; progressive and brilliant, but ultimately folk metal.

Now I did not listen to as many albums from 2015 as I normally do due to being on a massive eighties kick for a good portion of last year, which may in fact go some way to explain this, but after discounting Wilderun as being a folk metal album, I had to scroll down to position #21 until I found an actual progressive metal album, that being Native Construct's debut Quiet World, which I think fully earned the four stars I reviewed it with but even so it wasn't an album I was ever really blown away with.

Quiet World; my highest rated progressive metal release from 2015

All told there were only three progressive metal albums on my list that I had felt especially inclined to listen to from 2015. Aside from Native Construct there was also Darkology's Fated to Burn, which was actually one of my most anticipated releases for a long time as I really loved their debut Altered Reflections from 2009 and District 97's In Vaults. Again, their last album (Trouble with Machine (2012)) was one I really loved. Both albums ultimately came across as quite the step backwards compared to their previous efforts.

For me this lack of progressive metal was practically unheard of.

I've considered that perhaps I just wasn't in a progressive metal mood during this time, but I've relistened to multiple older favourites in this time (by bands such as Anubis Gate, Dream Theater, Evergrey, Ayreon, Spheric Universe Experience and more) and enjoyed them just as much as I always did, if not more, which has led me to ask the question I'm now going to put to anyone interested enough to be reading this: has progressive metal become stale?

Into the Electric Castle; quite possibly my favourite album of all time and a progressive metal album.

Or perhaps it's just me having got burned out on progressive metal that it's going to take something really spectacular to get me to take notice of the genre again. So far in 2016 the same deal seems to be happening, even with Headspace whose follow-up to the excellent I Am Anonymous (2012) I've been eager to hear for a long time. I must admit that even as far back as 2014 there are only a couple of true progressive metal albums really high on my rankings list (including the #1) but go back to 2013 and there are a lot more releases that at least interested me enough to try them. In 2011 half of my top ten was progressive metal. Clearly that's something that's stopped happening for me in the last couple of years. I've still enjoyed most of the new progressive metal albums I've heard, the new Dream Theater being a noted exception, but it's been too long since a new progressive metal album really blew me away.

So what do you think? I've included a poll for convenience. And of course you can feel free to name some recent progressive metal releases that you think I might like, especially if you disagree with the notion that progressive metal has became stale.

And if you think it's become stale as well I'll take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone.