Here are the 11 best progressive metal albums of 2025!

Last year was one of the best years for progressive metal since it began in the mid-80s, with eminent artists such as Opeth, Devin Townsend, Ihsahn, Leprous and Caligula’s Horse creating some of their finest work. Clearly, expectations were high for this year to match (or even surpass) 2024 and while there were arguably fewer familiar faces knocking it out of the park this time around, 2025 still delivered the goods.

Primarily, we saw the godfathers of the genre – Dream Theater – reprising their greatest lineup by welcoming back founding drummer Mike Portnoy after nearly 15 years! Beyond that, dependable mainstays such as Between the Buried and Me, Epica, Amorphis, Kardashev and Green Carnation continued their reign, and just as many lesser-known acts proved that they measure up to the big boys.

READ MORE: The 10 Best Prog Metal Guitar + Keyboard Duos

Which progressive metal records blew us away the most over the last dozen or so months, you might ask? Well, keep scrolling to see!

As always, we’d love to know how many of our picks would also be your picks, as well as if any future classics somehow slipped past us. So, feel free to chime in with how much we got right – or wrong – with this list.

For us, the following full-length sets (arranged by release date, not ranking) surely culminate in the 11 best prog metal albums of 2025!

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