Progressive Metal has a rich history behind it
Progressive metal - is not an independent genre of music. It first appeared as a sub-genre of heavy metal, which combined in itself all the metal traditions but with an addition of progressive structure of compositions. The roots of the progressive metal go back to the beginning of the seventies - the heyday of the popularity of progressive rock, at the dawn of which the first attempts were made to combine progressive with heavy guitar riffs.
It is very difficult to trace who first came up with the idea to combine the traditions of metal with these new and progressive aspects of sound. However, it is quite possible to assume that all these musical developments began from the Iron Maiden, as it seems like it was them that got the greatest extent of influence on this trend in metal music.
The groups began to experiment with their sound, and thus, from the 80s to the 90s, the sound of progressive metal was fully formed and it has been alive and well ever since.
Progressive Metal has a unique sound to it
Progressive metal is a blend of many different things. It combines heavy, guitar-focused metal music, lots of innovations in terms of building a composition, different complex arrangements, diverse use of instrumentation and lots of experimentation in general. Keyboards are used quite frequently, they add up to the high-pitched vocals and unique lyrics of the songs to create something truly memorable. Thus, with so many tools at an artist’s disposal, the songs are usually a bit longer in their duration. And, as you may have guessed, all of these things allow it to combine many other genres of music into itself, like jazz, classical and symphonic music, etc.
There are lots of sub-genres of Progressive Metal
There’s traditional progressive metal that, as we’ve mentioned, was properly established in the 90s. Traditional Progressive Metal bands include Savatage, Shadow Gallery, Symphony X, Soul Cages, Sieges Even and many others.
There’s Power-Progressive Metal, also known as the American style. Bands like Queensryche, Vicious Rumors, Crimson Glory and Heir Apparent are all great examples of Power-Progressive Metal bands.
And then there is also Modern Progressive Metal. It goes back to the late 90s, with the bands like Ayreon, Pain of Salvation, Riverside and many others. This wave included lots of spacey and electronic elements into its sound. Thus, there’s been even more rhythmical experimentation and conceptually themed albums.
Lots of great bands have devoted their sounds to Progressive Metal
While, obviously, everyone will have their own subjective opinion on the following bands, but it is undeniable that they have been at the forefront of the wave, and no one can challenge them in terms of popularity.
Progressive metal owes its success to the bands like Dream Theater, Opeth, Tool, Cynic, Between the Buried and Me, Symphony X, Queensryche, Periphery, Animals as Leaders, Gojira, King Crimson, Mastodon, Tesseract and lots of other bands. There are too many of them to list here, but the fact remains the same, progressive metal is in no way a dying genre of music and lots of talented bands will ensure its legacy in the annals of history.
