Another year in the can, and what a year it was. The Progressive Subway has tasted triumph and known strife, been nice to some bands, and been mean to some others. So it goes. But the blog has gone from strength to strength, commanding an ever-expanding readership in a dying internet, and with a coterie of mad prog enthusiast writers sniffing through the detritus for the juiciest morsels in the progressive underground. We’re done with our writer’s individual top tens; this one’s the super-duper big one. The Official Progressive Subway Top Ten Albums of 2024 as voted for by our writers (using their individual top tens as a ballot; if you’ve paid attention to those you’ve probably got an idea of where this is going).
Just a reminder that these are all underground bands (according to our esoteric metrics)—you won’t find Opeth here, nor Devin; there’ll be no Wheel, and you must be joking if you think you’ll come across Zeal & Ardor. These are the brightest gems from the darkest caves of the nerdiest genre around, and what a great year for them it was. All of us have bands we loved that didn’t make this final list, and you should definitely check out those for more suggestions if you haven’t already. But the all-important question is, who will take the coveted top spot? In 2022, it was Wilderun, in 2023 it was Alkaloid. And in 2024? Well, you’d best start scrolling down this page if you want to find out the answer to that question.
10. Meer – Wheels Within Wheels
Recommended for fans of: The Dear Hunter, pop Leprous, Hjaltalín, Kalandra, Bent Knee
Write-up by: Ian
What separates a truly great orchestral prog album from a merely good one? Is it memorable, hooky melodies? Expansive, lush orchestrations? Well-executed instrumental and vocal performances? Sure, Wheels Within Wheels has all of the above in spades, but so do plenty of albums that manage “competent”, perhaps even “enjoyable”, while falling well short of any more effusive adjectives. No, Meer‘s latest offering takes those elements and expertly puts them in service to a deep sense of emotionality and dynamics, a perfectly paced rollercoaster whose valleys are judiciously placed to maximize the effect of its peaks. They’ll hit upon a strong hook, and, as one does with such memorable melodies, they repeat it a few times during the song in order to drive it deeper and deeper into the fleshy crevices of the listener’s hippocampus. But beyond that basic skeleton, the true meat of a good song in this genre lies in the way those repetitions shift and differ from one another, the tight intricacies of the instrumentals as they push and pull against the emotions of the tunes and words, and in that regard, there are few albums meatier. With their eight-member orchestration complete with a potent, versatile twin vocal attack, Meer have all the resources they need to craft a dizzying wealth of contrasts upon the foundation of their songwriting’s baroque-pop base. From the angelic “Come to Light” to the menace of “Something in the Water” and everything in between, there’s a stunning consistency in the electrifying thrill of the band’s whisper-to-a-wail buildup, leaving listeners thrilled yet ready for more every time.
Recommended tracks: Chains of Changes, Behave, Take Me to the River, Something in the Water, This is the End
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
9. Kyros – Mannequin
Recommended for fans of: Frost*, Depeche Mode, Haken, Rush, Yes, Duran Duran, basically any band that you can imagine Steven Wilson really liking
Write-up by: Christopher
Hunkered away deep in a dank English basement, Kyros have been plugging away on an insane and dangerous experiment for the last decade: can you put a synth-pop brain in a prog rock body? There are all sorts of potential pitfalls. Will the body reject the brain and remain firmly King Crimson in its sensibility? Will the brain take over the body too effectively and just put out Erasure singles? Could something go horribly wrong to create 1980s Phil Collins 2.0? Fortunately, the painstaking experimentation paid off, and Kyros have instead forged the perfect blend of the two genres. Embodying the glitz and groove of a club full of coked-up, denim-clad, perm-sporters and marrying it successfully with prog rock’s sober vaunting of technicality and irrevocable tendency towards chronic masturbation is no easy feat, but Mannequin is replete with not just bopping earworms and flashy synths, but also virtuoso playing and sojourning composition. Your mum will dance with abandon to the strains of “Esoterica”, your dad will say “have I ever told you about the time I saw Marillion?”, and your mates will say “yeah, that’s cool, but have you heard the new Magdalena Bay?”
Recommended tracks: Esoterica, The End in Mind, Illusions Inside, Liminal Space, Have Hope
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
8. Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water
Recommended for fans of: Radiohead, Steven Wilson, The Dear Hunter, Björk
Write-up by: Christopher
Seven albums in, Bent Knee are the most underrated institution in the prog scene. With members having collaborated with the likes of Haken, Ihsahn, Car Bomb, Leprous, Richard Henshall to name but a few, even if you don’t know them, their stealthy influence has graced your ears at some point. Twenty Pills Without Water sees the band evolve once again, leaning into the indie sound of Radiohead, and the art pop of vocalist and keyboardist Courtney Swain’s solo work while also looking back to the sound of earlier albums Say So and Land Animal. Bent Knee are in mourning here: with Ben Levin (guitar) and Jess Kion (bass) having reduced the band to a foursome, the rest of the members are scared cowboys, they’re never coming home, and they’re refusing to mow the goddamn lawn (much to the horror of the HOA). The sonic palette veers from optimistic to bittersweet, upbeat bops to heartwrenching laments, and the lyrics illustrate a very time-of-life rooted depression. In a storied discography, Twenty Pills Without Water ranks high, a mature, emotional and cathartic album but one that, for all that, is surprisingly optimistic. Turns out cheering really does help.
Recommended tracks: Never Coming Home, Big Bagel Manifesto, Illiterate, Drowning, DLWTSB
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
7. Triton Project – Messenger’s Quest
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Kamelot, Circus Maximus, Symphony X
Write-up by: Doug
What more is there to say about Triton Project that I haven’t already covered as I waxed poetic in one of my numerous writeups for the blog? This incredible debut caught me completely off guard, setting a shining example of what epic prog metal albums should sound like and proving themselves capable of standing alongside the best artists in the genre. With sparkling keyboards to match the snowy album art and expressive, wide-ranging vocals to elevate their tale of fantasy adventure, every moment offers something to love, if not multiple things. Although Messenger’s Quest may seem daunting at first with its overall length of almost eighty minutes and three separate tracks topping the ten-minute mark themselves, Triton Project handle these bulky compositions with practiced ease, keeping momentum rolling along with new compositional developments at every turn and ensuring that even the colossal runtimes don’t feel stale or become overwrought in their complexity. In a scene filled with overambitious and under-talented debut disappointments, it’s refreshing to see Triton Project set such a lofty starting goal for themselves and manage to do it all just as well as the pros, if not better.
Recommended tracks: all of them, but you can start with The Key if you want a short sample
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
6. Aquilus – Bellum II
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Emperor, Agalloch, Chopin, Debussy
Write-up by: Sam
I wrote about this album just two days ago, and now you’re asking me to do so again? Alright, but this time I will use more than one sentence. Bellum II is one of the best musical encapsulations of “dreamlike” I have ever come across: its effusive compositions operate on their own impenetrable logic yet you intuitively know that not a single element is without meaning. Aquilus interweaves gorgeous modern classical arrangements through overwhelmingly fierce black metal, cosy acoustic folk rock, and everything in between, or they just forego rock instrumentation entirely and let strings and piano do all the work. Horace Rosenqvist (coolest name ever btw) brings these components together in a way that each section feels akin to a crystalline distillation of the emotions that underlie our daily experiences, and lets the music in its entirety ebb and flow in intensity with that same fluidity that our nightly reveries guide us through our subconscious with. Sometimes Bellum II is violent like a storm at sea, other times it walks you through a beautiful garden at the height of summer, and on occasion it can also take you through life at a normal pace. Whatever it is, Bellum II never fails to be evocative and absolutely deserves your attention.
Recommended tracks: By Tallow Noth, Into the Earth, A Solitary Demise, Nigh To Her Gloam
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
5. Orgone – Pleroma
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Gorguts
Write-up by: Zach
I’ve always said that Gorguts’s Luc Lemay should work with FromSoftware to compose music for their games. His style of angular and screeching riffs would perfectly translate into the shrieking dissonance and epic swells already found in the Soulsborne games. While Orgone is very much not this, it’s about the closest I’m going to likely get and then some. Eschewing the standard style of metal riffing for something I haven’t heard used in prog-death, Pleroma combines the batshit changeups of Between the Buried and Me with a heaping of chamber and folk music. The result is something labyrinthine and altogether uncompromising in the scope and ambition of lead composer Stephen Jarrett. While Pleroma seems daunting and an unintelligible mix of a thousand instruments on first listen, it soon unfurls into an unforgettable showcase of tight songwriting prowess. As much Opeth as it is iamthemorning, Pleroma deserves its spot on this list, and will go on to reach the upper echelons of prog as a genre, because this is what pushing the boundaries of music is all about.
Recommended tracks: Valley of the Locust, Flâneurs, Lily by Lily, Ubiquitous Divinity, Trawling the Depths, Scheme of Fulfillment, Pleroma
Related links: Bandcamp | original review
4. Azure – Fym
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Ayreon, (Luca Turilli’s) Rhapsody (of Fire), Haken, Yes
Write-up by: Dave
Have you ever listened to a progressive rock release and thought, ‘That was nice, but it needs more’? What about a release with more than that? More than even that? If so, then you are doing yourself a disservice by not indulging in the abject excess of Azure’s Fym, a masterclass in cramming more into every corner of a composition. What sort of ‘more’ can you find here? A larger-than-life story about gathering pieces of a magic sword in the name of a powerful sorceress, staccato instrumentation that’ll set off your seismometer, and blindingly fast technicolor guitar and keyboard work. And to top it all off, it’s so much fun: groovy slap bass solos springboard into soaring choruses; teetering vocal lines uneasily explore volcanic caves in unfathomably deep trenches; and sweeping orchestration gently leads the listener through a glade of gently falling petals, unaware of the deception to be found at its center. Fym betrays such a depth of ideas and a painstaking integration of ideas into the fantasy world crafted by Chris Sampson, even making time to reintroduce motifs from previous releases Redtail and Of Brine and Angel’s Beaks. Fym is left on a dramatic cliffhanger that leaves me begging for the next chapter in this story, and if you give it the time of day, I imagine you’ll feel the same.
Recommended tracks: The Azdinist // Den of Dawns, Fym, Mount Mettle and Key, Doppelganger
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
3. Lamentari – Ex Umbra in Lucem
Recommended for fans of: Emperor, Ihsahn (especially his new album), Fleshgod Apocalypse, Septicflesh, Limbonic Art
Write-up by: Andy
Many of us at the Prog Subway enjoy black metal, but I’m the only one who lives for good black metal and certainly the only one of us who prefers black metal to death metal. It is a testament to Lamentari‘s skill that they place so highly on our aggregate list. From real orchestras and choirs to the most virtuosic guitar solos I’ve ever heard on a black metal album, Ex Umbra in Lucem is unique and one of the best debuts the metal world has ever seen. It’s rich and decadent but so damn delectable you’ll be begging for more by the end of the thirty-eight minutes. How could one not love the unexpected fretless bass solo in “Tragoedia in Domo Dei” or the ridiculous progressive songwriting of “Appugno.” Ex Umbra in Lucem is such a unique black metal experience I can only truly compare it to First Fragment‘s perfect Gloire Éternelle but shorter. While the album is on, it’s a never ending stream of badassery and over-the-top displays of what peak symphonic black metal can be. And remember, this is only a debut!!
Recommended tracks: Tragoedia in Domo Dei, Intra Muros Mentis, Appugno
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | original review
2. Iotunn – Kinship
Recommended for fans of: ans of: Opeth, Amorphis, In Mourning, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium
Write-up by: Cooper
Welcome to the number two position. If you’ve been following our personal lists this should come as no surprise, but if you still aren’t familiar with Iotunn, there’s no better place to start than here. Featuring Jón Aldará’s towering vocals and the Gräs brothers’ captivating guitar work, Kinship is a masterclass in weaving triumphant leads, singalong choruses, and slowly building atmospheric textures into cohesive longform compositions. Anchored by a superb rhythm section and memorable motifs, Kinship delivers an immersive journey through vast cosmic soundscapes. With this release, Iotunn should be firmly placed amongst the up and coming progressive death metal elite; I, for one, know I’ll be singing along to “Twilight” for years to come.
Recommended tracks: Twilight, Kinship Elegiac, Earth to Sky
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | original review
1. In Vain – Solemn
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Insomnium, In Mourning, Disillusion, Countless Skies
Write-up by: Ian
I sigh as I clock in for my duties at the Subway’s equine processing plant, taking a sledgehammer from the wall. This may be seasonal work, and my supervisors assure me it’s necessary, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant. I walk past a couple doors, hearing Cooper once more calling out the vocals in Iotunn from one, Andy heaping more praise upon Lamentari‘s symphonics from another, each line punctuated by the dull thwack of a blunt instrument meeting a stallion’s corpse. At least Chris has finally finished going on about that witchy pagan trip-hop thing, I think to myself, but the relief swiftly turns to dread as I encounter today’s project: a mangled mess of mane, bone, and hooves that should have been sent to the glue factory long ago.
“In Vain? Seriously?” I call out to the shadowy figures overlooking me. “I literally already went over this thing. Twice! And so did Chris, and Cooper, and Andy, and Zach, and Sam, and Chris again-“
“It is precisely due to this… popularity that your participation today is needed once more,” crackles a voice on the intercom overhead. “Proceed.“
I take a deep breath and raise the hammer over my head. “Solemn is full of immaculate, virtuosic performances, from the powerhouse, expertly balanced mixture of clean and harsh vocals to the killer guitar solos, riffs, and rhythm section!”
Thwack.
“The songwriting is absolutely jaw-dropping, with incredibly massive choruses built to absolutely overwhelm every emotional center in your brain with a sheer, unrelenting tide of raw feeling!”
Crunch.
“Combined with its orchestration, which manages to be an ever-innovative source of surprises that somehow never feels superfluous, this is, on a level of sheer objective quality, the best release we’ve covered in 2024 by far!”
Squelch.
I’m starting to weep now from the sheer exertion, but, miracle of miracles, this effort was seen as enough, and with a pleasant, dinging sound effect, the conveyor belts turn on to ferry this poor ex-bronco on to its final resting place. My arms ache, but I know this nightmare was worth it, just so someone, somewhere, could experience this masterwork for the first time because of what I do. Beats working in a sweatshop, I suppose.
Recommended tracks: Shadows Flap Their Black Wings, Beyond the Pale, At the Going Down of the Sun, Eternal Waves, Watch For Me on the Mountain
Related links: Spotify | Bandcamp | original review
