I put off homework to make this list. I recommend you try to control for the hyperbole with which I’m inevitably going to describe my favorite music.
1. Deftones - Koi No Yokan
One of the most beautiful works of art I’ve ever experienced. The perfect blend of the beauty of Deftones’ lush, atmospheric, -gaze timbre with the brutal but minimalist crush of Carpenter’s downtuned riffs, the interplay between the two sounds no longer relegated to alternating passages but now fused in every second. What a fucking soundscape.
2. Tool - 10,000 Days
This is mainly here instead of Lateralus because that album isn’t really metal. Fantastic riffs and an excellent sense of pop sensibility and more emotion laden - if sometimes dumber - lyrics power Tool’s most heavy record, full of serpentine bass lines and batshit octopus drumming. Feels exactly like what one would expect from the result of Tool having toured with Meshuggah. This is no. 2 not because of some intense deliberation process, but because no matter how long of a break I take from this album/band (up to a year once, believe it or not) I can’t stop ripping off its sound unconsciously or otherwise.
3. Tesseract - Altered State
Having pioneered a certain corner of the djent sound with FellSilent, Alec/Acle Kahney went on to mastermind Tesseract, one of the coolest-named bands in existence. I can’t describe Tesseract verbally, try as I might, and I certainly can’t describe this album and do it justice. But for the microscopic subset of people who both know this band’s sound and haven’t heard this opus, I will try! This album appeals to me much in the same way that Koi No Yokan does. Whether it’s caused by something as simple as the album art, I imagine Altered State as the minimalist monochrome disciple of the rainbow that is Koi No Yokan. Comparisons aside, this is a fantastic journey through what funk would sound like if soul or blues never existed but distorted 7 string guitars did. Songs flow in and out of each other, parts sometimes never appear again, no matter the groove factor. The riffs are ingrained in my memory and so are the ethereal, career-defining vocals of Ashe O’Hara, who may have peaked with this album, alongside the band backing him on it.
4. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
The first time I heard Oblivion I was hooked on Mastodon’s fascinating blend of sludgy riffage, prog transitions and Gilmour solos. When I discovered that its host album had multiple 10+ minute long songs and an overall emotional bent charged by Brenn Dailor’s late sister, I was intrigued. Dozens of drum fills and sick grooves later, and it’s had its impact on me as a phenomenal record in general and one of modern prog’s greatest offerings.
5. Earthsde - A Dream in Static
I’ve already raved about this band in a rambling 2000 word review I’ll never edit, so I’ll refer readers to that instead.
6. Animals as Leaders - Self Titled
Jaw drop after jaw drop. That’s how I remember feeling when I heard this insane album for the first time. I was really getting into guitar at this point in my life - devouring online tips, videos, tutorials and the like and was ripe for mind blowing. I got it in the now meme-ified video for CAFO. Taking the Holdsworth fusion noodling of Meshuggah to a whole other level, Tosin Abasi shredded my face off - and I don’t even like shredding. AAL sounds like no other band and AAL sounds like no other album. Inspiring hundred of youtube covers, it contains some fantastic 2000s style riffs (a la Abasi’s earlier project Reflux) and the face-melting djent of Meshuggah that together cement it as one of the most interesting works in metal, prog notwithstanding.
7. Cynic - Focus
I don’t care for death metal. But prog death metal? Count me in. Founded by ex-members of Death who presumably wanted crazier music that was less thrash and more jazz, Cynic is one of those bands more interesting for their legacy than anything else. After more than a decade of no material Cynic started releasing music again and were already headlining festivals. And it all started with this album. Intricate and busy riffs, bizarre vocoder effects, fretless bass slides, guitar synths and sudden clean jazz: this is some avant garde shit. I don’t necessarily love every song on this album and I don’t even listen to it often but I’ll find myself tracing back almost every prog I like to this album - Cynic’s towering influence on prog metal and tech death (I’m sure) starts and perhaps ends with this fascinating and complex work.
8. The Contortionist - Intrinsic
The Contortionist - one of my favorite bands whose every turn and progression as artists have sat with me extremely well. I prefer energetic and heavy melody to harshness or dissonance, so I don’t make the claim that this is their best work lightly. Before the band transitioned into a post rock group, they were still treading the waters of Death metal and, well, metal in general. One of my all time favorite metal tracks, Holomovement, kicks of this spacey and experimental album. The album then twists and turns through Vangelisian synth solos, Cynical palm muted odd-time chugs, bouncy, melodic acoustic guitar passages, crooning oohs and ahs and nasty head-banging riffs, resulting in a phenomenal work of space-death-prog.
9. Dream Theater - Images and Words
10. Meshuggah - Nothing
11. Cult of Luna - Mariner
Atmospheric, heavy, artful and brooding - we have Mariner by Cult of Luna, featuring the wonderful shriek/croon of Julie Christmas (the closest we have to a female Chino?). It’s probably a concept album but I don’t know, I’m too busy soaking in the fantastic soundscapes from the reverb drenched synths, guitars and drums (which I think frankly sound a little too lo fi for the rest of the tones :( ).
12. Dream Theater - Octavarium
13. Leprous - Bilateral
14. Twelve Foot Ninja - Silent Machine
15. Death - The Sound of Perseverance
16. Persefone Spiritual Migration
17. Cloudkicker - The Discovery
18. Skyharbor - Guiding Lights
19. Fellsilent - The Hidden Words
20. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
21. Anathema - Alternative 4
22. Deafheaven - Sunbather
23. Intronaut - Intronaut Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)
24. Isis - Oceanic
I know Panopticon is their canonically best record but I literally immediately fell in love with Oceanic the moment I heard The Beginning and the End. I’ve only heard the former album once, but I’ve since listened to Oceanic back to back multiple times. This record and its successor cemented Post Metal as a genre to look out for, one that rose above its influences to create some of the most artful and innovative corners of metal. Well, except for all the crescendo-core bands.