Let The Truth Speak was the long-awaited follow-up to one of the most significant prog debuts of the 2010s, and with an 8-year incubation period, it waited long enough for expectations to skyrocket before its release, but remarkably, it managed to deliver. Once again opting to use multiple guest vocalists, Earthside were meticulous with their search for talent, finding hidden gems in the form of Keturah (The Heavy Medicine Band) and Aarlon’s Pritam Adhikary, while also bringing back TesseracT’s Daniel Tompkins for another sensational performance on the title track. With a myriad of other guest instrumentalists, including Sandbox Percussion and Baard Kolstad from Leprous, Let The Truth Speak is a truly epic endeavour, one with elaborate, complex compositions, staggering range, and impeccable symphonic arrangements, all captured with a pristine production.

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One of the most accomplished progressive metal acts in recent years, Britain's Haken return with album number seven, Fauna. On this latest effort, Haken present another masterclass in progressive metal, featuring some of their most adventurous and diverse songwriting yet, with many unpredictable twists and turns and a variety of styles ranging from math rock to heavy metal along the way. With an animal theme assigned to every track, this album is also their most conceptually intriguing to date. Fauna is another fine addition to what is already an impressive discography and a progressive metal album not to be missed for any fans of the genre; more to the point, you don't even have have to be a musical intellectual to get the full grasp of its brilliance.

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With their fourth full-length album, Horizon's End have possibly produced their grand achievement. Lyrically, The Great Destroyer is a memoir of war through the eyes of children. Musically, it is a captivating symphonic and technical progressive metal album, drawing influences from Dream Theater, Shadow Gallery, and Threshold to Queen, classical music, Manos Hadjidakis, and Broadway musicals. It is 73 minutes of emotive music and lyrics, crafted by keyboardist Sakis Bandis (Hail Spirit Noir). A vast array of sentiments is being expressed through driving riffs and, especially, through exceptional melodies; guitar melodies, vocal melodies, and, of course, keyboard melodies. Three decades into their existence, it is about time Horizon's End received the recognition they deserve in the progressive metal circles.

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“Opus” is such a modest title; we could probably slip a “Magnum” in front of that already. Listening to Nospūn’s jaw-dropping debut is like waking up at 6:00 on a Christmas morning to find that Haken is climbing back up The Mountain. Opus is just about a fundamentally perfect prog metal according to the old rules: the instrumentation is mind-boggling in its precision and cleanness, but always rich and flavorful, never mechanical, striking a balance between the hearty resonance of a good heavy riff, the moody echoes of an introspective flashback, and the ambitious-but-accessible spirit of even more classic classic prog. Metropolis 2.5: Son Of Metropolis studies the theatricality of Leprous, the earnestness of Evergrey, and the literate energy of Rush to build a massive concept album that’s fresh-feeling and fun, bold and yet balanced. If you thought that progressive metal had forever turned its back on these images and words, now’s your chance to watch it reawaken.

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Gentlemen, you can't groove in here! This is the war room!

Nuclear Power Trio put the “polka” in “apocalypse”, the “ass” in “mutually assured destruction”, and a lot of funk where quite frankly there doesn’t need to be very much funk. There are a lot of aspiring writers on the internet who have long argued that Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-Un could make beautiful music together, but this is undoubtedly not what they had in mind – and this is also way more of a white-hot ripper of an album than you might expect if you were looking at these joint chiefs of faff as a gimmick only. Wet Ass Plutonium is a popping prog party, with just the right amount of Hotline Miami infusing the audio-visual presentation: synths and slap bass, neon and noodling, high-energy licks and high levels of uncertainty as to what kind of commentary this could possibly be making. Perhaps it's the realization that when the power to destroy the planet rests in the hands of three of the worst people currently living on it, there isn't really anything you can do except make your last days livable.

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Riverside have bounced back remarkably from the tragic death of Piotr Grudziński in 2016; first, Wasteland was a powerful statement that showed a new side to the band, and now with ID.Entity, they show themselves both reconnecting with their early days while also striving forwards. Some of the material on this release is the closest they’ve got to their Anno Domini High Definition sound since that album’s initial release, balancing the band’s innate tenderness with a crunchy side, but unexpected experiments with funk and ska sounds are similarly successful in their implementation. Maciej Meller’s recorded debut announces him as a more than able replacement as lead guitarist, with the return of the band’s signature lush lead guitar work after a relative absence on Wasteland, and based on ID.Entity, Riverside are well primed for a successful future to come.

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The most exciting recent export of British progressive metal, Sermon, have crafted Of Golden Verse, an absolutely captivating journey into the depths of their ethereal, visceral, and mysterious artistry. Throughout the album, Sermon deftly navigate a range of tempos and dynamics, from the pummeling intensity of "Wake The Silent" to the haunting beauty of "Senescence". The band’s enigmatic mastermind, Him, uses clean vocals with an extreme-like delivery, while drummer James Stewart (Decapitated, ex-Vader) is destroying his kit, especially on “Departure”. Of Golden Verse is a masterful product of progressive metal with doomy, alternative, and even gothic textures, offering a superbly polished soundscape, while subtly masquerading its harsh starting point.

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Black is, unfortunately, a posthumous release, mastered and compiled after the death of The Bipolar Disorder Project's sole member, Robert Cotoros, in 2020. Its scant running time of 27 minutes - quite uncommon for such an atmospheric prog album - is a reminder of how much is missing from this project now: both the creation and the creator. What remains is more than a mere testament to potential, however; Black follows up Anna in more of a prog rock vein, balancing its heaviness and modernity with mellow melancholy. A sad but steady heartbeat keeps Black moving, sometimes from the shadows, behind a windowpane watching the world turn, sometimes in a bleak dreampop lament, sometimes in a full-on metal groove. It's a powerful album both on its own and in context, one that takes its progressive tendencies toward the gentle hallucinations of slumber.

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The Gorge signed for Pelagic Records (arguably the gold standard of record labels) in 2016, but waited until 2023 to make their debut on the label with Mechanical Fiction. A long time coming, Mechanical Fiction is absolutely worth the wait; spanning prog and sludge in a similar way to Intronaut, The Gorge have a background in jazz that feeds into the album’s remarkable virtuosity and rhythmic complexity, but its appeal comes from far more than just its intricacy. With delicious riffs, songs with unpredictable yet compelling flow, and fascinating lead guitar work that bears a resemblance to Mastodon, Mechanical Fiction is a prog-sludge triumph.

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Bringing together the sludgy prog of Baroness and Mastodon with arena sensibilities influenced by the likes of Queen, Coheed & Cambria, and My Chemical Romance, Witch Ripper have found a sound that is incredibly fun to listen. There’s sludgy gnarl alongside rowdy rocking, dazzling solos and drumming, and vocals that bear uncanny resemblances to Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor; where Witch Ripper distance themselves from Mastodon on The Flight After The Fall is in both their unabashed progginess on these lengthy songs, and also their inclination towards big grandstand melodic passages that beg to be sung along to. The Flight After The Fall is a hugely fun listen; Witch Ripper covered a lot of bases here, and clearly had a blast while doing so.

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