Welcome to the top half of The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Albums of 2025. Part One can be found here.
Continue reading “Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1”Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1
Tag: space rock
Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26
Welcome to The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Albums of 2025! As usual, this is a two-part list of 50 total entries. Part two is here.
As a reminder, the music on this list spans December 2024 through November 2025. Music from December 2025 will be on the 2026 list. I’m sure there is plenty of good music I missed, but when it comes to the reviewing, this is a one-man operation. (My proofreaders/editors, Kelci and Dan, have been very helpful, as always.) There are also certain trends and styles I simply don’t like very much.
2025 was a fantastic year for progressive rock and related genres. I was spoiled for choice with this list, and this may be the overall-strongest batch of recommendations I’ve given to date.
Continue reading “Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26”Best of 2025: Cool Songs
Welcome to the first installment of The Elite Extremophile’s Best of 2025! Today, I’m starting off with Cool Songs. Tomorrow will feature the Top EPs, and the Top Albums will follow on Wednesday and Thursday.
Before we get to it, let me give my usual Best-Of disclaimers. This is a one-man operation, in regard to writing the reviews. (My proofreaders Kelci and Dan are very helpful.) I’m sure there was plenty of great music I just simply missed. I’ve also got my own personal biases against certain styles and trends.
As a reminder, this list covers what I call the “music year” 2025, which covers December 2024 through November 2025.
This segment is meant to show off great tracks that do not appear on my other year-end lists. If a release makes my best EPs or best albums list, it is disqualified from appearing in this particular segment.
Without further ado, let’s get to it!
Continue reading “Best of 2025: Cool Songs”Odds & Ends: December 29, 2025
Band: Doom Gong | Album: Megagong | Genre: Psychedelic rock | Bandcamp
Doom Gong’s latest record is by turns exhilarating and idyllic. The band nimbly alternates between speedy instrumental antics and moments of lush abstraction. In general, the tempo is upbeat, and the easiest stylistic comparison here would be King Gizzard. These guys have a bit more fuzz to them, often channeling Ty Segall and Ty Segall-adjacent acts, like Wand or Fuzz. The sound is maximal, often bordering on suffocating, but Doom Gong makes it work.
Score: 82/100
Band: Eyes Twitch | Album: … | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp
The debut record from this instrumental duo is an engaging excursion. Riffs are speedy and complex, and song structures are often surprising. The synth inclusions are a lot of fun, and the band demonstrates a good knack for knowing when to take their foot off the gas for a moment.
Score: 80/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: December 29, 2025”Odds & Ends: December 1, 2025
Band: Agabas | Album: Hard Anger | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp
The title of Agabas’s latest record is quite fitting. This record is heavy, hard-hitting, and angry as hell. The riffs are punishing, lashing the listener’s ears. There’s a neverending sense of forward momentum, with almost no breathing room. Everything here is maximal, with shouted vocals, pummeling guitars, and squalling saxophone filling up every available inch of auditory space.
Score: 76/100
Band: Ahles | Album: Between Dreams and the Waking World | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp
The debut album (well, sorta; they previously released a record in 2010 under the moniker Born from the Ashes) from this Australian quartet showed a lot of promise. The opening few songs featured a lot of strong melodies, exciting playing, and intelligent structuring. Unfortunately, the second half of the album is quite a bit wobblier, and it’s only hampered by some less-than-amazing lyrics that even I couldn’t zone out. However, they show a lot of ambition and promise, so I’m optimistic they can refine things more on their next release in 2040.
Score: 67/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: December 1, 2025”Album Review: Lazersleep – Gravity
Band: Lazersleep | Album: Gravity | Genre: Heavy psych, Space rock | Year: 2025
From: Helsinki, Finland | Label: Independent
For fans of: Elder, Pink Floyd
Lazersleep is a band that wholeheartedly embraces textures and sonic effects as practically instruments unto themselves. They play a variety of psychedelia awash in phasers, flangers, wahs, and more, all in service of building up powerful atmospheres. The band describes their own music as “a psychedelic delay-bath,” and the lush soundscapes on this record even prompted them to tag this record with the confusing-but-fitting term “heavy nap.” Gravity is their debut record, and it is an impressive first statement.
Continue reading “Album Review: Lazersleep – Gravity”Odds & Ends: August 4, 2025
Band: Alburnus | Album: Alburnus III | Genre: Progressive rock, Psychedelic rock | Bandcamp
This Finnish band’s latest album is a groovy, retro-influenced slab of prog and psych. The instrumental passages are peppy, surprisingly catchy, and thoroughly enjoyable. The band shows a knack for melody and hooks, and their playing is flashy without being excessively technical. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s fun.
Score: 72/100
Band: Echolyn | Album: TimeSilentRadio II | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp
Echolyn put out two albums this March, and this is the stronger of the two. Consisting of just two massive tracks, TSRII sees the band utilize their usual sound in an effective manner. ‘90s prog is not my favorite flavor of the genre, but Echolyn pulls it off pretty well. It’s often sunny and relatively accessible, but the underlying songwriting is complex and intelligent. Some parts can be a bit on the cheesy side for me, but overall, their blend of classic prog, pop-rock, and jazzy flourishes works very well. The 29-minute “Water in Our Hands” is especially memorable.
Score: 80/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: August 4, 2025”Album Review: Amplifier – Gargantuan
Band: Amplifier | Album: Gargantuan | Genre: Progressive rock, Space rock | Year: 2025
From: Manchester, UK | Label: Rockosmos
For fans of: Devin Townsend’s less metallic stuff, Porcupine Tree, latter-era Beatles
Amplifier is a band that’s been around for a while, and they’ve often skirted the edges of this site’s purview. They’re primarily an alt-rock band, but they frequently include prog, psych, and space elements in their music. I’m especially fond of their 2011 release, The Octopus. Gargantuan is the band’s eighth studio album, and it sees them largely stick to their usual sound, but with a bit more space rock influence than on their last album. Things are grand and huge and often overblown here, but the band pulls it off quite well.
Continue reading “Album Review: Amplifier – Gargantuan”Odds & Ends: April 7, 2025
Artist: Lukey Cope | Album: Interpretation | Genre: Progressive rock, Progressive metal | Bandcamp
Lukey Cope’s debut album is an instrumental affair full of fast, flashy guitar licks. Amid all the showing off, he also displays a keen ear for melody and composition. Piano is prominently deployed, and that instrument’s percussive, biting tone pairs well against some of the thicker auditory qualities at play here. Despite being an instrumental record with a semi-atmospheric vibe, the bloat is pretty minimal here.
Score: 79/100
Band: Deddom | Album: When you find out the amount of your pension and start thinking what to do with it | Genre: Avant-garde metal | Bandcamp
This is an absolutely insane release. This 42-minute behemoth covers territory as diverse as black metal, free jazz, ambient, and more. It’s angry, full of harsh sounds and uneasy rhythms. There is a lot of inventive, oddball material here, and I like just how stark many of the contrasts are. That said, it is longer than it needs to be, and if you’re not in the mood for something harsh and challenging, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Score: 73/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: April 7, 2025”Album Review: Steven Wilson – The Overview
Artist: Steven Wilson | Album: The Overview | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025
From: Hertfordshire, UK | Label: Fiction Records
Steven Wilson has described his new album, The Overview, as a return to longer-form writing. I’m not sure “return” is necessarily applicable here. Even To the Bone and The Future Bites had one song apiece that pushed 10 minutes. Though I suppose if he’s talking more specifically about songs long enough to cover one whole side of an LP, it has been a while. The last one of such length was “Raider II” off Grace for Drowning in 2011. And this is the first album to feature two such massive songs since The Sky Moves Sideways (though disc one of The Incident is billed as one hour-long song cycle).
This is also the first Steven Wilson solo album in a while I’ve gone into with good hopes. He has explicitly cited Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd as influences he channeled here, as well as stating that the concept of The Overview is well-suited to progressive rock. (The concept behind this album is “the overview effect,” where astronauts viewing the Earth from above often report overwhelming emotion and a strong connection with all of humanity.)
Continue reading “Album Review: Steven Wilson – The Overview”
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