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The 2025 Rankings of Progressive Rock World

This 2025 is coming to a close and it's time to take stock, both in private and work life and in the world of music, which for me mainly means the world of progressive rock. This year I listened to many albums, old and especially new, and many of you have followed me here on this new blog but also on the previous one and on social media. I bought some of the albums in Norway, where thanks to the advice of expert shopkeepers I discovered new bands and delved deeper into prog from the north. 

Below are my Rankings: 

Best Progressive Rock Studio Album 2025

Best Italian Progressive Rock Album 2025

Best Debut Album 2025

Best Progressive Rock Live Albums 2025

Best Progressive Rock Album Cover 2025

Progressive Rock Studio Albums Ranking 2025

Then there are the Great Hopes, a section that gathers the works of some emerging bands, at their debut or who have started publishing only a few years ago and who for me fully represent the future of progressive rock

Great Hopes for the Future of Progressive Rock 2025

While waiting for the albums already ordered arriving in 2026 (at the moment Big Big Train and Neal Morse Band) here are my rankings in which reissues and anniversary editions are not included, only first release albums.

See you soon! 

FrancescoProg

Best Progressive Rock Studio Album 2025

The self-titled album by Motorpsycho is at the top of my ranking for albums of 2025. The absolute best.

Eclectic Prog, Psychedelic Rock, at times Space Rock, some of the best Classic Rock around, Hard Rock moments and some Metal references, splendid in all these phases, driving tracks between prog and psychedelia, mellotron and piano, guitars that sometimes recall a Zeppelin-like sound (as in “Laird Of Heimly”) and a prog rock sound like the splendid opening with “Lucifer, Bringer Of Light,” a long ride that already sets the mood of the album. With “Stanley (Tonight's The Night)” the sound of the 70s returns with its beautiful choruses and a consistently great bass laying down an almost beat-like foundation (which soon becomes a nice, decisive rock) that I really like.

Pop-Rock moments with catchy melodies alternate with psychedelic and typical progressive rock rides, and there is no shortage of distortions alongside melodies, folk, and hard rock.

Masterpiece, listen to it, it might climb your personal ranking as it did for me. Spectacular!

Best Italian Progressive Rock Album 2025

The self-titled album by Hora Prima is, in my opinion, the best release of 2025 in the Italian Progressive Rock scene.

The concept of the album deals with the relationship between humanity and technology, particularly a very current theme: artificial intelligence in contrast with the need to return to human origins and spiritual connection. Musically, it is a beautiful Italian Progressive Rock album influenced by the sacred monsters of the genre and performed with a modern and very refined sound, with excellent arrangements, great attention to sound, great mastery in the rhythm section, moments of great emotion and epic moments tending towards Jazz-Rock. All in the name of emotions.

The artwork is beautiful, worthy of the album.

An album that I have had the pleasure of listening to and re-listening to since I received it and that I can confidently recommend to all lovers of progressive rock and great music. 

Fantastic and surprising that an album like this came out in 2025, I hear certain things in albums that are decades old. 

Best Debut Album 2025

Fulguromatic's self-titled debut album is an extraordinary album… Imagine yourself at the end of the 1970s, you've already listened to albums by Caravan and Magma but also by Soft Machine and some RIO, and try to imagine, seen from that distant time, how progressive music might evolve in the future, in the far-off 2025: well, you have most likely imagined the sound of Fulguromatic.

Their sound is a fusion of jazz-rock, Canterbury scene sonorities, a touch of Zeuhl and avant-garde sounds, characterized by the use of self-built instruments, such as the automatic flute, which gives them a unique timbral quality, and with a rhythm section that is nothing short of extraordinary and eclectic, but also unusual instruments, bird calls, percussion, and an extraordinarily virtuosic use of electric piano, flutes, and xylophone. 

This debut album of theirs is on the border between Canterbury and jazz-rock, with even quite marked Zeuhl reminiscences, but it is in itself an avant-garde work. Absurdity, melody, harmony, irony, strength, lightness, an engaging, inventive sound, sometimes playful, sometimes intense, never banal. The best album of its kind, Eclectic Prog that fuses Canterbury and Zeuhl of 2025. A modern masterpiece. Listen to it, I put it on loop and never get tired of it.

Best Progressive Rock Live Albums 2025

EX AEQUO

This Is Not a Drill by Roger Waters, a live album in which Waters explores with sumptuous reinterpretations the vast repertoire of Pink Floyd with tracks taken from The Wall, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Dark Side of the Moon (released during the period when Waters had the leadership of Pink Floyd).

BEAT Live by BEAT, a Live masterpiece. 

Stellar line-up, a supergroup formed by Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai  and Danny Carey  who decide to play three magnificent King Crimson albums that I love, “Discipline“, “Beat” and “Three of a Perfect Pair“. 

A completely live album by musicians who excel in their respective instruments with great attention to the overall sound without excessive virtuosity. Masterpiece

Great focus on The Final Cut, but also on his personal repertoire and an unreleased track, “The Bar”. 

Monumental Work

Best Progressive Rock Album Cover 2025

EX AEQUO

The album cover "The World Under Unsun" by Lunatic Soul, by the artist T. Pulsakowski, represents the theme of the album, the "sun during an eclipse", symbolizing the protagonist's dark mental state and inner struggle, and connects to the final chapter of the "Circle of Life and Death" concept album series. 

The self-titled album Hora Prima features a surreal cover, tied to the album's concept of humanity versus technology. In the background, a post-apocalyptic scenario where nature has invaded spaces once dominated by humans, and at the center of the scene, a post-modern pietà in which 

A lifeless human body is lying on the legs of a humanoid being with a donkey's head and wearing the Mitre (a bishop's headdress)

Beautiful.

The artwork features a darkened and eclipsed sun (the "non-sun") in contrast with the life/death journey, reflecting the artist's inner darkness and their desire to break free from toxic patterns, with the cover serving as a key visual cue for the album's story. Extraordinary ArtWork

Progressive Rock Studio Albums Ranking 2025

TOP 10

#5

#4

#1

#3

#2

Motorpsycho

Motorpsycho

Fulguromatic

Fulguromatic

Solstice

Clann

Bjorn Riis

Fimbulvinter

Karmakanic

Transmutation

#9

#10

#8

#7

#6

The World Under Unsun 

Lunatic Soul 

Lars Fredrik Frøislie

Gamle Mester

Jordsjo & Breidablik: Kontraster

Pattern-Seeking Animals Friend of All Creatures

Waving at the Sky AVKRVST

#12

#11

#15

#16

#14

#13

Hiromi's Sonicwonder: Out There

Lars Fredrik Frøislie Quattro Racconti

Hora Prima 

Hora Prima

Spock's Beard 

The Archaeoptimist

Steven Wilson 

The Overview

Dream Theater Parasomnia

#20

#21

#22

#19

#18

#17

Discipline Breadcrumbs

Agropelter 

The Book Of Hours

Moonsoon

East Of Asteroid

Raccomandata Ricevuta Ritorno In Fuga

Sigilu

Beta

Massimo Pieretti The Next Dream

#24

#26

#23

#28

#25

#27

Dominic Sanderson

Blazing Revelations

Gazpacho

Magic 8-Ball

The Flower Kings
LOVE

Djabe & Steve Hackett 

Freya Arctic Jam

Gerald Massois Demain à l'aube

Tom Penaguin
Beginnings

#34

#33

#31

#32

#30

#29

Cosmic Cathedral
Deep Water

Echolyn
Timesilentradio vii

Amplifier
Gargantuan

Daal Decoding the Emptiness

Echolyn
Timesilentradio II

Malabriega
Frippada Andaluza

#35

#38

#37

#36

#40

#39

Karfagen
OMNI

Nuova Era 20.000 Leghe Sotto i Mari

IQ
Dominion

Limite Acque Sicure
Un'altra mano di carte

KGATLW
Phantom Island

Wilson Project
Atto Primo

#46

#42

#45

#41

#44

#43

Fluctus Quadratum
Laplacian

Barclay James Harvest
Relativity

The Guildmaster
Gathering of Souls

Imaginaerium
Siege

BMS
Storie Invisibili

Jethro Tull
Curious Ruminant

#48

#47

Sleep Token
Even In Arcadia

Magic Pie
Maestro

Great Hopes for the Future of Progressive Rock 2025

In this section I have decided to collect the works of some emerging bands, at their debut or who have started publishing only a few years ago and who for me fully represent the future of progressive rock.

Many say, in comments on social media to the posts I write, that prog has nothing more to say and I always object decisively.

I listen to a lot of today's prog, but these records more than ever are material proof that it is absolutely not true that it is a genre in decline.

Prog is changing and among the pioneers of this change, we find neo-prog or crossover prog bands that have begun to blend the genres of classic prog with pop and electronic music without losing the symphonic orchestral aspect, the epicness, and the complexity.

There is no lack of references to the greats, nor the participation of the greats themselves who collaborate with new bands, contaminating and influencing them but also letting themselves be influenced.

New technological means are triggering further changes and to the influences of the 70s, 80s, and 90s are being added those of the new century, of the past two decades, and also the need to position themselves in a market that is increasingly oriented towards the consumption of tracks with a short, almost instantaneous life. A difficult task and frankly unattainable in the prog genre, which is however giving rise to hybrids of extraordinary quality or reinterpretations of classic prog in a modern key, which evoke scents and flavors of the past with their feet firmly planted in the present, or which, with today's sounds, rewrite the music of the last 6 decades and evolve it. Great hopes for the progressive rock of the future.

This category includes the already mentioned Hora Prima and Fulguromatic with their outstanding debut albums, but there are many other bands that are carrying the name of progressive rock high; let's look at those who in 2025 have released works that, in my opinion, are at levels of excellence.

First of all, Massimo Pieretti, an Italian pianist, keyboardist, and composer who with his latest work The Next Dream adds an important piece to his trilogy, which began with A New Beginning and whose third album is currently in the works and will be titled Age of Man.

His style is mainly Progressive Rock based on concept albums, fantasy themes with dreamlike atmospheres, blending influences ranging from classic prog rock to more introspective tracks but also with pop-rock and electronic music influences, making use of illustrious collaborations and with meticulous attention to production and arrangements. I can't wait to listen to the next album!

East Of Asteroid by Moonsoon Their debut album is a prog odyssey that blends symphonic elements with futuristic themes and dystopian narratives. There are electronic sequences that hark back to 1970s krautrok (but with much more advanced tools), great creativity and sonic exploration, and pure rock interludes while the vocals and samplers work their magic. "The Nasty Man" with its prologue and epilogue are my favorite tracks, a cut above the others for my tastes, but the title track, which closes the album with great breadth, is also beautiful. The female backing vocals, the piano melodies, and the fun "robotic" vocals, used briefly but centered on the song, are also beautiful. The artwork is also beautiful.

Beta, by Sigilu, their second album, a modern progressive rock influenced by psychedelic music. The musicians are in great symbiosis and have the ability to develop, with the influences of modern rock in its various declinations (even less conventional ones), a very effective, forward-looking prog. There's distortion—let me call it "harmonic," I know it's an oxymoron—but the distortion in this work is never akin to itself and is not intended to destroy or be disturbing; it's part of the melody. Great guitar, bass, and drums with the voice of Nacho Cuesta, a singer who combines the bel canto I've often found in the Spanish tradition with a passionate interpretation, not overly theatrical, but one that makes you understand that he believes what he sings, he feels it, and you, the listener, feel it too.

The Book Of Hours, by Agropelter. A completely instrumental album with clear, strong, and valuable classical influences, a progressive rock that comes from Norway but lacks the typical dark, melancholic atmosphere of Scandinavia, compositions that range from electrifying and energetic to sweet, passionate, and romantic, with levels of quality and intensity always at the highest levels at every stage. The lineup is exceptional in every respect, this is the project of a multi-instrumentalist with great compositional and performance skills, Kay Olsen, who takes advantage of some great collaborators, two of whom stand out: the great Jonas Reingold on bass and Mattias Olsson of the immense Änglagård and White Willow, who also serves as mixer with Jacob Holm Lupo.

Blazing Revelations by Dominic Sanderson, on his second album. A seventies-inspired sound, an "eclectic" progressive rock with production, instrumentation, and technology that the greats of that era would have desired. The vocals are excellent, and the four musicians in the lineup excel throughout the album. Along with the classic "bass guitar and drums" elements, which are certainly noteworthy, we find a riot of Mellotron, violin, percussion, Hammond, clavinet, piano, and superb wind instruments, sax, and flute. The instrumental parts are beautiful, sometimes edgy, with an excellent rhythm section and great synergy between all the musicians, even in moments of "chaos," which require great precision to avoid becoming confusing. The connections between the more intense and the softer moments are beautiful, with the keyboards often doing a wonderful job of blending them together.

Demain à l'aube by Gerald Massois, A French musician, composer, and arranger whose signature style is symphonic rock, this is his second album, Demain à l'aube, released digitally in 2024 and on CD in 2025. Musically, it's a combination of complex arrangements, perfectly blended styles, and orchestral sections that could be part of classical works, all performed with a mix of classical, acoustic, rock, progressive rock, and electronic instruments. The vocals are in French, and the voice is extremely beautiful, with great interpretive ability, beautiful tone, and range. It's unwavering when the going gets tough, allowing emotions to shine through and arouse them, with great passion and intensity, but also precision.

Beginnings by Tom Penaguin, On his second album, the French multi-instrumentalist and composer decided to build an analog recording studio in his home in 2020 and recorded an entire album using a plethora of vintage studio hardware and equipment. His sound is a masterful ode to bands like Egg and National Health. The songs have a complex structure, with classically inspired patterns and glorious melodies, while still leaving room for extended improvisations reminiscent of the early 1970s fusion scene. An album with ambitious tracks, despite not having originally been conceived as an album, but rather as a collection of self-contained songs, undoubtedly the result of extensive studio work. Despite the limited resources described by Tom himself, it conveys a sense of completeness and linearity while maintaining its experimental character and a sometimes extreme complexity within the individual songs.

Frippada Andaluza by Malabriega, A band from Seville whose progressive rock is influenced by the passion of Andalusia, but it's not a purely folk album. It's contemporary progressive rock that blends flamenco, jazz, and rock influences. The production is excellent, the rhythm section is very precise, and the keyboards are excellent, but above all, in my opinion, the vocals are great. The guitar parts are also beautiful. The vocals are in Spanish and very passionate, not forcedly theatrical, but with great interpretive ability. It's the album's real strength, with thrilling performances by Juan Castro. A fusion of styles that brings progressive rock to embrace cultural traditions beyond the "tradition" of prog, now over fifty years old but continually renewing itself, as this album clearly demonstrates.

Atto Primo by Wilson Project, An Italian band of young, highly talented artists, active in the Italian progressive rock scene (and in my opinion also marketable internationally), composed of four musicians who play like an orchestra, gifted with great precision and taste. They manage to blend progressive rock with classical influences, a fundamentally symphonic rock, with elegant atmospheres, sometimes jazzy and sometimes embedded like mini-structures with the pure form of songs, in very complex pieces full of variations—another key word to define this band—that arrive unexpectedly but don't leave you speechless, rather they amaze, and they do so with great mastery. An album that gave me a sense of self-awareness in those who performed it. The Wilson Project have clearly established their presence in this wonderful world of progressive rock, and in my opinion, they fit right in.

Un’altra mano di carte by Limite Acque Sicure,Their second album. It's a concept album that explores themes of marginalization and oppression, stories tied to the search (or dream) for a better life, stories of redemption and pride, with a sense of hope but also of rebellion and its sometimes bitter consequences. This album captures the origins and present of Italian and international prog, and the exciting elements of classic rock, as well as significant classical influences, with piano, harp, flute, and at times almost lyrical vocals. The performances by all the band members are absolutely excellent, and there's a great balance between presence and sound. The compositions are carefully crafted to blend melodic aspects with those of more complex progressive music.

Gathering of Souls by The Guildmaster A progressive rock and folk rock band, active since 2020, the year they released their first album. The initial idea was to interpret progressive rock through various folk influences, an intention that was fully achieved. A very ambitious album with excellent production and a fascinating mix of international folk, played by exceptionally talented musicians. Great acoustic guitar, keyboards, strings, wind instruments, and beautiful, passionate vocals. The flute creates romantic atmospheres, and the guitar solos and the many international percussion instruments are beautiful. An album that has convinced me, I will be listening to their previous ones too.

Laplacian by Fluctus Quadratum, They'd already released an EP, but this is considered their full-fledged debut album. I'll start by saying this is a beautiful work, one that takes the time to develop a vision of modern progressive rock, a noteworthy independent production. This is a band that puts keyboards at the center, like other bands of the past that relied on keyboardists as a strength, and who are also the inspirations of leader and keyboardist Jopheus Burtonshaw (Yes and ELP among them). The sound draws influences from great bands of the past, but I consider this not only a positive factor, but also inevitable: influences from the past and present have always influenced the sound of other artists, especially when they have set a precedent.

Even in Arcadia by Sleep Token, A band I consider the musical phenomenon of our time. We find pop, prog, metal, soul, and rap, even in a single track if necessary. What do we want from today's music and what is the right thing to want? If we don't accept this revolution that encompasses the sum of all influences and resist change, there will be no future. This band is trying, and in my opinion, they deserve recognition. They can move a new generation that hasn't yet experienced them into genres less modern than the current norm, recognizable in prog or metal. Hats off. It's an album I could listen to with my son and a friend of mine who's a pop fan and a friend who's a metal fan. You might like it or vice versa; I love it in all its nuances.