Analysing the Progressive in Progressive Metal

In this chapter, we investigate progressive metal as a hybrid genre with origins in1960s/1970s progressive rock and 1980s heavy metal. We provide a brief historical account of how the label “progressive” has been applied to metal and consider how the term is used to align instances of music with highbrow and modernist cultural values. Through a taxonomy of music styles – among them progressive metal, math metal, djent, and symphonic metal –we identify key features of how progressive metal is defined and delineated. Notable bands and pertinent examples are provided for given styles, indicating the breadth of progressive metal as a meta-genre which hierarchically subsumes other categories, similar in function to the label extreme metal.1 Our investigation culminates in a large-scale track analysis of Dream Theater’s “Octavarium” (2005) which demonstrates the archetypal features and progressive qualities that progressive metal draws from canonic progressive rock