5 Best ‘90s Instrumental Prog Metal Albums (Ranked)

Published: Published: May 18, 2026

Here are the five best ‘90s instrumental prog metal albums (ranked!)

These days, there’s no shortage of instrumental progressive metal acts, as the subcategory is saturated by superb artists creating typically tricky and imaginative tracks without singing along the way. For example, there’s Liquid Tension Experiment, Animals as Leaders, Scale the Summit, Intervals and Plini (just to name some of the bigger names).

That wasn’t the situation in the 1990s, though, which probably isn’t surprising given that prog metal started a few years earlier. However, there were at least a handful of outstanding releases that we still love blasting several decades later.

Specifically, the few we’re breaking down below – which may not even be from artists typically associated with prog metal – are the finest early examples of how inventive, alluring and challenging instrumental progressive metal can be.

Since we’ve got only a few spots to give away, we’ve restricted ourselves to one album per band, and although there may be limited amounts of vocals spread across their runtimes (in the form of spoken passages, background noises, etc.), there’s zero focus on singing. So, for all intents and purposes, they’re instrumental albums.

Whether you’re an expert or novice in the style, you’d be smart to keep scrolling and see our ranking of the five best ‘90s instrumental prog metal albums!

Be sure to let us know if we missed any great records or got our ranking wrong!

'90s instrumental progressive metal didn't get better than this!

Gallery Credit: Jordan Blum

Keep scrolling to see the greatest concept albums in prog metal history!

Gallery Credit: Jordan Blum

Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs shouts out his five favorite prog metal albums, explaining the impact and influence they each had on him as a musician.

Of his youth, Briggs says:

"I grew up a child of the '80s with my parents playing everything from Phantom of the Opera, Tears For Fears, Genesis, the Fixx and Annie Lennox. But then there’d be the mix tapes on rides with my dad that would have sounds like I’d never heard before (such as the vocal fugue in “On Reflection” by Gentle Giant) that I’d never forget.

When I was in high school, bands such as Pink Floyd and King Crimson were starting to become formative in shaping my musical ethos, but Dream Theater pretty much fully merged my interests in heavier music and the long form dynamic intricate works I loved.

Then getting into live Zappa records in college basically pushed me into a whole new territory, taking things I loved about classical composers into a total bizarro space — just furthering what I thought were the boundaries of 'what you can do.'"

5 Best ‘90s Instrumental Prog Metal Albums (Ranked)

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