Loudwire's ranking of the best prog-metal albums of the '80s

"In the 1980s progressive metal was still uncharted territory. Before Images And Words by Dream Theater defined its canon in 1992, it was bands like Fates Warning, Queensrÿche, Voivod, Watchtower and Savatage who laid the genre's foundations, blending heavy metal, thrash, power metal and progressive rock into an increasingly complex and ambitious formula." Starting from this premise, Loudwire magazine has selected and ranked what it considers the eleven essential albums of the decade, limiting itself to a maximum of two titles per artist. What emerges is a landscape dominated by Queensrÿche, Fates Warning and Voivod, with room too for less celebrated pioneers such as Italy's Adramelch and Texas's Watchtower.

Here is Loudwire's ranking of the best prog metal albums of the 1980s (full feature here).

11. Watchtower – “Control And Resistance” (1989)
10. Adramelch – “Irae Melanox” (1988)
9. Savatage – “Gutter Ballet” (1989)
8. Fates Warning – “Awaken the Guardian” (1986)
7. Dream Theater – “When Dream And Day Unite” (1989)
6. Voivod – “Nothingface” (1989)
5. Queensrÿche – “Rage for Order” (1986)
4. Voivod – “Dimension Hatröss” (1988)
3. Fates Warning – “Perfect Symmetry” (1989)
2. Iron Maiden – “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” (1988)
1. Queensrÿche – “Operation: Mindcrime” (1988)

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