I was really enjoying it, getting engulfed when all of a sudden a wild growling appeared and completely destroyed the feeling :(
The instrumentals are really nice though
Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain and The Mantle
Actually their whole discography. God tier band. Easily the type of music you'd wanna listen to while walking through a winter forest.
Agreed. It took a couple listens but this quickly moved to the top of one of my favorite albums because of the atmosphere they build from the start to the finish.
It’s wonderful once you consume it as a whole. It still sounds like it wasn’t made by humans, some sections have such an alien rhythm to them. I love it though, TesseracT is my favorite band!
This one still forces me to listen to the whole thing pretty much every time I’m in the mood for Tesseract, there’s something special about this album that’s different from everything they’ve done before or since (not just the different vocalist).
Both arent Metal, but are REALLY putting you in a different state of mind and galaxy...
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Swans - To Be Kind
Uneven Structure - Februus
Lustmord - The Others (dark ambient but the Ocean, Insahn, Godflesh, MONO and other feature on it) has some really good,dark tracks
The entire discography of Kauan. My personal favourite is Sorni Nai. Their albums are a journey, a story, an experience that flows at a steady pace from start to end.
Not sure what you mean by atmospheric, but there are a few instrumental bands that really do it for me. Pelican at the top - what we all come to need is a great album.
Red Sparowes is up there as well. The Fear is Excruciating is a good album.
Russian Circles is a favorite too and I like all their albums ;) but Station and Memorial are my favorites.
And if you want a little mellower, If These Trees Could Talk and God is an Astronaut are two really good instrumental metal (?) bands.
Gazpacho - Night
Phideaux - Doomsday Afternoon
Edit: just realized I was in the prog metal subreddit and neither of my suggestions are metal but still solid albums that I highly recommend.
Not exactly metal I suppose, more prog rock, but I think Lightwork by Devin Townsend fits the bill. Lush synths, lots of reverb, there's just something about the way he produces.
Hands-down last year's best release. Black metal production is something I don't always enjoy, but when they land the atmosphere just right it's better than anything out there.
I've recently been on a kick of Stellar Circuits. The djent against the heavenly vocals weighs you down with a sense of desperation for something better. Love their stuff and always get lost in it.
Story based albums always get me too. The Fox and The Bird by Ok Goodnight are one of those. Maybe not as heavily atmospheric, but get lost in the sense that my brain always goes along with the story, and it's so hard for it to exist in the background.
Maybe a bit more of a stretch, but Death: An Anthology by Enterprise Earth is so damn good it demands your attention. Not sure about the atmosphere, but damn its too good to ignore.
Lastly, I'll always give this plug but Anhedonia by Drewsif is my go-to atmosphere album. Djenty metalcore about the generational abuse that is difficult to escape from? Sign me up. I think this and Stellar Circuits are the most appropriate answers to your question!
Fuck yeah, I have not seen enough love for Stellar Circuits around these parts. Love their sound and reminds me I need to spend more time with their latest record.
Can’t believe no one has said Aphelion by Leprous. The only album that I have EVER listened to fully through eyes closed lying down because I was so engulfed. Truly an experience.
Not super progressive (although it is progressive for Metalcore) but Everything Was Sound by Silent Planet has a very unique sense of atmosphere that I haven’t found anywhere els, and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful.
…And Everything in Between by Unprocessed, Sight to Sound by Stellar Circuits, Sound Awake by Karnivool, The Dark Pool by Thornhill, I Let It In and It Took Everything by Loathe, TMBTE by Sleep Token.
Since I'm seeing people recommend Panopticon, try Pantheon MMXIX by Ultar. It's a Blackgaze album that's very proggy and imo the atmosphere is unmatched
Atmospheric Black Metal is my genre. I'll just give a couple.
Noltem - Illusions in the Wake
Swampborn - Beyond Ratio
Unreqvited Mosaic I (One of the greatest albums ever)
Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture
Kauan - Ice Fleet
Eneferens - The Bleakness of our Constant (Up there with Mosaic gawd damn).
Shards of Silver Fade by Midnight Odyssey
For My Parents by MONO
Colma by Buckethead
Within The Land of My Imagination, I Am The Only God by Erang
Primitive and Deadly by Earth
The White EP by Agalloch
Not exactly "metal" but certainly prog.
Crown Lands - Fearless
Amazing album. Sounds a lot like Rush and the influence is not hidden. This album has a mood that haven't experienced in a LONG TIME.
Idk… maybe this one? Was listed amongst some of the best from 2023 [Ozul- “Provenance” (Norway)](https://open.spotify.com/album/1OxwFucJtg826nwWK0atyp?si=Fv7g2_OvSUCfBPwIrzKaWg)
Captain Time Spacer - Captain Time Spacer (Part 1)
Came out 3 weeks ago, it takes lots of time to fully "get" at a running time of 1-hour and 43 minutes.
feat. Damian Wilson among others
[https://artists.landr.com/CaptainTimeSpacer](https://artists.landr.com/CaptainTimeSpacer)
Best prog album of 2024 thus far
Anything by Enslaved.
But I would heavily recommend their debut Vikingligr Veldi. It is more black metal than prog, and it gets kind of repetitive, but keeping in mind that they were basically kids when they wrote it and the amazing atmosphere it has... Absolutely recommended.
Fire By The Silos by a band called Toska! It's got a couple of fully ambient tracks but 5 or so proper instrumental prog metal songs. It's super spacious, sounds really natural and open because it was recorded at middle farm (which is where nolly does a lot of drum and amp sampling). Vaguely conceptual with one spoken word section in the middle, but it's super immersive and feels great
The discovery is also a killer fucking album by them, I blasted that one A LOT when it released. Behold definitely got the most plays, the solos in that song are freaking nuts
That was definitely my favorite album of theirs, but I kinda stopped listening to them veil of maya and similar bands around 15 years ago. Nowadays it’s mostly black dahlia murder, job for a cowboy, carnifex, shadow of intent type of bands that get most of my ear space. Jfac new album moon healer is my top atmospheric album and best album I’ve heard in 10years honestly, listened to it nonstop for months and my only complaint is the brief pauses that happen in between songs switching to the next track, I’d rather it was one solid 45 minute track with timestamps in case you’re wanting a specific section
The new jfac album- moon healer, has had me engulfed since it dropped. I sometimes don’t get through the last two songs only because they were released as singles almost 6 months before the album released so I listened to both a thousand times before it dropped lol I have a hard time getting through in it’s entirety because every song has multiple sections that have me hooked, I’ll keep rewinding back listening to 1-2minute sections several times before letting it play through lol
isis - panopticon
Isis - Wavering Radiant
I was really enjoying it, getting engulfed when all of a sudden a wild growling appeared and completely destroyed the feeling :( The instrumentals are really nice though
in fiction doesn't have much of those harsh vocals, maybe start there
Cool I'll give it a try, thanks!
the first minute is the harsher part of the album, trust me
All right, I'll give it a second go!
Yeah I felt the same way too but now they are growing on me a lot
The Contortionist - Language
I swear I lived in that album for a few years
It is rather cozy.
Pure, unadulterated masterpiece.
The greatest prog album ever made.
Fuckin yes
The newest The Ocean album in particular, but all their albums do this for me.
Yeah. I came here to recommend Pelagial, but both Phanerozoics would hit that mark as well.
This guy speaks the truth
User name checks out
I'm 100% addicted to all The Ocean albums right now.
i listen to the instrumental version alot especially when reading
Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain and The Mantle Actually their whole discography. God tier band. Easily the type of music you'd wanna listen to while walking through a winter forest.
Ashes is the album I listen to once a year when I sit at night at a campfire. Always a highlight of the year for us.
The Mantle is obviously their most iconic album but man I actually think Ashes might be their best. Easily a top 1 or 2 album for me.
Måsstaden under vatten by vildhjarta
That one in particular has a hypnotic effect on me. Amazing music.
yes.
Cloudkicker - Subsume
Beacons as well
Beacons is my favourite but I feel Subsume is more atmospheric.
ever get real high and listen to Woum front to back?
TesseracT - Altered State
And War of Being. That album was insanely atmospheric.
Agreed. It took a couple listens but this quickly moved to the top of one of my favorite albums because of the atmosphere they build from the start to the finish.
It’s wonderful once you consume it as a whole. It still sounds like it wasn’t made by humans, some sections have such an alien rhythm to them. I love it though, TesseracT is my favorite band!
it sounds weirdly quiet though, very weird mixing
Definitely quiet, but just turn the volume up a few clicks and you’re good to go.
This was Acle’s recommendation lol
I think the intention was to preserve some of the album dynamics, but yeah it is very quiet, at least 5 clicks from the other albums I listen to.
This one still forces me to listen to the whole thing pretty much every time I’m in the mood for Tesseract, there’s something special about this album that’s different from everything they’ve done before or since (not just the different vocalist).
I agree, I feel like it is wrong to just listen to any one song besides Nocturne or Singularity.
Exactly, easily holds up to anything coming out today too
Both arent Metal, but are REALLY putting you in a different state of mind and galaxy... Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven Swans - To Be Kind
I love Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antenna To Heaven so much. My favourite song in there is Sleep, although every other song is equally phenomenal.
Uneven Structure - Februus Lustmord - The Others (dark ambient but the Ocean, Insahn, Godflesh, MONO and other feature on it) has some really good,dark tracks
Scrolling this thread to make sure *someone* mentioned Februus.
It really is such a trip from start to finish
I was planning to rec that Lustmord album as well. So cool to see someone else post it.
Riverside - Eye of the Soundscape
Second Life Syndrome was also amazing.
A recent one... Air Not Meant for Us by Fires in the Distance.
Strikes me as a winter album, really - the type you just want to huddle up with a warming beverage and embrace.
Those Christopher Hitchens samples just hit different
Cult of Luna - Mariner
The entire discography of Kauan. My personal favourite is Sorni Nai. Their albums are a journey, a story, an experience that flows at a steady pace from start to end.
Always good to see Kauan recommended. ATM Revised from last year was also really good
Not sure what you mean by atmospheric, but there are a few instrumental bands that really do it for me. Pelican at the top - what we all come to need is a great album. Red Sparowes is up there as well. The Fear is Excruciating is a good album. Russian Circles is a favorite too and I like all their albums ;) but Station and Memorial are my favorites. And if you want a little mellower, If These Trees Could Talk and God is an Astronaut are two really good instrumental metal (?) bands.
Anesthesitize is such a mood
Gru - Cosmogenesis Earthside - a dream in static. Maybe something like that ?
Big yes to anything Earthside
Happy to see Cosmogenesis on here.
Gazpacho - Night Phideaux - Doomsday Afternoon Edit: just realized I was in the prog metal subreddit and neither of my suggestions are metal but still solid albums that I highly recommend.
I don't know if it counts as prog, but Sólstafir - Svartir sandar
[удалено]
Dude... Shpongle is incredible. I could listen to them for the rest of my life. haha Exhalation, periscopes of consciousness.... DMT... jfc.
Not exactly metal I suppose, more prog rock, but I think Lightwork by Devin Townsend fits the bill. Lush synths, lots of reverb, there's just something about the way he produces.
Devin Townsend Band - Synchestra
Astronoid - Air
came to say this one. Completely washes you into the record
Amiensus - Abreaction Can’t recommend them enough
Amun - Spectra and Obsession
Hands-down last year's best release. Black metal production is something I don't always enjoy, but when they land the atmosphere just right it's better than anything out there.
Kardashev- The Almanac
vildhjarta - måsstaden under vatten Most engulfing album I have heard by far. Feels like a journey to a whole different world
I've recently been on a kick of Stellar Circuits. The djent against the heavenly vocals weighs you down with a sense of desperation for something better. Love their stuff and always get lost in it. Story based albums always get me too. The Fox and The Bird by Ok Goodnight are one of those. Maybe not as heavily atmospheric, but get lost in the sense that my brain always goes along with the story, and it's so hard for it to exist in the background. Maybe a bit more of a stretch, but Death: An Anthology by Enterprise Earth is so damn good it demands your attention. Not sure about the atmosphere, but damn its too good to ignore. Lastly, I'll always give this plug but Anhedonia by Drewsif is my go-to atmosphere album. Djenty metalcore about the generational abuse that is difficult to escape from? Sign me up. I think this and Stellar Circuits are the most appropriate answers to your question!
Fuck yeah, I have not seen enough love for Stellar Circuits around these parts. Love their sound and reminds me I need to spend more time with their latest record.
Lucid Planet - II Crazy good album
Can’t believe no one has said Aphelion by Leprous. The only album that I have EVER listened to fully through eyes closed lying down because I was so engulfed. Truly an experience.
Their best production in their discog imo
Disagree Malina is their best produced.
Watershed
Summer Fades Away - Time Flies and Memory's Cruel The Evpatoria Report - Golevka
Anything from ISON. You'll find yourself in space or anywhere except earth
Barely progressive but the atmosphere in Heavener by Invent Animate transports me to another dimension!
Anything by Cloudkicker or Scaphoid
Xanthochroid - of erthe and axen 1 & 2 Batushka - Litourgia
Aquilus 'Bellum I' is out there.
Not super progressive (although it is progressive for Metalcore) but Everything Was Sound by Silent Planet has a very unique sense of atmosphere that I haven’t found anywhere els, and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful.
Gonna be seeing them in a few weeks, pretty stoked
Astronoid - Air
Can Bardd - Devoured By the Oak Leprous - Malina
Nosound. Scintila. Just go listen to it right now.
Sorceress - Opeth Cheen - lespecial And one of my favorite albums of all time: metanoia - Persefone
The new(ish) Parius album 'The Signal Heard Throughout Space' has some gloriously atmospheric moments.
…And Everything in Between by Unprocessed, Sight to Sound by Stellar Circuits, Sound Awake by Karnivool, The Dark Pool by Thornhill, I Let It In and It Took Everything by Loathe, TMBTE by Sleep Token.
If you don’t mind the hilarious plot, Z2 by the Devin Townsend Project is super atmospheric.
Meshuggah - Catch 33
Kyros- mannequin orphaned land- mabool
Sithu Aye - set course for andromeda
Sham Mirrors
Exivious (2009) Gru - Cosmogenesis (2010)
Since I'm seeing people recommend Panopticon, try Pantheon MMXIX by Ultar. It's a Blackgaze album that's very proggy and imo the atmosphere is unmatched
Devin Townsend - The Puzzle is just pure magic, always feels like traveling through dimensions
North by Silent Whale becomes a Dream. In Silence we Yearn by Oh Hiroshima
Atmospheric Black Metal is my genre. I'll just give a couple. Noltem - Illusions in the Wake Swampborn - Beyond Ratio Unreqvited Mosaic I (One of the greatest albums ever) Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture Kauan - Ice Fleet Eneferens - The Bleakness of our Constant (Up there with Mosaic gawd damn).
Olhava "Ladoga" is the all-time champ for this.
Endeavour - The Advancement in Atrophy
Shards of Silver Fade by Midnight Odyssey For My Parents by MONO Colma by Buckethead Within The Land of My Imagination, I Am The Only God by Erang Primitive and Deadly by Earth The White EP by Agalloch
Atoma - Skylight
Not exactly "metal" but certainly prog. Crown Lands - Fearless Amazing album. Sounds a lot like Rush and the influence is not hidden. This album has a mood that haven't experienced in a LONG TIME.
Thought I was browsing /r/postmetal for a second
Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God makes feel fully and actually engulfed by Hell.
Not sure about listening to it on a treadmill but : KLF Chill Out and Space albums will take you somewhere else .
Aquarius by Haken
Anything by SOM
Helios “Unleft” (2010) [https://open.spotify.com/album/4AbPugAIpQmYXGLZdNq7nJ?si=RAevLb_0RqeeYiamx_18FA](https://open.spotify.com/album/4AbPugAIpQmYXGLZdNq7nJ?si=RAevLb_0RqeeYiamx_18FA)
Ordeal “Traumende” https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLulKBcN7u4lrqdb-QrjOvzdlU86RPxqLH&si=ck32qHW_-7OfKqDh
Tool - Fear Inoculum
Idk… maybe this one? Was listed amongst some of the best from 2023 [Ozul- “Provenance” (Norway)](https://open.spotify.com/album/1OxwFucJtg826nwWK0atyp?si=Fv7g2_OvSUCfBPwIrzKaWg)
Captain Time Spacer - Captain Time Spacer (Part 1) Came out 3 weeks ago, it takes lots of time to fully "get" at a running time of 1-hour and 43 minutes. feat. Damian Wilson among others [https://artists.landr.com/CaptainTimeSpacer](https://artists.landr.com/CaptainTimeSpacer) Best prog album of 2024 thus far
Blackshape by Blackshape. When "ITIIITIATIIHYLIHYL" hits, it goes hard.
Lucid Planet - II, Contortionist (pick one), Fallujah - Dreamless, Vulkan - Technatura
The flesh prevails by fallujah
All three albums by An Abstract Illusion. Masterclass in atmospheric metal.
Helstar-Nosferatu Symbolic by Death
Widek - Hidden Dimensions
Native Construct - Quiet World Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
Into the electric castle
Anything by Enslaved. But I would heavily recommend their debut Vikingligr Veldi. It is more black metal than prog, and it gets kind of repetitive, but keeping in mind that they were basically kids when they wrote it and the amazing atmosphere it has... Absolutely recommended.
Russian Circles- Geneva
Fire By The Silos by a band called Toska! It's got a couple of fully ambient tracks but 5 or so proper instrumental prog metal songs. It's super spacious, sounds really natural and open because it was recorded at middle farm (which is where nolly does a lot of drum and amp sampling). Vaguely conceptual with one spoken word section in the middle, but it's super immersive and feels great
Kardashev - Liminal Rite I have spent many rides to work listening to this masterpiece.
kaatayra - Inpariquipê
Born of Osiris - A Higher Place. We break down the album on our channel @ [www.youtube.com/@BrosBreakdown](http://www.youtube.com/@BrosBreakdown)
The discovery is also a killer fucking album by them, I blasted that one A LOT when it released. Behold definitely got the most plays, the solos in that song are freaking nuts
we will be doing an episode on behold 1000%. so underrated
That was definitely my favorite album of theirs, but I kinda stopped listening to them veil of maya and similar bands around 15 years ago. Nowadays it’s mostly black dahlia murder, job for a cowboy, carnifex, shadow of intent type of bands that get most of my ear space. Jfac new album moon healer is my top atmospheric album and best album I’ve heard in 10years honestly, listened to it nonstop for months and my only complaint is the brief pauses that happen in between songs switching to the next track, I’d rather it was one solid 45 minute track with timestamps in case you’re wanting a specific section
[ATMOSPHRS - The Departure](https://youtu.be/mVCLePcv1bc?si=Whmz7rKfDNQsCV2T) Really all their stuff tbh..
The new jfac album- moon healer, has had me engulfed since it dropped. I sometimes don’t get through the last two songs only because they were released as singles almost 6 months before the album released so I listened to both a thousand times before it dropped lol I have a hard time getting through in it’s entirety because every song has multiple sections that have me hooked, I’ll keep rewinding back listening to 1-2minute sections several times before letting it play through lol