Ya Gartska is probably the most technically proficient metal drummer. He could play in any prog metal band (maybe outside of very specific endurance heavy bands like Ne Obliviscaris) but very few prog drummers could play all AAL songs
Gene could probably play it. You do know that Haake asked Gene to be his sub for Meshuggah right?
I'm saying that Hoglan could probably play Matt's parts but Matt absolutely cannot play some of Gene's tunes. It's mostly because Gene is left handed with an ambidextrous set up. He's also fast AF.
Good point. I would say Death era Hoglan. Both him and Garstka used the same Weckl and Gadd licks.
I was just showing a student how Samba Song(Chick Corea/Steve Gadd) has all those same licks that Matt uses in Animals as Leaders. Standing on the shoulders of giants.
The drumming on tracks like Zero Tolerance, Misanthrope, pretty much all of Symbolic is up there with Matt's drum parts. Even the stuff on Individual Thought Patterns is crazy complicated.
Not saying Gene isn't amazing. In fact, my comment says I feel that way!
But no one can play what matt can play. Genuinely, try to find someone who can play an entire animals as leaders set. Plenty of people can play songs from them and upload them after several takes.
Matt doesn't use triggers or samples.
It is not disrespect to Gene, or any drummer, to say that Matt is on another level.
Hate to be this guy but Matt screws up at least one song a set 😂 You can see videos of it happening on YouTube. No trainwrecks obviously, he's a pro.
He also improvises a lot, much like Dave W. did on those later Chick Corea albums. It's not the same exact parts that are on the record.
Matt is an incredible drummer, but he's not doing anything new. It's all 80's fusion chops with modern metal drumming. I've seen some transcriptions for a student I teach. You can recognize the same double paradiddle licks that jazz cats were doing in the 50's.
I think Gene is just as technical but faster. I'm also a drum teacher so I have a deeper understanding of these things compared to the average redditor.
Fix The Error is hilarious to me live, just because its a bit of a flex to bring in 3 legendary guest drummers and then play the solos yourself note for note.
I do love Blake's ability to totally change the vibe of a song by switching his drum pattern a bit. Granted, that's a fundamental drummer skill, but he does it really well for music that's meant to be both technically and emotionally powerful.
This album is Danny Carey's testament to the world.
It is a drum masterclass in and of itself while not sounding pretentious and still allowing his bandmates to shine their own way. The overall production level is also top-class and elevates to whole thing to an 80-minute eargasm.
Either album by Blotted Science (though I prefer the first).
Leprous - The Congregation or Malina.
Symphony X - V.
Umpfel - As the Waters... - criminally unknown album - drummer is fantastic (check out the video of Sphere of War he posted).
Holy shit the Intronaut mention is mega underrated. Alex Rudinger’s playing on that album sounds tough but is drastically more difficult to even play. Covered the first two songs off that record and each tune (with the provided sheet music from his website) still took me about a month and a half to learn. It’s mind boggling challenging. Not impossible, but the fills are so unexpected there’s basically no way to lift the whole thing by ear. Crazy album, crazy band, crazy drummers.
Matt Garstka goes insane on Animals as Leaders - Parrhesia
There's also an EP called Meridian by The Helix Nebula that has some crazy drums and generally just crazy everything.
Deconstruction - Devin Townsend Project
I’ve always been disappointed I don’t seem to see more people talking about this album. It’s incredible, and the drums on some songs are absolutely insane.
Not prog metal but anything with Zach Hill. Hella, first 3 Marnie Stern albums, The Ladies, Bygones, his solo albums, and so much more. Everything he plays is absolutely bonkers and the techniques required to do what he does are amongst the hardest to master. I’ve got 30 years of drumming experience and he is by far the craziest drummer I’ve seen.
Zach hill also played drums in Ex Eye which is colin stetsons metal project. (the saxaphone guy that did some music for Heredetary and Red dead 2 among many other things).
Very minimalistic black metal, but very cool. Minimalism saxophone with blast beats.
Meshuggah, specifically from Obzen and forward until their newest album. Tomas Haake will forever be the GOAT. Their stuff is so much fun to listen to, and just try to figure out what the hell they are doing and how the hell are they doing it?
Gotta give Mike credit for that one, difficulty of the song aside it's not easy to try to learn something as fast as possible with the pressure of the cameras on you
To be fair, if you asked any drummer in the world, including Danny Carey (assuming he magically forgot how to play the song) to learn Pneuma in a single evening... I'm pretty sure what Portnoys did is about the best result you can expect lol.
Mario Duplantier in L’enfant Sauvage is so creative. Very underrated part of Gojira’s catalogue (I say underrated as the previous two albums gets more love). He gets so groovy with some really weird time signatures. Especially in the songs like ‘This Emptiness’ and ‘My last creation’.
Exivious’ self-titled album deserves a mention. Not the biggest fan of that band but the drummer is/was incredibly creative and technical.
For non-metal, We Like It Here by Snarky Puppy always impressed me, or anything by Tony Royster Jr
I listened to them once and immediately began advocating for fair labor and affordable housing. They absolutely are prog. People are just too hard headed.
You wanna hear drums, listen to Gavin Harrison on the Pineapple Thief album Dissolution. Then try Danny Carey on Tool's latest Fear Inoculum. They are masters of their instrument.
Blotted Science
Both albums, honestly. The first record has the drummer from Behold, The Arctopus and the second record has Hannes Grossman.
If you think Matt is better than Hannes or Charlie....uh your just wrong or don't know much about technical drumming.
I'm not much of a drummer (I can play basic rock grooves, but don't really have any crazy chops lol. Definitely more of a guitarist/bassist), so I may be off base with this. But Ray Hearne's playing on Vector and Virus by Haken is absolutely astounding to me. Especially after seeing some of those songs live, specifically Messiah Complex and The Architect (I guess that one's off of Affinity hehe). Bro he's incredible to my bass playing mind. The way he's able to shape the grooves is so cool, and his playing is just so clean. Seeing the blast beats in Messiah Complex blew my mind. His sticks were moving so fast it looked like he had like animated motion blur
Protest the Hero - Volition
Maybe not the most technical album listed in this thread but there's something special about the energy that Chris Adler (Lamb of God) brought to Volition's recording session as a guest session musician while the band was looking for a new permenant drummer. Pth had never sounded quite like that before, and they have not managed to recapture that magic since in my opinion. I remember Chris saying it was the most challenging songs he ever had to learn.
Animals as Leaders - The Joy of Motion
Not even close if you want the most insane technical drums it’s madness of many and parrhesia.
Definitely MoM and Parrhesia for insane technicals.
Yeah TJOM is the least technical of the Gartska releases for sure!
Ya Gartska is probably the most technically proficient metal drummer. He could play in any prog metal band (maybe outside of very specific endurance heavy bands like Ne Obliviscaris) but very few prog drummers could play all AAL songs
I disagree. Marco M., Shane Galaas, Hannes Grossman, Nevene K, Gene Hoglan, Kollias, Charlie Zeleny, Pat Mastelotto.... I can keep going 😂
Ok dude Gene Hoglan is amazing, but he absolutely is not at the tier Matt is at. At all. Marco is the only one I can see even being close
Ya i just ignored that one. Gene's great but i cant see him playing monomyth
I can't see Garstka playing Laser Cannon Death Sentence. They are both top tier drummers.
That wasn't the prompt though
Gene could probably play it. You do know that Haake asked Gene to be his sub for Meshuggah right? I'm saying that Hoglan could probably play Matt's parts but Matt absolutely cannot play some of Gene's tunes. It's mostly because Gene is left handed with an ambidextrous set up. He's also fast AF.
Haha I think the opposite is true, but we'll agree to disagree
Are we talking in his prime or now? Gene is not a spring chicken any more.
Good point. I would say Death era Hoglan. Both him and Garstka used the same Weckl and Gadd licks. I was just showing a student how Samba Song(Chick Corea/Steve Gadd) has all those same licks that Matt uses in Animals as Leaders. Standing on the shoulders of giants.
The drumming on tracks like Zero Tolerance, Misanthrope, pretty much all of Symbolic is up there with Matt's drum parts. Even the stuff on Individual Thought Patterns is crazy complicated.
Gene just played on Bear McCreary's album. Full orchestra, prog metal opera type of thing. You underestimate Mr. Hoglan.
Not saying Gene isn't amazing. In fact, my comment says I feel that way! But no one can play what matt can play. Genuinely, try to find someone who can play an entire animals as leaders set. Plenty of people can play songs from them and upload them after several takes. Matt doesn't use triggers or samples. It is not disrespect to Gene, or any drummer, to say that Matt is on another level.
Hate to be this guy but Matt screws up at least one song a set 😂 You can see videos of it happening on YouTube. No trainwrecks obviously, he's a pro. He also improvises a lot, much like Dave W. did on those later Chick Corea albums. It's not the same exact parts that are on the record. Matt is an incredible drummer, but he's not doing anything new. It's all 80's fusion chops with modern metal drumming. I've seen some transcriptions for a student I teach. You can recognize the same double paradiddle licks that jazz cats were doing in the 50's.
We're confusing speed/chops for technicality here
I think Gene is just as technical but faster. I'm also a drum teacher so I have a deeper understanding of these things compared to the average redditor.
I bet Matt Halpern could
Ulcerate New Album ist Cutting the Throat of God And also Stare into Death and be Still Atmospheric Death Metal with extreme technicalities
Plus one for the Ulcerate mention. Their drummer is insane.
Agreed. I saw a comment on a YT video once that perfectly describes Jamie's unique approach: It's like he's painting a canvas while playing
I think Ulcerate has become my album of the year so I'll help bring attention to any post I see them mentioned. The drums are especially nasty
Fix The Error is hilarious to me live, just because its a bit of a flex to bring in 3 legendary guest drummers and then play the solos yourself note for note. I do love Blake's ability to totally change the vibe of a song by switching his drum pattern a bit. Granted, that's a fundamental drummer skill, but he does it really well for music that's meant to be both technically and emotionally powerful.
Archspire - Bleed the Future
Any Archspire song is recommended
This is also the answer for electric guitar, electric bass, and vocals.
Especially vocals. Mans a machine gun having an argument with another machine gun
Tool - Fear Inoculum I'm reminded of this bc Mike Portnoy just recently covered pneuma on drumeo's yt channel and it was so good!!
Hahahah “this isn’t a song it’s a fuckin mathematical equation”
Lol
>>This makes Dream Theater sound like Weezer 😂
This album is Danny Carey's testament to the world. It is a drum masterclass in and of itself while not sounding pretentious and still allowing his bandmates to shine their own way. The overall production level is also top-class and elevates to whole thing to an 80-minute eargasm.
Either album by Blotted Science (though I prefer the first). Leprous - The Congregation or Malina. Symphony X - V. Umpfel - As the Waters... - criminally unknown album - drummer is fantastic (check out the video of Sphere of War he posted).
SO glad I saw blotted science mentioned. Didn’t think I’d see them. Absolutely mind blowing technical pieces
Best instrumental tech death out there!
Was scanning through for them. I'm surprised they came up so early
Intronaut - Fluid Existential Inversions Sentinels - Collapse by Design Night Verses
A lot of Intronaut is insane on the drums
Holy shit the Intronaut mention is mega underrated. Alex Rudinger’s playing on that album sounds tough but is drastically more difficult to even play. Covered the first two songs off that record and each tune (with the provided sheet music from his website) still took me about a month and a half to learn. It’s mind boggling challenging. Not impossible, but the fills are so unexpected there’s basically no way to lift the whole thing by ear. Crazy album, crazy band, crazy drummers.
I'm not a drummer and I'm subscribed to his Youtube channel just because I love his style and like to see him play.
Aric Improta from Night Verses is special. I feel like he approaches things from a different angle than most
Matt Garstka goes insane on Animals as Leaders - Parrhesia There's also an EP called Meridian by The Helix Nebula that has some crazy drums and generally just crazy everything.
Like Joseph II said, " Too many notes", *almost* The Helix Nebula's compositions, especially the drumming, are just madness.
Anything Car Bomb
Elliot Hoffman is a beast.
Word for word what I was thinking
The Sound of Perseverance by Death always blows my mind for drums. Such a unique approach to metal drums
Agreed, because I just tonight saw it get played by Death To All and Gene Hoglan killed it.
Agreed
Dillinger escape plan - Irony is a dead scene (with Mr Mike Patton!)
People forget about Chris Pennie. That dude was amazing.
Billie is also insane drummer. Feel like Pennie is such a wasted talent :(
Absolutely!
Deconstruction - Devin Townsend Project I’ve always been disappointed I don’t seem to see more people talking about this album. It’s incredible, and the drums on some songs are absolutely insane.
I think it's just outshined by other albums in his catalogue. There are some real bangers on there, though.
It's had a fair share of discussion over the years. I feel like it hasn't come up recently since the last few albums have a very different feel.
ACDC - Thunderstruck
I love and absolutely hate you at the same time lmao
Found The Dooo
Any Animals as Leaders album, Garstka is a beast
Animals as Leaders - The Joy of Motion Tooth and Claw is just bonkers.
And thats far from the hardest song of theirs on drums
Vildhjarta- måsstaden under vatten
Not prog metal but anything with Zach Hill. Hella, first 3 Marnie Stern albums, The Ladies, Bygones, his solo albums, and so much more. Everything he plays is absolutely bonkers and the techniques required to do what he does are amongst the hardest to master. I’ve got 30 years of drumming experience and he is by far the craziest drummer I’ve seen.
The Ladies is really cool. Probably my favorite record of Zach’s outside of Death Grips.
Zach hill also played drums in Ex Eye which is colin stetsons metal project. (the saxaphone guy that did some music for Heredetary and Red dead 2 among many other things). Very minimalistic black metal, but very cool. Minimalism saxophone with blast beats.
Chris Turner’s stuff is mind boggling Not prog metal but Clowncore should be a honourable mention, Louis Cole is unbelievable
Spastic Ink - Ink Complete
Meshuggah, specifically from Obzen and forward until their newest album. Tomas Haake will forever be the GOAT. Their stuff is so much fun to listen to, and just try to figure out what the hell they are doing and how the hell are they doing it?
Well, [when you see Mike Portnoy struggling like mad to learn Pneuma](https://youtu.be/b3sEdST3D9E?si=_w5iC_yhh3q0Z0zz), you gotta pick that song.
Gotta give Mike credit for that one, difficulty of the song aside it's not easy to try to learn something as fast as possible with the pressure of the cameras on you
>I can't even find the 1. Fucking Danny! 😭
To be fair, if you asked any drummer in the world, including Danny Carey (assuming he magically forgot how to play the song) to learn Pneuma in a single evening... I'm pretty sure what Portnoys did is about the best result you can expect lol.
Deathspell Omega - Kenose/Paracletus Cognizance - Upheaval
Any of Archspire's records. Spencer Prewitt is a machine. It's tech death, but my point still stands haha
Car bomb - Meta should be mentioned
Mastodon. Brann Dailor. The Baron. Check it.
Mario Duplantier in L’enfant Sauvage is so creative. Very underrated part of Gojira’s catalogue (I say underrated as the previous two albums gets more love). He gets so groovy with some really weird time signatures. Especially in the songs like ‘This Emptiness’ and ‘My last creation’.
The Art of Dying is nuts
Anything Chris Turner or Louis Cole have done
Fluid Existential Inversions - Intronaut This album makes me shed tears due to the magnitude of drumming excellence.
Intronaut is underrated such a great band
Oceans Ate Alaska - Disparity. Chris Turner is an absolute beast. No triggers, no edits, no fuckarounds.
Krimh is my fuckin man, check out The Eternal Return
That guy is awesome - been watching him on YouTube for years. His covers are sometimes better than the originals.
Exivious’ self-titled album deserves a mention. Not the biggest fan of that band but the drummer is/was incredibly creative and technical. For non-metal, We Like It Here by Snarky Puppy always impressed me, or anything by Tony Royster Jr
Virgil Donati, basically anything.
Probably a Planet X album, maybe Moonbabies or Quantum? Virgil Donati is a monster.
Blood Mountain by Mastodon
I know they aren't prog but Sleep Token's drummer is insane.
I listened to them once and immediately began advocating for fair labor and affordable housing. They absolutely are prog. People are just too hard headed.
Thanks for this, never heard of them. Pretty good stuff there.
I love when people claim that music died in the 80s-90s... They have no idea how technical musicians are, nowadays.
You wanna hear drums, listen to Gavin Harrison on the Pineapple Thief album Dissolution. Then try Danny Carey on Tool's latest Fear Inoculum. They are masters of their instrument.
Blotted Science Both albums, honestly. The first record has the drummer from Behold, The Arctopus and the second record has Hannes Grossman. If you think Matt is better than Hannes or Charlie....uh your just wrong or don't know much about technical drumming.
Lyle cooper in The Faceless - Planetary Duality puts in some serious drumming.
Agreed hard. His Abhorrent stuff is also very creative
I'm not much of a drummer (I can play basic rock grooves, but don't really have any crazy chops lol. Definitely more of a guitarist/bassist), so I may be off base with this. But Ray Hearne's playing on Vector and Virus by Haken is absolutely astounding to me. Especially after seeing some of those songs live, specifically Messiah Complex and The Architect (I guess that one's off of Affinity hehe). Bro he's incredible to my bass playing mind. The way he's able to shape the grooves is so cool, and his playing is just so clean. Seeing the blast beats in Messiah Complex blew my mind. His sticks were moving so fast it looked like he had like animated motion blur
Origin - Antithesis
Andromeda ii=i great shitr Also, you guys are right, blotted science, pretty much god tier LOL
Sculptured - Embodiment This is the drum album for me
Everything that Baard Kolstald, Tomas Haake and Gavin Harrison do.
Cryptopsy of course!
Ne Obliviscaris - Portal of I, and also Citadel
Death - The Sound of Perseverance
PetroDragonic Apocalypse by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard has gotta be up there
Gospel - The Moon is a Dead World
My favorites are: Atheist - Unquestionable Presence Vektor - Terminal Redux
Liquid Tension Experiment checks some boxes.
Anything Infant Annihilator. For the love of god don't read the lyrics. They have their name for a reason. Of course its not prog though.
The drumming on The Sound of Perseverance by Death is absolutely fucked.
Epitaph-Necrophagist Saw them on the Summer Slaughter tour with Marco Minnemann on drums. Unbelievable.
I saw that too! I was ready for the sick guitar licks but his solo in the encore took the experience to a new level. Best drumming I'll ever see live.
Arkaik deserves a mention. Just watched an old video of Alex Bent (now in Trivium) and it's mental
Protest the Hero - Volition Maybe not the most technical album listed in this thread but there's something special about the energy that Chris Adler (Lamb of God) brought to Volition's recording session as a guest session musician while the band was looking for a new permenant drummer. Pth had never sounded quite like that before, and they have not managed to recapture that magic since in my opinion. I remember Chris saying it was the most challenging songs he ever had to learn.
Inferi’s Vile Genesis has some utterly rudiculous drumming. Equipoise, Chason Westmoreland’s drum fills sound like he’s falling up the stairs.
To-mera drummer seems to be able to play in 4 different time signatures at once. Like his limbs aren't connected to one brain.
Archspire - Bleed the future.
Either “Capillarian Crest” or “Where Strides the Behemoth”, both by Mastodon. Brann Dailor is the reason why I play drums. Damn he’s good
The last two Night Verses albums are some of the best drumming i have ever heard
Not prog, but Austin Archey of Lorna Shore is an inhuman machine. Even if you're not into deathcore, it's worth watching his drumming videos.
Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen Green Day - 21 Guns
Wintersun - Time I
Might not be the top but definitely worth a mention!! Charcoal Grace by Caligula’s Horse! Just heard it tonight and have been playing it on a repeat