In late 2025, we polled our readers to vote for their favorite prog metal release from a handful of our nominations.
The winner of The Best Prog Metal Album of the Year is…
Septem by Moths
“We’re very proud of what came out of this album… taking in consideration all of the work that was put into it, flying to Argentina to record it, a change of vocalist and the overall genre approach, we were a bit skeptical about how people would react, and it has been nothing short of amazing,” shares bassist Weslie Negrón. The San Juan-based sludgy-proggy five-piece’s new album is fully conceptual, each track revolving around one of the seven deadly sins (coincedentally, the exact same concept of this year’s Let There Sin by Indian metal act by Eternal Returns).
Weslie explains, that the overall concept came from “an article I read a long time ago on National Geographic where they were speaking about the demons that the Catholic church would assign to each deadly sin” a decade ago. He continues, “I think that wanting to represent the vibe and mood of each sin is what really pushed us to incorporate a bit more of an extreme approach towards some songs because it needed to be done. You can’t make a song about wrath without actually being intense and sort of violent to some point… lust, you need to have some sensual element to it to capture the overall vibe.”
At it’s core, Septem is a sludgy, progressive metal album, but the blackened and extreme inclusions are so impressive. For that reason, it’s honestly a bit surprising to hear that Weslie was once… an altar boy.
“I grew up in a Catholic family, I was even an altar boy for a big chunk of time during my pre-teenager years, also leader of youth groups at our church and so on. Puerto Rico is a very catholic, conservative place, ironically. I say ironically because Puerto Ricans like to have a good time, like to drink, and our biggest popstar is Bad Bunny, which, of course, is not conservative at all. So, my perspective of sinning has changed as I’ve grown older and have had different experiences in life. I think, personally, sin, without the religious context, is a way of measuring what’s good and what’s not. I don’t necessarily think that I consciously use it to make decisions or anything like that, but I feel that having that foundation and being raised under the catholic religion has had some impact on where I trace the line between good and evil. However, I believe we’re all sinners, we’re human, we make mistakes. It’s up to us to evaluate ourselves and understand what we’re doing wrong so we can be better. We should always appeal and try to be better people every day.”
Moths performed Septem fully live, internationally this year, hitting New York City, Atlanta, Philly, and a mini-fest in Massachusetts with Sumac and Chepeng. They also played a handful of dates in Mexico supporting Anima Tempo. Weslie mentions most enjoying playing the track “Pride,” sharing that “the ending of the track comes out of nowhere with that big breakdown… but I thoroughly enjoy all of our set, it’s fun to see people’s faces when they hear us for the first time and have no idea what’s going on.”
While Moths earned the most votes in our poll, Weslie had much praise for the other nominations. Representing Greek progressive metal, Weslie admits that Calyces had “one of my favorite records released… and I really like their Mastodon-esque approach to their music, which is also a big influence for us.” He also shared that he’s tight with the manager of Brazilian power-proggers Maestrick, enjoying their “Boo!” track off the new album, as well as “For the Lost Ones” by Indian shredder Sutej Singh and “Far Cry” by Ukrainian djent act Korypheus.
Well what’s next for Moths?
Well, the Puerto Rican prog metal group are about to drop a collaboration with the wrestler Gema, in addition to writing the next album. You can listen to Septem by Moths on Bandcamp and CD.