THE BEST OF THE REST
You’ve heard about a ton of new music coming, and here’s some more! Could 2021 be a landmark year for metal?
As if the last 10 pages weren’t exciting enough, we’re expecting hundreds more bands to drop new music in the next 12 months. We’re hyped for the return of our favourite corpsepainted meme machine, Abbath, and judging by murmurings from our goth-pun friends AFI, something is afoot in their camp too. Following 2017’s Mass VI ritualistic Belgians Amenra are releasing a new album in late spring. We’d assume it would be called Mass VII,
but rumours suggest otherwise… Meanwhile, melodeath legends At The Gates will continue their 2000s run with a follow-up to 2018’s excellent To Drink From The Night Itself.
This time last year, we were hoping Beartooth would release a follow-up to 2018’s Disease. They didn’t! But Caleb’s confirmed that “new jams are indeed on the way…” And on that note, here’s a list of other bands we thought would release new music in 2020, but who are set to bring the noise in 2021 instead: Boss Keloid, Carcass, Cradle Of Filth, Perturbator, Rob Zombie, Rolo Tomassi and Wolves In The Throne Room. Yas!
Power metal fans rejoiced in 2019, when Hansi Kursch teamed up with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra for Legacy Of The Dark Lands, under the banner of Blind Guardian Twilight Orchestra, but this year we’ll be getting a Blind Guardian album proper. In the UK, Bullet For My Valentine will follow up 2018’s Gravity, while anticipation is high for Carcass’s first album in eight years and great British hopes Conjurer, who are set to capitalise on 2018’s critically acclaimed debut Mire.
Crossfaith have been readying themselves to bring the party back, while Woking’s Employed To Serve released new song Party’s Over last October, and we’re likely to hear more music from them soon. Evanescence have also been drip-feeding new material for The Bitter Truth, which will arrive in March. Soon after, California thrash stalwarts Exodus will release their second full-length with returned vocalist Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza, while over in NOLA, Eyehategod are about to release new record A History Of Nomadic Behaviour after a seven-year gap. We’re still not quite sure what went down with
Fear Factory, but their first album since Burton C Bell left is due in springtime.
Fever 333 have been one of the most active bands during the pandemic, so we’d be shocked if they didn’t release something else before too long. We know that Halestorm have definitely been hard at work, with Lzzy declaring: “I feel like I’m writing the best songs I ever have,” and their fifth album is due as the weather gets warmer. And speaking of warmth, High On Fire are prepping the successor to 2018’s Grammy-winning Electric Messiah.
Brit metallic hardcore crushers
Ithaca will be putting the world to rights with their second album at some
point, while autumn will see a return of the differently mighty German mainstays Kreator. Getting ready to shake your foundations in March are Welsh doom-mongers MWWB (formerly Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard), before Swedish polyrhythmic geniuses Meshuggah finish the job with their ninth outing.
On a rockier note, we sadly lost
Eddie Van Halen last year, but his son Wolfgang has formed Mammoth WVH. Following on from the song Distance, we’d anticipate more soon. Alter Bridge’s Mark Tremonti has made his fifth full-length, while bandmate
Myles Kennedy has been prepping a follow-up solo album. We’re not sure what Opeth are doing, but you never know when Mikael Åkerfeldt’s going to surprise you – after all, In Cauda Venenum was written on his off time.
Riding high on their 20th anniversary celebrations for Infest, Papa Roach will be releasing a greatest hits album and have been recording new material.
Rammstein have also been in the studio, according to an Instagram post from October. However, after waiting a decade for their self-titled masterpiece, we’re not getting our hopes up just yet. In a nod to that 00s era, nu metal revivalists Tetrarch will release their debut album for Napalm.
Homegrown heroes While She Sleeps will grace us with the much-trailed Sleeps Society in April, while Venom Prison will be back too. Expect something scathing. Equally brutally, Whitechapel have been instagramming
from the studio – hurry up, lads! And we haven’t even mentioned the festivals. We’re looking at you, Bloodstock, Download, Arctangent, Techfest, Radar and the rest. So raise your horns (raise them up to the sky) – this year has gotta be better than the last.
“I FEEL LIKE I’M WRITING MY BEST EVER SONGS” LZZY HALE