2021 wasn't the ideal return to pre-pandemic normalcy that we all hoped for, but if there's one thing to celebrate about our current times, it's that heavy music is defiantly on the upswing. Band members who were quarantined from one another in 2020 were able to hit stages and studios together once again, and after an impressive haul of new albums that emerged throughout the previous trip around the sun, 2022 is looking like it might be an even stronger year for headbangers worldwide. Spanning metal, industrial, hardcore and beyond, here are 50 albums that we're particularly excited for in the year to come.
3TEETH
Title: TBA
Release Date: mid 2022
3TEETH's response to the pandemic? Hole up in a bunker in the California desert with a whole lotta guns and a handful of creative co-conspirators (Ho99o9 and Dana Dentata, to mention a few) and make a new album. The Tool- and Rammstein-approved industrial-metal insurgents' last LP, 2019's Metawar, sounded like Armageddon; its follow-up should be positively post-apocalyptic.
The Acacia Strain
Title: TBA
Release Date: mid 2022
The Acacia Strain's 2020 album, Slow Decay, felt like the beginning of the band's third era. The Massachusetts unit helmed by Vincent Bennet — who sounds like a banshee who's been pitched down a couple octaves — helped pioneer deathcore in the 2000s, adopted sludgy churns in the 2010s and folded in death metal on their last opus. Whatever comes next is bound to snap necks.
All That Remains
Title: TBA
Release Date: late 2022
All we know about the next All That Remains album is that it's going to be "different." The follow-up to 2018's Victim of the New Disease will be the metalcore veterans' first without founding guitarist Oli Herbert, who died in 2018 and was replaced by virtuosic shredder Jason Richardson. "It's gonna definitely have some different elements, and it's gonna sound different," frontman Phil Labonte said last summer. Whatever that means, we're ready for it.
Amon Amarth
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
No one does Viking metal better than Amon Amarth, and after the last couple years of pandemic hell, we're all in need of some music that makes us want to chomp a leg of lamb and swing a sword into a dragon's fiery breath. The Swedish juggernaut's 2019 album, Berserker, was another mighty showing of fearlessly fun melodic death metal, and we're already hungry for another helping.
Animals as Leaders
Title: Parrhesia
Release Date: March 25
It's been six years since their last LP, The Madness of Many, but new Animals as Leaders is finally coming down the pike. The wizardly Tosin Abasi and his fellow instrumental sorcerers summoned their elixir of mind-bending technicality and spiritual grooves on the first couple singles from Parrhesia — and we know that's just skimming the surface of what lies within the full album.
Arch Enemy
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
If the new Arch Enemy album is any bit as savage and epic as the band's pair of 2021 singles — the NWOBHM-influenced "House of Mirrors" and the blazing "Deceiver, Deceiver" — then we're in for a treat. Alissa White-Gluz, Michael Amott and Co. sound absolutely ferocious on their first material since 2017's Will to Power. Give us more.
Author & Punisher
Title: Krüller
Release Date: February 11
Author & Punisher mastermind Tristan Shone creates his industrial doom metal using handmade mechanical instruments, and not surprisingly, much of the one-man project's music sounds like the grinding gears of a disassembly line. What is surprising is how shimmering, melodic and gorgeous the music has become over the years. Author & Punisher's latest LP, Krüller, features guest turns by Tool's Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor, so look forward even greater sonic scope.
Avenged Sevenfold
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Avenged Sevenfold have made it very clear that they aren't interested in putting out a new album until they could start playing live again, and with a string of European dates lined up for June and July, that (hopefully) means we'll be starting our summers with some new Deathbat devastation. Their 2016 LP, The Stage, was a prog-metal concept record about space; if A7X do what they've always done, then expect its follow-up to be out of this world.
Behemoth
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Adam Nergal Darski and his fellow Satanists have come a long way since Behemoth's lo-fi 1995 debut, Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic), getting bigger, bolder and gothier over the years. In the wake of 2018's freewheeling I Loved You at Your Darkest and 2019's Cure-hailing The Forest EP — not to mention Nergal's dark folk digressions with Me and That Man — there are no limits left as to where Behemoth could tread with album No. 12.
Brand of Sacrifice
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Brand of Sacrifice's symphonic, anime-inspired, brutally heavy Lifeblood was one of the best deathcore albums of 2021, and since they already released an epic single, "Enemy," featuring Underoath's Spencer Chamberlain, as well as a stupidly aggro redux of the LP's title track with Lorna Shore's vocal assassin Will Ramos, it wouldn't be a shock if there was more in store in the new year.
Bring Me the Horizon
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Last year, Bring Me the Horizon introduced their 1,000th directional pivot with "DiE4u" — a blast of candied, metallic emo-pop with a bloody-lipped sense of danger — and we're hoping they throw us for another few loops in 2022. After all, the second installment of their four-part POST HUMAN EP series has to be beamed into this dimension eventually.
Cane Hill
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Cane Hill haven't put an album out since 2018, but the NOLA nu-core crooners haven't been slacking. Last year, they dropped two sibling EPs — Krew De La Mort and Krew D'Amour — and a standalone single called "All We Know" that amounted to some of their catchiest and sleekest songs yet. If all goes well, we're getting that long-awaited full-length within the next 365 days.
Cave In
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Cave In's last album, 2019's Final Transmission, was a bittersweet affair, as it was their first without foundational bassist-vocalist Caleb Scofield, who passed away a year earlier. Many fans wondered if there'd ever be another Cave In record after it, but last summer, the band announced their signing to Relapse Records and promised a new LP this year. Turns out there'll be another transmission after all.
Clutch
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
The halt of touring hindered every rock and metal group during the pandemic, but especially Clutch, who operate a bit like a jam band by trying out new material on the road and letting fan reactions inform their studio choices. Drummer Jean-Paul Gaster said last spring that the stoner-rock vets' quarantine creation would likely have a unique feel because of the novel solitude, and since they just finished up tracking in November, we'll likely hear what that means soon enough.
Coheed & Cambria
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Like many records from the last two years, the new Coheed and Cambria album was borne of pandemic weirdness. Finding himself off the road and with exorbitant amounts of time to mull over the finer details, Claudio Sanchez said that he "approached it in a way where I tried to keep all limitations out," which yielded a sound that's "a little different" than what Coheed fans are used to. The first two singles are catchy as fuck, so that's a good sign.
Corpsegrinder
Title: Corpsegrinder
Release Date: February 25
Having served as the windmilling frontneck of Florida death-metal mainstays Cannibal Corpse for the better part of three decades, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is finally set to deliver his debut solo album. Any guess what it might sound like? Going by vile lead single "Acid Vat," face-mauling death-metal — A.K.A. the thing he does best — is very much on the menu.
Crosses
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Deftones' last full-length, Ohms, was Revolver's pick for 2020's Album of the Year, and it's a damn shame that the alt-metal leaders have yet to play live in support of the masterful LP. 2022 looks to bring not only those much-delayed shows, but also new music from Crosses (†††), singer Chino Moreno's electronic side project with Far's Shaun Lopez. The band recently signed to Warner Records and uploaded their cover of Q Lazzarus's "Goodbye Horses" to streaming platforms, a harbinger of sultry sounds in our future.
Crowbar
Title: Zero and Below
Release Date: March 4
In early 2020, Crowbar frontman and Down guitarist Kirk Windstein dropped his first-ever solo album, Dream in Motion, and indulged his mellower inclinations. Which means, having flexed that muscle, he should be going heavier than ever with Crowbar's next LP, Zero and Below, the NOLA sludge institution's 12th full-length. Steamrolling lead single "Chemical Godz" suggests as much.
Cult of Luna
Title: The Long Road North
Release Date: February 11
Across 20-plus years, Sweden's Cult of Luna have made their name with wide-screen, Neurosis-ian post-metal readymade to soundtrack an eerie, epic sci-fi film. 2004's Salvation and 2016's collaborative album with Julie Christmas, Mariner, stand as high-water marks of the genre, and the upcoming The Long Road North could follow suit. It doesn't soundtrack a sci-fi movie but has spawned its own otherworldly video game.
Dance Gavin Dance
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Given the many lineup changes the band suffered during the first leg of their career, it almost feels like some kind of miracle that Dance Gavin Dance are about to release their 10th studio album. More popular than ever and with their steadiest roster yet, the proggy, funky, soaringly catchy post-hardcore weirdos are already eyeing a follow-up to 2020's Afterburner.
Dead Cross
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Last we heard from Dead Cross – the spazzy hardcore supergroup featuring Mike Patton, Dave Lombardo, the Locust's Justin Pearson and Retox's Michael Crain — they were covering Black Flag's "Rise Above" quarantine-jam-style, with Patton in his masked "Lonely Rager" guise. The pandemic has been hard on the singer — he canceled all of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle's live dates for mental health reasons — but we know he'll be back with a vengeance. Look out, motherfuckers.
DevilDriver
Title: Dealing With Demons Vol. II
Release Date: TBA
Back in October 2020, when DevilDriver offered up Dealing With Demons Vol. I, it was an open-ended question as to when Vol. II would drop. The first installment is a mostly ferocious affair, though its centerpiece love song, "Wishing," hints at goth things possibly to come. Will the sequel explore this Sisters of Mercy-esque direction further, or will Dez Fafara and his cohorts lean even harder into the heavy shit? Only time will tell.
The Devil Wears Prada
Title: TBA
Release Date: summer
It's not easy to be a lifer in metalcore, and even harder for bands who aren't willing to make creative compromises. However, the Devil Wears Prada have proven time and time again that it's possible to never stop sonically experimenting — with screamo, with spoken word, with atmospheric electronica, with sludge — and never lose their own crushing identity. Anticipating their next successful risk is one of the things that makes being a TDWP fan so rewarding.
Disturbed
Title: TBA
Release Date: Fall 2022
When Disturbed covered Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" for their 2015 album, Immortalized, they discovered a new creative wellspring that they tapped on its follow-up, 2018's Evolution, as well. "I enjoyed the hell out of all the balladry," Draiman recently told us, but the singer also reported that the "tumult" of the past couple years has inspired the band to "go old-school" for their next LP. "We've come up with some unbelievable new material that is just pummeling and rhythmic and aggressive and anthemic and poly-syncopated — Disturbed 101," he said. "It's sounding somewhere between The Sickness and Ten Thousand Fists, for sure."
Drain
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Drain are poised to release the biggest hardcore record of 2022. The Santa Cruz band are currently regarded as one of the genre's most exceptional, high-energy live acts, and although their 2020 debut, California Cursed, unluckily dropped at the beginning of the pandemic, the songs stayed in people's ears until they could shout back, "Army of one, motherfuckers," in a real pit once again. Having jumped from Revelation Records to Epitaph last year, Drain are ready to go for it.
Drug Church
Title: Hygiene
Release Date: March 11
Drug Church have been aging like fine wine — and they haven't peaked yet. They formed as a scruffy post-hardcore band of the Quicksand variety, adding leavened grunge riffs on subsequent releases. 2018's Cheer featured Patrick Kindlon's most insightful lyrics and the band's most accessible songwriting, making them one of the most singular bands on the fringes of heavy, catchy rock music. Hygiene's gonna slap, as its two singles, "Million Miles of Fun" and "Detective Lieutenant," attest.
Ghost
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
From Opus Eponymous to Prequelle, Ghost have gotten bigger with every album, expanding both their creative vision and devoted fan base. In March 2020, Cardinal Copia earned his mitre and became Papa Emeritus IV. In September 2021, the Swedish occult-rock stars delivered their first song in two years, "Hunter's Moon." 2022 will bring Ghost's latest full-length, which, according to mastermind Tobias Forge, is a concept album about the fall of empires. As for Ghost's empire, there's no end in sight.
Halestorm
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Hard-rock stalwarts Halestorm gave fans a taste of their upcoming album over the summer with the triumphant single "Back From the Dead." But according to frontwoman Lzzy Hale, listeners would be wrong to judge the full LP — the follow-up to 2018's Vicious — based on that sample alone. "I'm so proud of this album," she enthused on social media in December. "It was the most difficult, maddening, and rewarding process yet. Y'all ain't ready for this beast."
Ho99o9
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
It's been five years since Ho99o9's last full-length, the thrilling United States of Horror, but the rap-punk provocateurs have hardly been silent during that time, dropping a seemingly endless litany of mixtapes, singles and collabs (with Ghostemane, 3TEETH and others), touring with Alice in Chains and Korn, and earning an outspoken fan in Slipknot's Corey Taylor. Thusly fortified, Yeti Bones and theOGM are positioned to do big things with their long-awaited follow-up. We have every confidence they'll deliver.
Billy Howerdel
Title: TBA
Release Date: spring
In 2018, A Perfect Circle offered up their first album in 14 years, Eat the Elephant. In 2022, guitarist-songwriter Billy Howerdel is set to drop his first solo album in just as long, the follow-up to his 2008 debut under the name Ashes Divide, Keep Telling Myself It's Alright. Look out for more expansive, ethereal rock in the vein of the latter album, as well as Eat the Elephant, some of the songs on which were originally intended for Ashes Divide.
Ibaraki
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
For years, Trivium main man Matt Heafy and Emperor guitarist-vocalist Ihsahn have been teasing a black-metal collaboration under the name Ibaraki (F.K.A. Mrityu), and it seems like the music is finally coming in 2022. Over the summer, Heafy said that their long-awaited debut was complete, and that it features a guest appearance by Behemoth's Adam Nergal Darski. We no longer want this shit — we need it.
Korn
Title: Requiem
Release Date: February 4
Since reuniting with founding guitarist Brian "Head" Welch in 2013, Korn have been on a steady upward trajectory, culminating in 2019's The Nothing, the group's best album in over a decade. In 2022, down a different OG band member (bassist Fieldy, who went on hiatus last summer), the alt-metal trailblazers will return with Album No. 14. Preceded by the sleek single "Start the Healing," the LP was crafted amid the pandemic without any time constraints or label pressure, allowing the band to experiment together and dig deep.
Lamb of God
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Less than two years ago, Lamb of God released their self-titled album, their first offering without founding drummer Chris Adler, and they did not miss a beat. The pandemic delayed their ability to play shows in support of the LP, but now that they've done so — as part of 2021's Metal Tour of the Year with Megadeth — the NWOAHM gospelists are ready to deliver its follow-up. LOG have never let us down; they're not gonna start now.
Loathe
Title: TBA
Release Date: late 2022
Loathe's 2020 album, I Let It in and It Took Everything, announced the U.K. band's arrival as a bona fide force to be reckoned with, brilliantly fusing shimmering, Deftones-esque atmospherics with gnarly, Code Orange-sized industrial metal. 2021 brought an experimental ambient LP, The Things They Believe, paving the way for more strange, beautiful, crushing sounds from these rising stars.
Lorna Shore
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
In 2021, Lorna Shore set a new bar for deathcore with the jaw-dropping (or perhaps jaw-smashing) single "To the Hellfire," which featured an inhumanly cacophonous introduction to new vocalist Will Ramos via animalistic screeches that are painful enough to make PETA bust down the door with guns drawn. With the whole scene at attention, it's fair to assume we'll be hearing more from these guys in 2022.
Megadeth
Title: The Sick, The Dying… The Dead!
Release Date: spring
The new Megadeth album hasn't been formally announced, but Dave Mustaine has let us all know it's coming. The thrash pioneers' 16th LP, their first in six years — and their first in over a decade without longtime bassist David Ellefson — is titled The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!, which plays on its grimly appropriate theme about the many plagues throughout world history, not to mention Mustaine's fight against cancer. When Megadeth go dark, it's usually damn good.
Meshuggah
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Meshuggah's last album, the mind-bending The Violent Sleep of Reason, dropped six long years ago, during which time guitar hero Fredrik Thordendal went on hiatus. Last March, the Swedish djent godfathers revealed that he'd returned to participate fully in the creation of their long-awaited follow-up, heightening anticipation. Unfortunately, December brought the news that said album (as well as the group's 2022 tour) had been delayed due to medical issues plaguing an unidentified band member, and so the wait goes on — but good things to those who wait.
Motionless in White
Title: TBA
Release Date: summer
It's been three years since Motionless in White's last full-length, the melodic and nu-metal-tinged Disguise, and what we've heard since has suggested a potential return to form. Last year's "Timebomb" one-off was a crusher that threw it back to the Chris Motionless-helmed band's metalcore roots, but the gothic industrial-core provocateurs have never been fond of predictability. Stay tuned.
Myrkur
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
As much as we love Myrkur's stirring Scandinavian folk excursions, we're ready for Amalie Bruun to return to extreme metal. The Danish multi-instrumentalist has spent the last few years exploring her softer side, with 2018's Juniper EP and 2020's Folkesange full-length. But now Bruun — who also became a mother for the first time in 2019 — is poised to dive back into the blackened heaviness with which she made the Myrkur name, and we're amped to join the ride.
Obituary
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
For well over 30 years, Obituary have been one of the most consistently great bands in death metal, and given the superb quality of their 2017 self-titled LP, we're expecting nothing short of head-banging, riff-swinging, blast-beating excellence from its impending follow-up. The band confirmed they finished up in the studio back in the fall, so dust off your boots and get ready to redneck stomp again in 2022.
Ozzy Osbourne
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Coming just two years after his last solo album, 2020's Ordinary Man, Ozzy Osbourne's next LP (produced again by Andrew Watt) looks to be a similarly star-studded affair. Ordinary Man featured Elton John, Slash, Post Malone, Chad Smith and more; its follow-up boasts Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Robert Trujillo. But for true fans of the Prince of Darkness, the biggest names may be two longtime Ozzy collaborators: Zakk Wylde, and Tony fucking Iommi for the Sabbath reunion of our heavy-metal dreams.
Matt Pike
Title: Pike vs. the Automaton
Release Date: February 18
Whether in the red-eyed lurches of Sleep or the craggy mountainscapes of High on Fire, Matt Pike has always made music that sounds battered and well-worn, and his new solo project is no different. Debut single "Alien Slut Mum," released in December, is pure Pike-core, a blast of wicked, wart-covered sludge. But Pike vs. the Automaton isn't a new HOF or Sleep album, so expect some left turns on this trip through the grizzled metal veteran's twisted mind.
Greg Puciato
Title: Mirrorcell
Release Date: spring
From the balcony-diving insanity of Dillinger Escape Plan to the dreamy darkwave of the Black Queen, Greg Puciato has long established his remarkable range — nowhere more so than on his debut solo album, 2020's Child Soldier: Creator of God, which encompasses doomy metal, synth-pop, acoustic balladry and more. His follow-up, Mirrorcell, promises to further annihilate any boundaries — especially coming off Puciato's appearance on Jerry Cantrell's country-fried solo LP, Brighten.
Rammstein
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
It took Rammstein a decade between albums to finally release their last LP, 2019's untitled offering; its follow-up looks like it will take less than a third of that time. The Deutschlandic pyromaniacs reportedly spent their quarantine hard at work writing and recording music, including a new song that premiered last October on the International Space Station to an audience of one: French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. According to guitarist Richard Kruspe, the full album should premiere on Planet Earth in the first half of 2022.
Shadow of Intent
Title: Elegy
Release Date: January 14
Since their 2016 debut, Primordial — which we dubbed one of deathcore's 15 essential albums — Shadow of Intent have been chiseling their abrasively modern take on old-school deathcore into one of the most formidable sounds in the genre. The singles we've heard from Elegy, their fourth opus, have jacked the heaviness up a few notches without letting their sturdy, listenable songwriting fall by the wayside. We're prepared to lose some teeth.
Slipknot
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
If Slipknot's 2021 single, "The Chapeltown Rag," is any indication, the 'Knot's new LP is going to be a doozy. Corey Taylor and Shawn "Clown" Crahan were talking up the We Are Not Your Kind follow-up all of last year, with the percussionist referring to the songs as "god music," and the frontman saying that it has "some pit-openers that are gonna fucking freak people out." That's what we wanna hear — and according to Taylor, we could hear it as early as spring.
Terror
Title: TBA
Release Date: spring
There aren't too many hardcore bands who stick around as long as Terror have, and even fewer who continue to drop quality albums like they do every few years. After re-recording some early material last year with OG guitarist Todd Jones (of Nails fame), Scott Vogel and Co. are gearing up to unleash another batch of metallic hardcore bangers. We need the Keepers of the Faith now more than ever.
Underoath
Title: Voyeurist
Release Date: January 14
No two Underoath albums have ever been the same, and the metalcore visionaries will be keeping that streak alive with this year's Voyeurist. The singles from the band's first LP since 2018's rock-centric reunion record, Erase Me, have run the gamut from nu-metal-inflected chugginess to dense noise-rock. A return to their scalding roots is definitely in the cards.
Vein.FM
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Between 2018's breakthrough debut LP, Errorzone, and 2020's stunning remix album, Old Data in a New Machine Vol. 1, Vein.FM (formerly Vein) are unquestionably one of the leading lights in the modern metallic hardcore scene, seamlessly incorporating elements of nu-metal, industrial, shoegaze and more into their mosh-driving pummel. They could take their sound almost anywhere on Errorzone's upcoming proper follow-up, but we're particularly stoked for more clean vocals and gauzy textures.
Venom Prison
Title: Erebos
Release Date: February 4
There's never been any questioning Venom Prison's ferocity — from vocalist Larissa Stupar's politically charged invectives to the U.K. extremists' face-melting riffery. But on Erebos, the death-metal rabble-rousers' imminent fourth album, they take a major leap, showcasing new shades to their heretofore brutal approach. Just listen to December single "Pain of Oizys," a captivating war hymn replete with melodic vocals, finger-picked guitar, crystalline piano, electronic beats and wide-open negative space.
YOB
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Doom metal often crawls through darkest recesses of the soul; YOB's take on the style aims for celestial heights. (Tellingly, the URL of the band's official site is yobislove.com.) The Oregon trio's last album, 2018's Our Raw Heart, came after main man Mike Scheidt faced a life-threatening health scare the year before, and it soared with cosmic textures and Dio-esque vocals, while also offering up one of the group's heaviest songs yet: "The Screen." Its follow-up should offer similar range, delivered, as always, with a raw and open heart.
