2021 has not turned out to be the cathartic, celebratory return to normality that many of us thought it might be. But we're getting through, as best we can. With summer almost gone, there is at least something to look forward to: a fall absolutely jampacked with badass heavy-music releases, from established big names (Jerry Cantrell, Dream Theater, Every Time I Die) and worthy newcomers (Spiritbox, Dying Wish, Creeping Death) alike. Below are 25 upcoming albums we're particularly hyped on.
Alien Weaponry
Title: Tangaroa
Release Date: September 17th
We've been championing Māori groove-metal upstarts Alien Weaponry since before they had even released their debut album, 2018's Tū, so to say that we're excited for their follow-up, Tangaroa, is a major understatement. The Kiwi trio have already gotten fans stomping with one of the LP's singles, "Buried Underground." Tangaroa should get mosh-pit warriors everywhere doing the haka with them.
Bullet for My Valentine
Title: Bullet for My Valentine
Release Date: October 22nd
After their flirtation with nu-metal on 2018's Gravity, Bullet for My Valentine are preparing to reverse course and drop what guitarist Michael "Padge" Paget promised is "the most ferocious" album in the band's chameleonic catalog. If its decimating singles are indicative of its overall sound, then the man's not bluffing. The U.K. band have never sounded gnarlier.
Carcass
Title: Torn Arteries
Release Date: September 17th
It was delayed a year due to COVID-19, but Carcass are finally ready to unleash Torn Arteries. Following their 2013 reunion record, Surgical Steel, their first since 1996, the goregrind pioneers sound as delectably heinous as ever on the first two singles — the grisly death-metal jaunt "Kelly's Meat Emporium" and the stonery "Dance of IXTAB." Get ready to smell the Carcass.
Cradle of Filth
Title: Existence Is Futile
Release Date: October 22nd
Cradle of Filth are celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2021 and doing so with a new full-length, Existence Is Futile, their 13th overall. Expect a blast of gothic blackened metal in the baroque, vampiric style fans have come to know and love (check lead single "Crawling King Chaos" for a taste). Added bonus: The album marks the return of horror icon and sometime collaborator Doug "Pinhead" Bradley to the COF fold.
Creeping Death
Title: The Edge of Existence
Release Date: October 8th
We were big fans of Creeping Death's 2019 death-metal blast, Wretched Illusions, and what we've heard from their upcoming EP is possibly even better. The Texas unit assemble hulking, down-the-middle riffs, screaming guitar solos and ghastly vocal lows, and play them with the urgent momentum of a sterling hardcore band. The Edge of Existence is gonna rip.
Dream Theater
Title: A View From the Top of the World
Release Date: October 22nd
A View From the Top of the World, Dream Theater's 15th studio album, is their first to be recorded at the band's own Dream Theater Headquarters studio in NYC. The result? Seven tracks and 70 minutes of epic new music that — if the single "The Alien" is any indication — continues to take the group's signature prog-metal grandiosity to dizzying heights.
Dying Wish
Title: Fragments of a Bitter Memory
Release Date: October 1st
Portland's Dying Wish have won fans at Revolver HQ with their fresh take on the Y2k metalcore sound that Unbroken, Bleeding Through and Eighteen Visions helped popularize. Their long-awaited debut LP, Fragments of a Bitter Memory has all the sonic bite and fiery social politics of a hardcore band, but the crushing production and sing-along choruses of a muscular metal act.
Employed to Serve
Title: Conquering
Release Date: September 17th
Employed to Serve are going big for their fourth LP, the aptly titled Conquering. The U.K. act are leveling up from rowdy yet intimate hardcore rippers to full-on stadium-sized metalcore bangers for this full-length. Lead singles "Exist" and "Mark of the Grave" are catchier, shreddier and riffier than anything they've ever done, but the crushing heaviness hasn't dipped an inch.
Every Time I Die
Title: Radical
Release Date: October 22nd
After a five-year gap since 2016's Low Teens — the longest break between albums in the band's history — Every Time I Die are finally dropping their new LP, Radical. The four singles they've dribbled out over the last year are on there, and cuts like "Post-Boredom" and "AWOL" showcase the Buffalo bruisers in full control over the chaotic metalcore madness that has made these guys scene leaders.
Exodus
Title: Persona Non Grata
Release Date: November 19th
Seven years after their 2014 opus, Blood In, Blood Out, Exodus are returning this fall with a new batch of heavy hitters called Persona Non Grata. The Bay Area thrash OGs still have it after all these years, as lead single "The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves)" attests. It's stuffed with righteous gang chants and riffs that cut like a chainsaw through flesh.
Full of Hell
Title: Garden of Burning Apparitions
Release Date: October 1st
For over a decade, Full of Hell have never stopped pushing boundaries in the crossroads between grindcore, hardcore, death metal and noise. With their upcoming fifth solo album, Garden of Burning Apparitions, they're throwing fans another curve ball by swapping some of the searing metal riffage for dizzying noise-rock licks that channel bands like CopShootCop and Unsane.
Ice Nine Kills
Title: The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood
Release Date: October 15th
For those who love horror as much as they love metal, Ice Nine Kills are a special treat. The theatrical, Salem-born band are preparing to drop the spine-tingling sequel to their 2018 breakthrough, The Silver Scream, and this one, Welcome to Horrorwood, also features 14 ghoulish songs, each inspired by a different fright flick. Plus, the guest list includes Cannibal Corpse's Corpsegrinder, Papa Roach's Jacoby Shaddix, Atreyu's Brandon Saller and more. Who said sequels always suck?
Jerry Cantrell
Title: Brighten
Release Date: October 29th
Alice in Chains icon Jerry Cantrell assembled legit dream teams for his previous solo albums: Primus' Les Claypool, Pantera's Rex Brown, Metallica's Robert Trujillo, Faith No More's Mike Bordin and more played on them. Brighten, his first solo offering in nearly two decades, is no different, featuring contributions from GN'R's Duff McKagan and former Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato, among others. Lead single "Atone" suggests a sojourn into dusty, cinematic, outlaw-country territory, but we'll follow Cantrell wherever he goes.
Mastodon
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
It's been four-and-a-half long years since Mastodon released their last album, the masterful Emperor of Sand. We've gotten a stop-gap rarities compilation in the interim, but that only served to whet the appetite for new music. Judging from what guitarist Bill Kelliher said earlier this year — that Mastodon's eighth LP is tentatively scheduled for this fall — we might not have to wait much longer. Even better, he described it as the "fullest" and "biggest-sounding" record they've done thus far. Bring it on.
Me and That Man
Title: New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 2
Release Date: November 19th
It's been a few years since we got a new Behemoth album, but Adam Nergal Darski hasn't been snoozing. Last year, the Polish extreme-metal icon released New Man, New Songs, Same Shit: Vol. 1, a star-studded new album with his dark folk project Me and That Man, and now he's back already with Vol. 2. Lead single "Got Your Tongue" is cheeky throwback blues that's fun enough to make a hardened black-metal fan smile.
Ministry
Title: Moral Hygiene
Release Date: October 1st
Al Jourgensen has always thrived creatively in times of turmoil and unrest, so of course he would resurface with a new Ministry album now. Moral Hygiene features a who's who of noteworthy collaborators — OG Tool bassist Paul D'Amour, Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga, Dead Kennedys firebrand and Jourgensen's Lard bandmate Jello Biafra — plus an Iggy Pop-approved cover of the Stooges' "Search and Destroy." This could be just the fix we need.
Monolord
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
For those who like their metal low and slow in the vein of Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard, Monolord have been among the cream of the crop for the last eight years. The coffee-loving Gothenburg trio kicked off 2021 with a two-song EP, the aptly titled I'm Staying Home, then promptly revealed that they were in the studio working on new heavy jams. We're hoping that means the follow-up to 2019's No Comfort LP is right around the corner.
One Step Closer
Title: This Place You Know
Release Date: September 24th
One Step Closer are one of the hottest young bands in hardcore right now, and their debut album, This Place You Know, is shaping up to be a doozy. The Wilkes-Barre unit play a gruff yet melodic style that references everyone from Title Fight and Have Heart to Turning Point and Dag Nasty. Their songs are catchy and ripe for stage dives, but also jagged and emotionally gripping. In other words, the full package.
Poorstacy
Title: Party at the Cemetery
Release Date: TBA
On his 2020 debut, The Breakfast Club, Florida artist Poorstacy specialized in propulsive emo-rap with post-punk grooves and pop-punk inertia. His upcoming album, Party at the Cemetery, takes things in a much heavier direction, pulling from industrial metal and mid-2000s post-hardcore and blending them with modern rap and electronic flourishes. We have a hunch he might be the next big thing.
Poppy
Title: Flux
Release Date: September 24th
Poppy loves to fuck with us, and we love her for it. The genre-bending auteur earned a Grammy nom earlier this year for her 2020 pop-metal mindfuck, I Disagree, and after upping the heaviness even more on her spring EP, EAT, Poppy is swinging into grungy pop-punk on her new album, Flux. The singles have all been sweet as candy, but if we've learned anything from Poppy, it's to expect the unexpected.
Portrayal of Guilt
Title: CHRISTFUCKER
Release Date: November 5th
Back in January, Austin, Texas, upstarts Portrayal of Guilt unleashed their hellish sophomore full-length, We Are Always Alone — an utterly desolate melange of black metal, screamo and heavy hardcore. Now, the trio are releasing yet another new LP that's cheerily titled CHRISTFUCKER, and the satanically heavy first single, "Possession," more than lives up to the album's aggressively blasphemous moniker.
SeeYouSpaceCowboy
Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
In May, SeeYouSpaceCowboy and their L.A. comrades in If I Die First released one of the finest metalcore splits in recent memory, and when we spoke with SpaceCowboy frontwoman Connie Sgarbossa, she revealed that a new full-length was also incoming. There's no official timeline as of yet, but if the "sasscore" progenitors do indeed drop an LP this year, then we're anticipating their best material yet.
Spiritbox
Title: Eternal Blue
Release Date: September 17th
The hype for Spiritbox's long-awaited debut is real. The trio — fronted by former iwrestledabearonce vocalist Courtney LaPlante — have given us a hefty taste of Eternal Blue with five different-sounding singles that ping-pong between djenty metalcore, tuneful prog and soaring hard rock. Impressively, they all sound like various shades of the same musical force of nature, and we can't wait for the full thing.
Trivium
Title: In the Court of the Dragon
Release Date: October 8th
Just last year, Trivium dropped their acclaimed ninth album, What the Dead Men Say, which skillfully encompassed all of the Florida veterans' wide-ranging sounds and influences into a tight 46 minutes. Less than 18 months later, they'll drop its follow-up, as Matt Heafy and Co. used their time in quarantine very productively. They also channeled their feelings of anger and isolation into the music, which guitarist Corey Beaulieu has described as "really pissed-off." Sounds good to us.
Whitechapel
Title: Kin
Release Date: October 29th
Whitechapel's 2019 album, The Valley, was a daring triumph that injected smoky clean vocals and melodic guitar leads into the band's time-tested deathcore formula. They're taking that approach even further on its sonic and thematic follow-up, Kin, which continues Phil Bozeman's harrowing personal storyline and the band's creative trek into rock-based musical territory.
