Rolling 2026 METAL \m/ thread

I probably bought fewer new metal albums last year than most (still a LOT) but 2026 is rife with potential

I've been listening to Eximperitus' third album, Meritoriousness of Equanimity, which comes out January 30 from Willowtip.

https://eximperitus.bandcamp.com/album/meritoriousness-of-equanimity

A metal album whose title translates from Metal to English as "It's Good To Be Chill" seems like a good way to start 2026.

omg sounds amazing - so into those song titles lol

the last few updates from the 2025 thread really gave me a boon of great stuff to listen to at the gym and on runs:

coroner - dissonance theory
i thought this was kinda cheesy at first but it's really grown on me. middle aged in the best sense.

glorious depravity - death never sleeps.
high energy and headbangable

hedonist - scapulimancy
kind of a slow burn

sanguisugabogg - hideous aftermath
just a monster of an album. zeroed-out eyes-rolled-back brutality. missed nominating this for the eoy poll.

Definitely stoked for that Eximperitus album, I loved their last one quite a bit. Seems like the logo still has their, ahem, full name - Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum. I can see why they've shortened it elsewhere.

Seems like the logo still has their, ahem, full name - Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum.

I was wondering what was going on there. The logo did seem a little long and complicated.

Hails! I wasn't around very much last year. I hope to rectify that this year.

Revolver did a 60 Most Anticipated Albums of 2026 which should be good for discussion, if nothing else!

Alice in Chains
ALISSA
Alter Bridge
Amon Amarth
Anthrax
At the Gates
Bad Omens
Zachary Baker
Better Lovers
Black Label Society
Black Veil Brides
Burn Eternal
Clutch
Converge
Corrosion of Conformity
Deafheaven
Dimmu Borgir
Down
Electric Callboy
Amira Elfeky
Evanescence
Evil Island
Exodus
Five Finger Death Punch
Gojira
I Promised the World
Ice Nine Kills
Imminence
In This Moment
Incubus
Kim Dracula
Kerry King
King Diamond
Knocked Loose
Korn
Lamb of God
Limp Bizkit
Loathe
Marilyn Manson
Mastodon
Megadeth
Ministry
Motionless in White
Mudvayne
Nine Inch Nails
Paleface Swiss
Poison the Well
Poppy
Power Trip
PRESIDENT
Primus
The Pretty Reckless
Puscifer
Sevendust
Shinedown
Slipknot
SPEED
TOOL
Jay Weinberg
Rob Zombie

My own list of things I want to at least list to... Bearing in mind I listen to everything vaguely interesting though there's a bunch of things I am dubious I will like...

7-Jan
Epica

9-Jan
Bullet
Skindred

16-Jan
Gluecifer
Kreator

23-Jan
The Damned
Megadeth
Pelican

30-Jan
Buzzcocks

6-Feb
KMFDM
Mayhem
Puscifier

13-Feb
Converge
The Hellacopters
Malefic
Worm

27-Feb
Rob Zombie

From that big Revolver list, the only ones I'm interested in hearing are At The Gates, Converge, Corrosion Of Conformity, Gojira, Ministry (Paul Barker's back!) and Rob Zombie (the first two singles have been really strong).

Time was, every Amon Amarth record was an automatic purchase for me, but the last one I bought was Jomsviking and The Great Heathen Army was terrible.

Seems like every nu-metal band has an album coming out.

And probably allegations coming out as well

Seen this MTV Rewind site? It's got over 33,000 videos going back to the 1970s, with sub-channels for 120 Minutes and the Headbangers' Ball (which has 1600 videos all by itself).

https://wantmymtv.vercel.app/player.html

The two Mayhem songs already released are strong, that's promising.

The new Kreator album is GREAT fun, because of course it would be.

A new Draconian (Sweden, gothic doom) album is coming out this spring, the studio return of their 2001-2011 female vocalist - https://www.instagram.com/draconianhorde/p/DRzjllKji50/

New Exhumed track rips, suitably gory cover art too.

https://exhumed.bandcamp.com/album/red-asphalt

This morning I got a promo email about a black metal album literally called Hate Speech. In 2026. Deleted that shit immediately.

hellhammer is reissuing the PARIAH albums (what Satan became for a while). great stuff

still catching up on 2025 releases and really enjoyed oromet’s mournful funeral doom:

https://transylvanianrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/oromet-the-sinking-isle

really hit the spot on a particularly shit day!

hellhammer is reissuing the PARIAH albums (what Satan became for a while). great stuff

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Monday, January 12, 2026 4:46 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i looked this up and the kindred sounds great indeed but i'm wondering if you meant "steamhammer" the name of the og label, not "hellhammer" the band, which are obviously two words to get easily mixed up?

oromet’s mournful funeral doom: really hit the spot on a particularly shit day!

this is sounding gorgeous thx

and that exhumed track is insane

Really dig that Oromet album, it's great.

Missed the Alkaloid listening party, but stoked to check out that album.

Missed the Alkaloid listening party, but stoked to check out that album.

The Bach one? It's pretty good in a prog-death-with-multiple-songs-about-Cthulhu way. The Bach interpretations are... done with great seriousness.

I really liked the last Alkaloid album so I was mostly curious to hear those new songs. But JCLC was raving elsewhere about the Bach interpretations.

I liked it enough that I'm including it in an upcoming newsletter devoted to classical albums.

new immolation:
https://immolation.bandcamp.com/album/descent

teaser track sounds great, as usual. album in april. hope there's a tour.

I like the brief but descriptive tags on there:

Tags
metal death metal Yonkers

Fun piece on IO. I love this cover art aesthetic.

https://www.invisibleoranges.com/the-top-20-old-school-black-metal-photoslop-album-covers-1990-2005/

oh man, have that apotheosis disc somewhere. haven’t thought about that one for quite some time.

Loving this debut from Exxûl, another project in the Longueuil lads universe (Ch'theilist, Zeycrideus, etc.). It's dark, doomy USPM, very much like Crypt Sermon. https://productionstso.bandcamp.com/album/sealed-into-none

The album cover is beautiful too.

ok this rules. sounds a bit like early confessor with some modern polish.

damn ok i love this.

i can't take this news of Carson dying every few hours guys my heart is weak

ok very wrong thread wtf

hails to carson, metal’s reigning king of riffsmaxxing

love the keys on this exxul record - adds a little “i am the black wizards” drama to an already very dramatic sound

also, i myself invoked confessor but any excuse to post their texas water park set aka the best live performance ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5CgB4dB0NU

great video. wiki says they're still active today with three og members.

nice. i remember thinking that their comeback record (now 20+ years old…) was surprisingly good despite the new and prominent grunge influences deployed at what must've been the least cool time in history to really go for that. i should prob spin that again sometime.

Fun piece on IO. I love this cover art aesthetic.

My personal favourite is Maniac Butcher - Barbarians, which features the band members (crudely) superimposed on horseback, in full corpsepaint.

And then on their next album cover, they did it again!

they realized four people to photoshop was just way too much work lol

still cant get enough of this exxul record. the gang vox are another unexpected element that im really into - RIYL biohazard lol

behold, Dave Mustaine in 2026
--------------------------------

I don't care if I'm out of line
I don't care 'cause this life is mine
I don't care you don't like what I say
I don't care, and I won't obey
I don't care if you're gettin' high
I don't care when the truth is a lie
I don't care when the rope gets tight
I don't care if you live or die
I don't care what the headline said
I don't care if all hope is dead
I don't care if I'm not your class
I don't care, you can kiss my ass

He was a hater and a thief, a maggot in dead meat
A traitor and a creep, a jack-off and a sheep
You know a rat never learns, you get what you deserve
You gotta know that I just don't care

You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know
You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know
You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know
You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know

I don't care if you're standing tall
I don't care if you take the fall
I don't care who you try to blame
I don't care, I don't play that game
I don't care if you're wrong or right
I don't care if you came to fight
I don't care if you call my bluff
I don't care, enough is enough

He was a hater and a thief, a maggot in dead meat
A traitor and a creep, a jack-off and a sheep
You know a rat never learns, you get what you deserve
You gotta know that I just don't care

He was a hater and a thief, a maggot in dead meat
A traitor and a creep, a jack-off and a sheep
You know a rat never learns, you get what you deserve
You gotta know that I just don't care

You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know
You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know
You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know
You gotta know, gotta know, gotta know

I'm just going to cling to my 40 year-old Peace Sells cassette and pretend that never happened.

if theres one thing megadave is known for, its for taking things in stride and not caring about what other people think or say

still cant get enough of this exxul record.

Yeah, it's a gem. It's sending me back to the amazing Zeicrydeus album too.

still haven't gotten to it. gonna prioritize that, thanks!

Came to see what others thought of the new Megadeth.
Suffice, I'm not buying.

on first listen, it was fairly middling. there's not as much effect on Dave's voice as on other late-era Megadeth and he sounds really old

Yeah, it's not great. They've made better albums, even in the 21st century. But the closing cover of Metallica's "Ride The Lightning" is... OK, from a performance standpoint it's competent. Musically, it's a precise soundalike - the band adds NOTHING to the arrangement or the performance. Mustaine didn't even write himself a new guitar solo. The vocals are bad, but he's been a shit vocalist for 40 years, why change now? But as a thing that exists, it's an act of artistic surrender that's frankly inexplicable. He spent so many years allowing "guy who was kicked out of Metallica and will never, ever stop resenting them for it" to be half his artistic identity, only to now cover one of their songs on what he claims is his final album? It's just weird. And pointless.

new Sleep song... but Sleep is now Pike-less and has Dale Crover plus dude from VOID ?

seems weird given next Al thing should have been new Om... all can put it down to is bigger promoter guarantees for the Sleep name. but yeah the fans are a bit confused and sad.

Ha, yeah, just bumped the Sleep thread with the same news.

Here's the thing: "dissonant microtonal experimental black metal" ...still just sounds like black metal. (That said, Agonanist is an objectively hilarious band name.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GesK8qnwY34

gotta have an extra describer to differentiate yrself on bandcamp i guess. microtonal is the new angular.

off to the london Cryptic Shift/Death To All show tonight, hyped.

New Rotten Tomb hitting nice tonight. Bummed that rekkid/CD of that Speglas won’t ship to US.

was stoked for this one:
https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/nirriti-dhrupad-anutpada-apophatic-ragas-of-non-origination

i mean, how can you not want to listen to “apophatic ragas of non origination”? some cool things happening here but the feeble production isn’t really doing it for me, unfortunately.

remaster of convulse’s early demos:
https://convulseband.bandcamp.com/album/from-resuscitation-to-reincarnation-the-early-years

its no world without god but… what is?

remaster of adramelech’s second lp, which includes an earlier, scrapped version:
https://xtreemmusic.bandcamp.com/album/pure-blood-doom

its no psychostasia but… what is?

new reeking aura is tight:
https://reekingaura.bandcamp.com/album/on-the-promise-of-the-moon

love the carcass-ey intro for, um, “manure like magma”

Worm was incredible live

agree

oh man, missed it :/

Just listened to the Egregore record - this is fun. Great atmosphere & licks, and I’m fine with throwing a little Mercyful Fate into the mix!

Any Savatage fans here?

Cos that live album they just released from 1990, Madness Reigns in the Gutter, is a scorcher. Unlike Ghost in the Ruins, it's one show, and has live tracks not done on that one

Big Savatage admirer, and yep, I'm super interested in the live album!

Some 2026 metal (metal-ish, metal-adjacent...) albums I've liked:

Amberican Dawn: Temptation's Gates
Anaria: Between Loving and Dying
Aryem: Agnes
Melissa Bonny: Cherry Red Apocalypse
Dimmu Borgir: Grand Serpent Rising
Draconian: In Somnolent Ruin
Epinikion: The Force of Nature
Evergrey: Architects Of A New Weave
Gaerea: Loss
Hanging Garden: Isle of Bliss
Harifa: Alexithymia
IKINÄ: Valkyria
LOVEBITES: Outstanding Power
Machinae Supremacy: Machinae Supremacy
Maladie: The Dance of Tragedies
MØL: DREAMCRUSH
Nervosa: Slave Machine
REXORIA: Fallen Dimension
Tarja: Frisson Noir
Teramaze: The Silent Architect
Unlucky Morpheus: Gate of Hell
Venus 5: March of the Venus 5
A.A. Williams: Solstice
Yoth Iria: Gone With the Devil

Mexican thrash act Phantom have a new album out, their fourth. I've bought their previous three, but I guess I unsubscribed from their Bandcamp emails, because I didn't find out about it until the site published their best metal list for June.

http://phantombandgdl.bandcamp.com/album/not-midnight-yet

The skeleton guy is their mascot; he's on all their album covers.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0570137208_10.jpg

Also, this is their current band photo:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0043303208_10.jpg

Soooooo many metal bands ...

speaking of, finally getting around to saidan’s latest weeb metal lp:
https://saidan.bandcamp.com/album/fangdriller-scars-beneath-memorys-wrist

curious if people have thoughts. i typically really enjoy a song or two and then start getting a little tired of the formula. theyre good tho. kinda like if the new worm album was (way) more eurovision.

I enjoy the Saidan! It's good fun

Just listened to the Egregore record - this is fun.

yeah, it's really good. rizk's mixing in this beeing one of his finest magics. record sounds fantastic

Been listening to Astriferous (death metal from Costa Rica) this weekend; their 2023 album Pulsations From The Black Orb is, as that title implies, pretty proggy, whereas their new one, Atavistic Unraveling, is more caveman-ish. But I really like both, and they've got a new guitarist who takes more squiggly solos, so I might actually prefer their new style.

https://mesacounojo.bandcamp.com/album/pulsations-from-the-black-orb

https://mesacounojo.bandcamp.com/album/atavistic-unraveling

This Zorn album is some great punky, thrashy black metal. A tight 20 minutes.

https://zornphilly.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-castle-death

They share a member with Poison Ruïn, also a band that rules.

This Zorn album is some great punky, thrashy black metal. A tight 20 minutes.

Had to read this a couple of times, because honestly, if this was a description of a new John Zorn album, I would not be totally surprised.

this new agrimonia rec is rolling like it's just awaken pt II? YESPLEASE. godlike band. crying (but im crying like before crying was cool)

I'm not attending the entire weekend but it seems like I will be at Fire In The Mountains tomorrow (Friday 7/24). Looking forward to seeing Yaotl Mictlan, Wayfarer, Raven Chacon and Iggor Cavalera, and Baroness.

Fire In The Mountains: lots of fun! Can recommend.

Further thoughts on Fire In The Mountains.

enjoyed that write-up - thanks! what a cool festival.

good to be aware of yaotl mictlan - i'll watch for their shows in slc.

twisty french black metal band epitaphe have their first new one in a few years on the way:
https://epitaphe.bandcamp.com/album/iii

if the 16min teaser track is any indication, they've gone even more prog with this one

^ right on! New to me; preordered.

My friend's band Black Throne, this shit rips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOdWoEHLzS4

What's the verdict on Taake? Does Hoest's past antics put them off limits? Or do we tolerate them as not being Nazis but just with a bonehead singer?

They have a new album out today and I am genuinely curious whether others feel about this.

If you hadn't brought them up, I would not have known they had a new album, and would likely never have thought about them at all. I listened to a couple of their albums a few years ago and there was nothing memorable or interesting about their music, so the question really becomes not so much Can I tolerate the unsavory/idiotic provocations of this awesome band? but rather With a hundred thousand better bands in the world, why do I insist on still paying attention to this mediocre band and their idiotic provocations? As far as I can tell, they have no appeal beyond the minimal frisson of Ooh, look what I'm getting away with by listening to these chuds! I'm a free thinker, I am!

Music is a subjective thing, as is where one draws the line about these things.

The only thing that can be counted on with near certainty is that you will be a self-righteous douchebag.

Well, let's do this right.

If you like Taake, make the case for them! What's their best song?

I listened to their early work and I thought it sucked, irrespective of their main dude being a POS. (He's not just the singer, as you framed it; it's his band and he hires backing musicians to manifest his vision.)

So like I said, the question(s) for me are, if this band sucks on a musical level, is there any reason to listen to them beyond provocation? And since I don't play music for other people, either publicly (on the radio, say) or socially ("You've gotta hear this awesome new Taake record!"), who am I "provoking," and why? Myself? I know what I think and believe. A band is not going to challenge my views.

(I believe you have made this very argument here in the past w/r/t some other NSBM/sketchy act you liked.)

So what is the value (to me as an individual, not to society or whatever) of listening to music that is created solely to espouse values that I disagree with?

Where do you draw the line? Clearly, not with Taake. You like them, and want to see if other people like them too. So which bands are out of bounds for you, and why?

These are honest questions. I really want to know what you think, and how you think, and why.

oh boy

anyway, new nothingness is hitting the spot. lots of chugging and pinch harmonics, very heavy:
https://everlastingspew.bandcamp.com/album/godslaughter

their last one didn’t really stick with me. we’ll see about this one (a lot of competition these days) but i’m enjoying it more than i expected.

the part in “umbral spear” when they lock in and ride out a big meshuggah-ey breakdown is a big moment

I wrote about the new Elder and Psycroptic albums in my newsletter.

anyway, new nothingness is hitting the spot. lots of chugging and pinch harmonics, very heavy:

"04. trenchant glunch 04:25"

new board description?

digging that psycroptic album. i like my death metal a little more high-energy and catchy at this moment. they're from tasmania.

Always down for a trenchant glunch.

I like my glunches like I like my message boards...

Some people are annoyed by the Subway Takes guy, but I'm not, and I love learning that Javier Bardem is a huge metal guy (and doesn't just listen to old bands):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMYyKPHBxbY

Bardem is also featured in the recent Iron Maiden documentary, which I haven't seen yet.

https://assimilatedtransdimensionalization.bandcamp.com/music

Today's big Bandcamp discovery: Assimilated Transdimensionalization, a one-man death metal project from Hungary that's like a slightly more chud-like Wormed.

brutal slamming death from indonesia:
https://comatosemusic.bandcamp.com/album/incessant-affliction

not exactly reinventing the wheel here but i like how this one grooves hard

some meat and potatoes sludgy instrumental heaviness from Iommi Watts, not a naming convention i usually like but i'll allow it.

https://iommiwatts.bandcamp.com/album/halverson

the 1990 Savatage live album mentioned upthread totally rules