Photo by Josh Barry

Century
TBA
Label – Prosthetic Records
Release Date – TBA 2011

Century’s Black Ocean had riffs, rage, and just enough originality to give everything else out that year a run for its money as a personal favorite from 2008. And if the early — and still decidedly rough — mixes of the band’s follow-up are any indication, Century will be back at the top of the heap come the end of 2011, too. It’s not that the music is the most progressive or groundbreaking mix of hardcore and metal — it’s that the band does it so well.

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Rot In Hell
As Pearls Before Swine
Label – Deathwish Inc.
Release date – February 1, 2011

Thanks to artists like Integrity and Ringworm, Cleveland has a hardcore legacy that spans the globe. Indeed, Rot In Hell manage to follow that tradition an entire ocean away. Still, you’d never guess the Innsmouth, UK group’s geographic origins given their ferocious devotion to the downright devastating metallic Holy Terror sound. Their upcoming full-length As Pearls Before Swine, due out in February on Converge frontman J. Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. imprint, will make that crystal fucking clear. Two of its tracks are currently streaming at the Deathwish site. “Traitor’s Gate” is virulent, furious Clevo-core, while the blistering pit beast “Coyotenia” benefits from some beauteous metallic soloing amidst the sonic tsunami.

Given their recent Niu 12″ (recorded live in concert off the soundboard) for A389 Records, it’s only fitting that Rot In Hell are part of the label’s Seventh Annual Bash, a one-night event at Sonar in Baltimore headlined this year by Integrity, whose latest LP The Blackest Curse came out on Deathwish last year. Also on the January 22 bill are Drop Dead, Haymaker, and The Love Below, among others. The flyer is below, and you can buy tickets here.

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Iskald
The Sun I Carried Alone
Label – Indie Recordings
Release Date – January 17th, 2011

I’m glad when I can finally, finally find black metal bands that don’t simply focus on one idea, run with it, and make an albums full of songs that each sound more or less the same. Be it reclusive depressives (the legions of Darkthrone imitators) or experimental hipsters making something that is classified as BM but doesn’t really resemble it in any way (Nachtmystium), I can’t get into most of it.

Then, in 2006, I found Iskald. The band had just released Shades of Misery, which I was fully prepared to write off as another black metal horde band, until I stumbled upon one word in a review of the album: “uplifting.” Well, shit. I’ve never heard a black metal band be positively uplifting. So I had to check them out. What I found was a mixture of traditional melodic black metal and the bitter ferocity of traditional kvlt BM. And it’s awesome — especially considering how the band is only a two-piece, the complexity of the music and songwriting (yes, complexity in black metal) is astounding. The band describes their approach on the new album thusly:

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Photo by Paul Birman

Wetnurse
TBA
Label – TBD
Release date – Tentatively sometime before Christmas 2011

New York City’s own Wetnurse are one of those bands whose music I have almost no idea how to describe; I mean, it’s like trying to tell a blind person what a color looks like. They mix elements of All Things Rock into one dirty, aggro, and wholly unique package, and if you’re not hip to them yet, well, you best get on that shit.

(Bonus: they are SO MUCH FUN LIVE, I don’t even know where to start. Gene Fowler has to be one of the most entertaining front men out there right now; he looks like he’s having an epileptic fit every time he takes the stage. And I mean that as a compliment.)

2011 marks Wetnurse’s tenth year of existence, and they’re hoping to celebrate the anniversary with a new release sometime towards the end of this year. Drummer Curran Reynolds (who, along with bassist Ryan Jones, is also now in the always-great Today is the Day) tells me:

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Scorched-Earth Policy
TBA
Label – Self-release
Release date – Spring 2011

Back in 2001, my first taste of Slipknot’s then-forthcoming sophomore album, Iowa, was a two-minute piece of “The Heretic Anthem.” The snippet was found on a wee little mini-CD from Roadrunner Japan alongside similarly abridged jams by Fear Factory, Ill Nino, Bat Cave, Sepultura, and, uh, Cairo, among others. The weird thing is that this CD5-shaped Reader’s Digest of macho gruntcore — clearly designed for overhead play at Japan’s CD superstores — stayed in heavy rotation at my place for months. Crazy, right? But you can see how, once distilled to its 120-second essence, no song could overstay its welcome or commit an unforgivable gaffe — even Ill Nino’s! And listening to them all was like taking a healthy bite of twelve different pizza slices, some undercooked, most boldly similar, and totally fun! Even Ill Nino’s!

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Altar of Plagues
Mammal
Label – Profound Lore, Candlelight
Release date – April 2011

There was a time when black metal was a small ball-type game: bands focused on making claustrophobic, personal albums to score more in the short term instead of overextending themselves. Of course, now that “black metal” is either too limiting or too broad a genre-defining term depending on who you talk to, gigantic is the rule of the day, from ambition (Nachtmystium) to sound (Deathspell Omega) to extremity to the point of ridiculousness (Waitain, Behemoth). So now couldn’t be a better time for a band like Ireland’s Altar of Plagues to rise to prominence. Through walls of luscious guitars and post-metal length tracks that actually hint at things like “forethought” and “songwriting,” the band swing for the fences, forcefully shirking off the genre’s self-conscious streak and sounding righteously experimental as well as confident. A band like this is destined for things as big as their reverb-soaked albums, sure to be nestled in the arms of critics sympathetic to forward-thinking metal (so, you know, most of them) as well as people that don’t view black metal as a rigid set of ridiculous rules or just generally ridiculous.

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Necros Christos
Doom of the Occult
Label – Ván, Sepulchral Voice, The Ajna Offensive
Release date – Early 2011

Discovering that there will be a new full-length from Necros Christos in 2011 was one of the best Christmas presents I got this year. While, given my Catholic grandmother’s penchant for gifting me gaudy earrings and gold crucifix necklaces, that isn’t exactly saying much, trust me, it’s a big fucking deal.

Those who are familiar with the Necros Christos cult should be creaming themselves about now. Those who aren’t should remedy that real fucking quick, because this German quartet are due to release the heaviest album of 2011. This is not mere death metal. It sure as hell isn’t overly technical, or overly melodic, and whatever “djent” is, this ain’t it. This is occult metal ov death, and fans of Incantation, Mortuary Drape, Cruciamentum, Hooded Menace, Archgoat, Portal, Black Witchery, Mystifier, Order From Chaos, and all things dark and hateful should take note.

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Vicious Rumors
Razorback Killers
Label – SPV/Steamhammer
Release Date – April 5, 2011

Sometimes, I judge bands by their names. To be perfectly honest, I always judge bands by their names. Which is why I had successfully avoided ever listening to Bullet for My Valentine. But then they had to go and open for Maiden. So — I first stumbled across Vicious Rumors because I saw their name somewhere and was intrigued. I thought they were hair metal.

I was mistaken.

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Oakhelm
Echtra
Label – Forest Moon Special Products
Release Date – Late Summer 2011

Oakhelm’s debut full-length, Betwixt aAnd Between, came busting out of the Northwest back in 2007 (already!). To black folk metal devotees, it was an awesome amalgamation of the experienced, genre-crossing members of Assück, Fall Of The Bastards, L’Acephale and Wormwood (among others); for the uninformed, it was just a great fucking album. And even though the follow-up was on my list of most anticipated records of 2010, Forest Moon Special Products‘ John Strachan assures me it’s coming out later this year.

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Grayceon
All We Destroy
Label – Profound Lore
Release Date – March 1, 2011

To quote a Coalesce album title, there is nothing new under the sun. Wait, shit – that was actually a passage from Ecclesiastes. See what I mean? Forty-odd years since metal’s birth, it’s tough to innovate beyond folding in a genre or influence that you wouldn’t think would work in metal. While I don’t believe that “originality” always trumps craftsmanship and verve in importance, I do miss the early days of my metal listenership, when everything sounded new to my virgin ears (as opposed to my current whore ears).

That’s why I was so stoked to have my face first fucked off by San Francisco’s Grayceon, around the time their self-titled debut came out on Vendlus a few years back. Here was a band that was unique through and through. You don’t find many metal bands with a female lead singer that refuses to play the siren role in some dork’s maiden-rescuing fantasy LARP. You’ll find even fewer bands with a cello as a lead instrument, and even fewer than that which utilize finger-picked electric guitar. Grayceon feature all three. More important than those eyebrow-raising bullet points, Grayceon make a wholly new music, one that grafts medieval cadences and the pastoral textures of early British prog onto a bedrock of supremely headbangable, ornate riffing. And there are no seams. Grayceon make metal, yes (and amazingly heavy metal at that), but they draw equally on …And Justice for All as they do Guillaume de Machaut.

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Horned Almighty
Necro Spirituals
Label – Candlelight
Release date – January 25

Are there times when you just want to strip away the niceties of everyday life, flush away any remote sense of decorum, and turn off your brain? How often do you wish you had time to throw back a multitude of pints, curse out your God-fearing neighbors, and cause undeterred rampant chaos? Sometimes it’s best to revert back to your cavemanic id, and if you need a soundtrack to accompany your civil disobedience, listen no further than veteran Norwegian black thrashers Horned Almighty’s newest collection of instigation, Necro Spirituals.

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Yep yep — it’s time for our 2011 album preview! As we did last year, we won’t be spotlighting all the great releases coming out this year, and we won’t be spotlighting any releases by better-known bands; the way we see it, you already know that groups like Anthrax, Pig Destroyer, and Trivium have new albums coming out this year, and there’s nothing we can really tell you about those releases that either a) we haven’t already told you or b) you couldn’t read in any other number of places.

So instead, various inhabitants of the MetalSucks Mansion will post short write-ups spotlighting albums by bands that, even if they aren’t exactly new or unknown, haven’t yet had their break-out release. We believe these albums could be those break-outs.

Look for these posts throughout the week. We hope you enjoy ‘em!

-Axl, Vince, and and Everyone at MetalSucks