My Most Anticipated Releases of 2019

Rock, metal, and all their subgenres are on a hell of a roll right now, with recent years being jam-packed with 8/10 and 9/10 records. I’d even argue that there have been a whole six 10/10s in the last three years alone*, so coming into 2019, it appears to have a lot to live up to.

There are albums from huge bands scheduled for release this year. From Slipknot to Tool; Bring Me The Horizon to Rammstein; this won’t be a quiet year by any stretch of the imagination. The real excitement for me, though, comes from the releases you won’t see publicised on such a mainstream level – what are Knocked Loose gonna come out with this year? Can Employed To Serve somehow beat their previous album? And (while this one isn’t “underground”) will Green Day be able to put out an album worse than Revolution Radio?  There are countless reasons to be excited for 2019; here are just four.

Baroness

In 2015, three years after the bus crash that nearly derailed their career, Baroness dropped the best metal album of the year – Purple. Though it continued down the more melodic path that previous double-album Yellow & Green had laid, and thus lacked the ferocity of their earlier work, it more than made up for it through sheer power and scope. Shock Me, Kerosene, and Chlorine & Wine each have better hooks than every single number-one-charting single in 2015 combined. Who needs Taylor Swift when you have John fucking Baizley?

So what’s next for Baroness in 2019? The band have a tour scheduled for the early part of the year across the US, co-headlining with Deafheaven and supported by Zeal & Ardor (which is bloody ridiculous, by the way), but it appears that afterwards, the release of a new album is imminent. It’ll be the band’s first project with guitarist Gina Gleason, whose backing vocals and guitar work have felt like a natural fit within the live environment for the past three years, and so it’s hard not to be excited to see what she’ll bring to studio recordings. Baizley has already stated that we should expect something different from Baroness this time around – even so far as the title (and theme) not being another colour – but I’d be willing to bet it’ll be stunning.

Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes

The case of Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes is fascinating in 2019. Only having formed in 2015, the band are already pretty sizeable and have built themselves a unique fanbase - comprised of both fans of Frank’s previous projects (Gallows and Pure Love) and a good chunk of mainstream-level audiences (largely the witnesses – or survivors – of incredible live sets at festivals like Reading & Leeds and All Points East). This following puts them in a precarious situation in terms of their stylistic direction. Their first album, Blossom, was intense, bitter, and packed front-to-back with punk-rock ragers, whilst sophomore LP Modern Ruin opted more for radio-ready songs with huge choruses that still wouldn’t look at all out of place at Download or 2000 Trees.

Both of the Rattlesnakes’ previous efforts are fantastic, but now the question lies in which direction they’ll take their sound this year. It seems to some extent that they can’t win; go back to Blossom’s  rage-fuelled antics and risk their growing presence in the mainstream; take the festival crowd-pleasers up a (poppier) notch and risk alienating the “OG” fans. If they do neither and make another Modern Ruin, there will no doubt be complaints that the music is starting to get samey.

All this taken into account, I’ve got a funny feeling they’ll be fine. Because guess what? It doesn’t matter what songs you play when you’ve got Frank Carter performing them in a leopard print jacket whilst doing a headstand on the crowd. Guitarist Dean Richardson is an absolute riff machine, too, and so while we may not know the stylistic approach to the next Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes record, we do know it’ll be made by people apparently incapable of giving less than 200% every single time. They’ll gain some more fans on this cycle no matter what, and maybe some of the old “Orchestra of Wolves, Grey Britain, and nothing else” crowd will come round to it too. This is a band destined to be massive, and as far as I can see, the only way to go is up.

Code Orange

In the past five years, you could easily argue that no single album has made as huge an impact in our scene as Code Orange’s Forever. An album which made hardcore gatekeepers cry and traditional metalheads seethe with rage, Forever  debuted at number 4 on the US hard rock charts (alongside Metallica, Disturbed, and Avenged Sevenfold), was nominated for a Grammy, and was named Rolling Stone’s metal album of 2017. The fact that Code Orange have managed to infiltrate the mainstream metal zeitgeist by just being bastard-fucking-heavy and brain-meltingly inventive is not only impressive, but also exciting.

In 2018, Code Orange teased us with what might come of this year with The Hurt Will Go On, a three track EP showcasing some of the band’s most experimental material yet – and guess what? It was outstanding. The use of glitchy electronic elements in amongst brutal industrial hardcore (combined with complete disregard for traditional song structure) made it the best EP of the year by quite some distance, and it gave us a potential glimpse into what the next full-length release could sound like. Of course, there was also the fantastic Adult Swim single Only One Way released at the start of the year; a deranged alt-rock influenced track in the same vein as Forever’s biggest single; Bleeding In The Blur.

These tastes of what Code Orange could be capable of on a larger scale this year are tantalising, but I think it’s important to not have any real expectation of the sound of their next LP. It seems right now that the band’s capabilities are endless, and to see how far they can stretch the definition of hardcore is one of the most thrilling things in modern music, full stop.

PUP

Remember when I said there have been six 10/10 records since 2016? PUP’s last album, The Dream Is Over, easily makes that list. If I extended the time frame to 2013, their debut self-titled would make the cut too. What we’re discussing here, then, is a band who have only ever put out 10/10 albums. Why are you not counting down the days?

PUP are a punk rock band from Ontario, Canada who have made a name for themselves over the past five years with their shout-along choruses, deceptively intricate musicianship, and a simple inability to produce bad songs. Their new album, Morbid Stuff, will be out April 5^th (as recently announced in the pages of a zine the band put together themselves), and according to the announcement, the band believe it’s their “best record yet”, stating that “if you liked either of the last two records, you’ll really really like this one.” So if their word is anything to go by, you’ll see an 11/10 review on here in April.

It’ll be interesting to see where PUP go in 2019 when we look outside of the actual sonics of the music, too. While they’ve had a fairly sharp rise to success in the short span of their career, I feel like they’ve only just gotten started. The limit for their success is sky-high, and they’re destined to become 2000 Trees headliner-level within the 5 years (at least) as long as they keep putting out albums as good as the first two. Ensure you see them live on this album cycle, because it’s clear that they won’t be able to keep playing intimate venues much longer. Like the other bands I’ve talked about already, the only way for PUP is up.

If you’re reading this as someone looking in from the outside, load up Spotify now and give Dark Days or Sleep In The Heat a listen, and you’ll understand my mad ravings about PUP a bit more… and now you have another reason to be excited for the year ahead, too.

*The Six Tens are Instructions by HECK, Dissociation by The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Dream is Over by PUP, After the Party by The Menzingers, Science Fiction by Brand New, and Only Love by The Armed.