When it comes to heavy music, the last twelve months have been incredibly fruitful. We started off 2021 with an unsure optimism, hopeful to see the return of shows sometime within the year. And as the weeks went by and vaccinations rates increased, bands were able to get back to playing and metal heads returned to the pit. Meanwhile, it was obvious that many of these artists made good use of their downtime in 2020, as dozens of solid metal and hardcore albums were released on a weekly basis. Keeping up with the continuous flow of killer music was a daunting and often impossible task, but that’s a great problem to have.
I listened to a ton of new releases this year, but the following 30 were my personal favorites within the world of underground heavy music.
1. God’s Hate – “God’s Hate” (Closed Casket Activities)
2. Replicant – “Malignant Reality” (Transcending Obscurity)
3. Section H8 – “Welcome to the Nightmare” (Flatspot)
4. Gojira - "Fortitude" (Roadrunner)
5. Unto Others - "Strength" (Roadrunner)
6. Dead Heat - "World at War" (Triple B)
7. Hooded Menace - "The Tritonous Bell" (Season of Mist)
8. Cannibal Corpse - "Violence Unimagined" (Metal Blade)
9. Carcass - "Torn Arteries" (Nuclear Blast)
10. Blackwater Holylight - "Silence / Motion" (Riding Easy)
11. Dying Wish – “Fragments of a Bitter Memory” (Sharptone)
12. At The Gates – “The Nightmare of Being” (Century Media)
13. Hulder – “Godslastering : Hymns of a Forelorn Peasantry” (Iron Bonehead)
14. Momentum – “Momentum” (Daze)
15. Dream Unending – “Tide Turns Eternal” (20 Buck Spin)
16. Every Time I Die – “Radical” (Epitaph)
17. Ingrown – “Gun” (Alternatives)
18. Filth is Eternal – “Love is a Life, Filth is Eternal” (Quiet Panic)
19. Gatecreeper – “An Unexpected Reality” (Closed Casket)
20. Converge – “Bloodmoon : I” (Epitaph)
21. Stormkeep – “Tales of Othertime” (Van)
22. Noroth – “Harbinger” (Rotted Life)
23. Heiress – “Distant Fires” (Satanik Royalty)
24. Frozen Soul – “Crypt of Ice” (Century Media)
25. Steel Bearing Hand – “Slay in Hell” (Carbonized)
26. Ekulu – “Unscrew my Head” (Cash Only)
27. Wharflurch – “Psychedelic Realms ov Hell” (Gurgling Gore)
28. Sanguisugabogg – “Tortured Whole” (Century Media)
29. Enforced – “Kill Grid” (Century Media)
30. Genocide Pact – “Genocide Pact” (Relapse)