With the calendar flipping to 2023, a new year of metal and hard rock music is upon us. While it’s often hard to predict which bands will release new music in any given calendar year, a number of highly anticipated albums are already set in stone, while others will likely get announced in the coming weeks and months.
It doesn’t get any bigger than Metallica when it comes to heavy metal, and the legendary band will be back with 72 Seasons, their first album since 2016.
Another major metal act that hasn’t been heard from in a while is Avenged Sevenfold. While M. Shadows and company haven’t announced a new album yet, it’s becoming clear that this is the year that A7X will finally return with new music.
Other bands with new albums already on the 2023 schedule include Godsmack, BABYMETAL, Cattle Decapitation, and more. And if our intuition proves to be correct, we should also see new LPs from the likes of Baroness, Body Count, Greta Van Fleet, Queens of the Stone Age, and others.
We’re already off to a strong start with new albums from metal veterans Obituary and Katatonia having been released in January.
Check out our picks for 2023’s most anticipated metal and hard rock albums below.
— Spencer Kaufman
Managing Editor, Heavy Consequence
Obituary, The Dying of Everything (January 13th)
Old-school death metal has seen a surge in popularity in recent years, highlighted by the emergence of a new wave of upstarts such as Gatecreeper, Sanguisugabogg, and Frozen Soul, to name a few. These bands aren’t trying to appropriate or reinvent OSDM; rather, they seek to perpetuate its timeless traditions: down-tuned slamming riffage, gurgled-growled vocals, and an obsession with gore. These aesthetics can be traced directly back to bands like Obituary, who were on the ground floor of the Florida death metal explosion in the early 1990s. Their influence remains profound, and better yet, they’re still going strong. Obituary’s latest effort The Dying of Everything is another powerful slab of OSDM from the proven masters. — Jon Hadusek
