9 Of The Best Popular Releases Of This Year So Far
Popular metalcore? No.
Metalcore (and adjacent)? Kind of.
Post-metalcore? A bit more on the nose, but not quite there.
Popular? Yes.
That’s pretty much the only descriptor that quite captures what’s happening in the alternative scene since the beginning of COVID. Genres have begun to bleed together, lines have become suggestions, technology and synthesisers are commonplace, and experimentation is so encouraged that sometimes playing it too safe and creating ‘good‘ music isn’t enough to appease the masses. Technology has allowed for the integration of what used to be a quite secular industry, where there were obvious levels and phases to go through, with a less secular aspiring musician pool. Combined with the the erratic state of social media, algorithms, content creators are becoming musicians and musicians are forced into content creation.
Despite the intensifying chaos that appears to be erupting within alternative media due to the sheer volume at which alternative music is growing both in size and shape, it’s still arguably one of the best times in the scene’s lifetime as it features some of the best music released in years. Combined with its growing popularity and influence, its ‘resurgence,’ the trends emerging, and the increasing amount of artists trying to cash in on the genre – which, historically, has never had money to begin with – there’s an amount of music being released in the scene that feels far beyond possible to even keep an eye on, let alone categorise.
So, no, this isn’t technically a ‘metal’ list, and it’s not a ‘popular metalcore’ list either, because genres just don’t exist at this point and there’s no point in labelling any of this metal because it’ll just piss people off. So, here you go. Here are 9 of the best popular releases of this year (so far).
*Alphabetised and in no particular order.
1. A Day To Remember, Big Ole Album (Vol. 1)
There was a question lingering in the back of some people’s minds – and on the tip of other’s tongues – about whether or not A Day To Remember were capable of being as heavy as they used to be. And it was a valid question after the release of less-than-fan-favourite You’re Welcome in 2021, where it felt like melody held more weight and merit in the recording process than the band’s metal origins. However, Big Ole Album (Vol. 1) shoves the question back down your throat before knocking you down and curb stomping the shit out of you. BOA1 decides to hold onto the melodic choruses they fine tuned on You’re Welcome and lays them alongside some of the heaviest riffs of ADTR‘s career. The refinement, technique, and skill that had been honed in the last three releases culminates into one of the cleanest releases of A Day To Remember‘s releases, and it doesn’t hurt that the songs structuring the record are as cohesively different as they are.
2. Alien Weaponry, Te Rā
The internet has very few benefits left as it chips away at our very humanity and souls – dramatic, yet not untruthful – however, it still holds the ability to point listeners in directions they never would have travelled before, and native Māori is not a very worn road. Alien Weaponry are the hidden gem of New Zealand as they blend metal with not just their native tongue of Māori, but they incorporate aspects of their culture’s mythology and folklore, building monstrous songs around momentous tales that detail the flaw of man and our inability to understand our own curiosity will be our downfall. Te Rā, released earlier this year, wasn’t necessarily anything groundbreaking for the band with their egregiously dark tones and corpulent riffs, however, it was the refinement of their sound, techniques, and skill that made this one of Alien Weaponry, and the year’s, best.
3. Bloodywood, Nu Delhi
Multiculturalism is the sign of an assimilated, educated, and well-cultured society, and if we don’t have multiculturalism, we wouldn’t have printing presses, buttons, swords, pianos, banknotes, toothbrushes… we would never have shared our inventions. But, there is something beyond this world about the skin-prickling sensation when hearing traditional Indian instrumentation arranged with the power of metal chords and dirty vocals for the first time. Nu Delhi spends half its time making the listener question how a nu-metal core at its core is so accommodating to Indian instrumentation and the other half burning the rage of centuries of Indian ancestors. Bloodywood use elements similar to those that Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park use with hip-hop style record-scratches and rapping, but bring an Eastern flair through their inclusion of the sitar, the dhol, and the bansuri, transforming a genre as white as metal into something many Western minds will never be able to comprehend.
4. Calva Louise, Edge Of The Abyss
Spanish-influenced deathcore doesn’t exactly have a genre of its own, hence, one of the reasons this list is attributed to ‘popular’ releases rather than slapping a ‘metal’ label on it and calling it a day. Because, while at some points Calva Louise‘s Edge Of The Abyss does have metal leanings, the deathcore aspect of the record is far more prevalent and with vocalist Jess Allanic‘s origins in Venezuela shining through in the use of the Spanish language throughout the record, one comes to understand the danger that labelling a release by a genre. Because calling Edge Of The Abyss metal would negate the electronic influence, the classical piano that twinkles through speakers like church bells, and the classic Spanish guitars that bring an ethereal nature to a sonically intense record. A conceptual album that follows a character through time and spans multiple centuries, it wrestles our current reality that feels more and more fictional by the day in a fictional world where anything – and any kind of redemption – is possible. Spanish-influenced, sci-fi adjacent synths, pop sensibilities in parts, deathcore at its, well, core – there is no record coming out in 2025, or ever, that will ever sound like Calva Louise‘s Edge Of The Abyss.
5. L.S. Dunes, Violet
It’s far more difficult for a supergroup to come out with a ‘super’ album than one would imagine because with enough egos, enough opinions, and enough visions, supergroup projects can under – or over – perform on their records. However, Violet is an egoless, tenderly raw record that makes L.S. Dunes feel more like a group of seasoned musicians than a ‘supergroup.’ The band’s history in post-hardcore (Circa Survive, Coheed & Cambria, My Chemical Romance, Saosin, Thursday) lends to the sense of fluency and ease throughout the album, but doesn’t account for its cohesive chemistry and transformation of melancholic vocals into an instrument itself. Anthony Green‘s vocals build and fall, wrapping around guitar chords, and bellowing alongside riffs, retreating and crashing like waves against a shore. Never sticking to structure or what is predictable, L.S. Dunes craft songs to cry to, to think to, to write to, to sleep to, to chill to… a record that just fits.
6. LANDMVRKS, The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been
A sharp departure from the tenderness of L.S. Dunes‘ post-hardcore, LANDMVRKS metal-straddling-deathcore causes a pause, a moment to register if the brain really did hear what it thinks it did, and another moment to scoff in disbelief before gradually turning the volume higher. Within 120 seconds on The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been, LANDMVRKS‘ left-hook of sound hits post-hardcore, death metal, nu-metal, and thrash without hesitation, sown together by the immaculate vocal showcase of Flo Salfati who bounces between fry vocals, guttural screams, singing, and rapping in one singular track. LANDMVRKS‘ newest record throws not just their entire bag of tricks into the mix, but the whole kitchen sink as they play with traditional rap programmed synthesisers and beats in their fierce blend of ferocious and relentless riffs. Another conceptual record tied together by one character who is going through the darkest place they’ve ever been, prayers should be thanked that this wasn’t released when some of us were younger.
7. Spiritbox, Tsunami Sea
The first ten seconds of Tsunami Sea melts one’s face off in the same way the THX movie introduction did when we were kids as Spiritbox don’t just rev their engines, they hit the pedal to the ground and hit 80 mph before you even get the keys in the engine. Riffs of colossal proportion are of no shortage on Spiritbox‘s second ever album as they charge through melancholic echoes and trudging basslines. Vocalist Courtney LaPlante bellows like a mountain giant and sings like a garden fairy, showing the dichotomy of her vocal capabilities, either easily fitting the bittersweet tones throughout the record. Not quite bouncing, but leisurely strolling between heavy and melodic, dark and light, intense and stripped back, Tsunami Sea is balanced at its core, electronics and synthesisers only adding embellishments, the thudding, unforgiving nature of Spiritbox far more haunting than any ghost.
8. Stray From The Path, Clockworked
Hardcore, nu-metal, metal, rock – catch my drift? – Stray From The Path‘s last record Clockworked clocks you so hard it’s a surprise you don’t spin around in your seat. Making sure their last hurrah went far from quietly, Stray From The Path reinvigorates early 2000s hip-hop and metal fusion that both prioritise head bobbing and headbanging alongside screaming raps enunciated and coherent, but not at the expense of lethality. Heady riffs, pinch harmonics, blast-beats, and breakdowns are structured without fail in each and every track on Clockworked yet it never verges into repetitive territory, rather using modern synthesisers and elements to keep songs from ever feeling homogeneous. Downright dirty, political as all hell, Stray From The Path‘s last work of art is metalcore at its very definition.
9. Thornhill, BODIES
Thornhill are an amalgamation of electronic synthesisers, grungey echoes, metal-heavy riffs, aggressive basslines, and intense choruses on their newest release, BODIES. Feeling as if you’ve crossed Deftones with Bring Me The Horizon and told the members of Sleep Token and Bad Omens to watch the bastardised lovechild, Thornhill play with the most modern elements the alternative scene has to offer. Pop sensibilities aren’t foreign to Thornhill and neither are breakdowns, yet as un-extreme as the band may seem, they’re as intense as all hell, tuned to spill through every surface of your speaker. Able to trigger a sense of nostalgia without it feeling eerily familiar, Thornhill themselves feel familiar on BODIES, like the feeling you get when you meet someone for the first time and can tell it’ll already be the start of a long and beautiful friendship.
