Despite it only being January, 2017 is shaping up to look pretty great in terms of rock and metal releases. We're getting a new Ghost album, Morbid Angel is likely going to be heavy again, A Perfect Circle is back, and so on and so forth. Between the well-known bands and the underground groups, there's just so damn much announced already… and there's likely a ton more coming.
So with what we know about the release schedule for 2017, here are the albums we're looking forward to the most this year!
Abigail Williams
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
Abigail Williams seems to catch the same type of criticism that Job For A Cowboy catches – the first album and EP are dated, so everyone just assumes that everything they've done ever since is garbage. That couldn't be further from the truth.
I regret not listening to Abigail Williams' The Accuser in 2015 sooner, because it absolutely would've made my Top 5 that year. How Ken and the band will follow that up, I'm not sure, but The Accuser has set an incredibly promising stage for Abigail Williams in 2017. – Greg Kennelty
A Perfect Circle
Album due sometime in 2017
A Perfect Circle just announced tour dates, and in doing so, revealed they have been working on new material. Their first since 2004's collection of covers, eMotive. It's unknown if the band is planning a full-length release or a shorter EP to coincide with their spring tour. These guys don't exactly give the press too many quotes, but we'll be patiently waiting for new music. – Robert Pasbani
Archspire
Album Due Out Sometime Mid-2017
In a short amount of time, Archspire has climbed towards the very top of the pile of modern technical death metal bands that everyone goes apeshit over. In spite of the naysayers that scoff at their over the top style of music, many others such as myself are quite pleased with what the band has to offer each time they drop something new. In the past few weeks, the band confirmed that the final masters for their new album have been delivered to their label. While it’s not quite set in stone, the band mentioned to me that a second quarter 2017 release date seems very plausible at this point. – Austin Weber
The Armed
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
This genius collective tends to shroud the musicians, releases, and everything about the band in mystery, but they are without a doubt one of my favorite "bands" in the past decade.
Their abrasive mathcore industrial mix found on last years Polarizer album (feat. Nick Yacyshyn of Baptists) made it one of my Top 5 of the year, and I can't wait to see what they do next. In usual fashion, they released a cryptic studio photo from GodCity Studio this week, with what looks to me, a photo of Converge's Ben Koller behind the set! – Frank Godla
Baptists
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
2017 will see another album from Vancouver’s chaos-core bad boys in Baptists. My love for this band has been well documented over and over on this website, and for good reason. They’re one of the best examples of crust-math-unrelenting hardcore that has emerged in the past decade, and you’d be hard pressed to find better, although many try.
Personally, I’m hoping for an east coast tour, and plan to use all my mobile minutes stalking the members until they do! – Frank Godla
Behemoth
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
Bold statement here: The Satanist is one of the top ten best heavy records of the past decade. With that in mind I am thrilled to hear how Nergal and the boys plan on throwing it down with their newest record. While in 2017 they plan to begin writing and recording, we can hope for a release date around the end of the year (just in time for snowfall and blackened death metal). – Michael Pementel
Body Count
New Album, Bloodlust due March 2017
Body Count returned in 2014 with an excellent album, Manslaughter and look to follow it up with another ripper. We already know God Forbid's Doc Coyle co-wrote a track with Ice T, and we got a preview of the sure-to-be-controversial lead single, "No Lives Matter," showing that Body Count is just the band the world needs in these trying political times. – Robert Pasbani
Blood Command
Album Titled "Cult Drugs" Due Out Apr. 27
Although they have been around for years, it was their 2012 release Funeral Beach that had me hooked and talking about the band. Many years since, the Norwegian punk-core band are promising a new album for 2017 via their Facebook page.
If you're a fan of Every Time I Die, Kvelertak and great party music, check it! – Frank Godla
Carach Angren
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
I actually just discovered Carach Angren as of 2016 (it was through seeing them live with Fleshgod Apocalypse and Abigail Williams). Never hearing them before, I was impressed by their presence, energy, and thematic music. Going through their discography and really digging it all, I’m excited to see what fairy tale nightmares the act brings forth into the new year. – Michael Pementel
Chrch/Fister (Split Album)
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
Two of my favorite heavy bands are coming together to put out a split that can't help but to decimate. On the one hand you have Chrch, known for their meteoric rise and balance of dark and light. Meanwhile Fister have one of the ugliest sounds in all of modern doom and will leave you feeling broken and battered, reveling in their destructive impulses.
I know that both bands here have fairly limited cult appeal but they have both dedicated a lot of time in 2016 to crisscrossing the country and promoting some of the most promising albums of the last few years. My biggest concern about this release will be its length. Who can really be happy with anything less than an LP from either of these bands? As is it looks like we are going to be treated to a tour de force that will demonstrate exactly where doom metal has ended up in 2016. – Matt Bacon
Corrosion Of Conformity
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
While the band's recent couple albums, self-titled and IX, had some interesting moments, I think most would agree that the best CoC material came from the Pepper Keenan-era. As the guitarist/vocalist has somewhat recently reunited with the group, I'm extremely excited to see the direction of the next record.
Their 1991 release is quite possibly in my top 10 releases as it ranges from the sludgy "Dance of the Dead" and calming acoustic "Shallow Ground" all the way to the groove metal anthem "Vote with a Bullet." There's no hints as to what the songs they've been working on will sound like, but I can only assume they'll be sludge metal bliss since Pepper previously was busy writing and touring in Down. And just like Fear Factory, this will be Corrosion of Conformity's tenth overall studio album, so that's got to be special for something. – Riley Rowe
Cradle Of Filth
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
Cradle Of Filth has been one of those bands that I've periodically checked in with over the years, but never quite got into after its first few albums. Then 2015 rolled around and Hammer of the Witches blew the friggin' doors of the joint.
There's really no telling where Cradle Of Filth will go from there, but Hammer of the Witches is such a high point of the band's career that the followup either has to be perfect or vastly different. Though with the band's completely revamped lineup between 2012 and 2014, it seems like Cradle Of Filth is about to go on a hot streak. – Greg Kennelty
The Contortionist
Album due out late 2017
The Contortionist have just entered the studio and who knows what kind of prog metal they have up their sleeves? This will be the second full length effort with Last Chance To Reason vocalist Michael Lessard, and the first with bassist Jordan Eberhardt, who only performed bass solos on 2014's Language. With the djent craze becoming a bit passé, it will be interesting to see how the band evolves their sound. – Robert Pasbani
Converge
Album due late 2017
Converge are on a great streak of awesome album releases with 2009's legendary album, Axe to Fall and 2012's All We Love We Leave Behind. How will they top those with their forthcoming release? These innovators always push metallic hardcore boundaries forward, so we can't wait to see what they have up their sleeves. They haven't even entered the studio yet, so it might be a while until we hear anything. – Robert Pasbani
Crystal Fairy
Self-Titled Album Due Out Feb. 24
Crystal Fairy is the new band from (the) Melvins' Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, At the Drive-In / The Mars Volta's Omar Rodríguez-López, and Le Butcherettes frontwoman Teri Gender Bender.
The band essentially formed while (the) Melvins and Le Butcherettes were on tour together and covered Bikini Kills' "Rebel Girl" in 2015. Crystal Fairy's first two singles show that the new band still carries King Buzzo's signature fuzz. Match that with Teri Gender Bender's vivacious vocals, and we have ourselves a winner.
Crystal Fairy's self-titled debut drops February 24 via Ipecac. – Nic Huber
Dimmu Borgir
Album Due Out Sometime 2017
I'm just gonna ahead and get this out of the way right now – I'm pretty into Abrahadabra. The album's orchestra sounded fantastic, and the music was definitely weird, but it was fantastic.
Seven years later, we've been promised that Dimmu Borgir is without a doubt dropping its new album. Who knows what we're to expect from a band who's been plotting for seven years? Will it be a furthering of Abrahadabra, or will Dimmu Borgir go back to a heavier black metal sound? – Greg Kennelty
Dodecahedron
Kwintessens Due Out Mar. 17
While many of us are understandably saddened by the recent breakup of Exivious, at least some of their members live on in the avant-garde technical black metal project known as Dodecahedron. Although Dodecahedron isn't a new band by any means, I expect Kwintessens will be many people’s first introduction to the group. But for the trve fans out there, we’ve been hooked ever since the group’s standout self-titled debut dropped back in 2011. – Austin Weber
More anticipated heavy metal releases on the next page…
