The New York hardcore scene that arose in the early ’80s was an intense but accurate reflection of a city in crisis, and no band better typified the sound and fury of the time than Agnostic Front. Taking the speed and simplicity of early N.Y.C. punk acts like the Ramones, the Dead Boys, and the Dictators, stripping the tunes to their frameworks, and upping the speed, impact, and overall rage, Agnostic Front provided the ideal and inevitable soundtrack for a city mired in debt and crime, with hundreds of underprivileged kids in Manhattan and its outlying boroughs forming bands to rail against the everyday trials, dangers, and prejudices of urban existence. The elemental sound of early Agnostic Front classics like 1984’s Victim in Pain and 1986’s Cause for Alarm were massively influential in the American hardcore scene, as well as providing a key stepping-stone toward speed and thrash metal.

1998’s Something’s Gotta Give, their first album for punk powerhouse Epitaph Records, was a more refined effort but showed that their rage and muscle were still there. And just as Agnostic Front influenced metal, metal would influence Agnostic Front; later efforts like 2007’s Warriors and 2011’s My Life My Way sounded beefier, full of the stuttering drums and shards of guitar that typified the harder edges of the metal scene.

Agnostic Front guitarist and co-founder Vinnie Stigma was a first-generation punk rocker and skinhead who formed Agnostic Front in 1980 with vocalist John Watson. Watson only lasted a few months before being replaced by Cuban-born Roger Miret; a product of refugee parents, he had firsthand experience in social injustice and opinionated views about politics coursing through his veins. When combined with Stigma’s ferocious, primal rhythm guitar, Miret’s charisma as a decadent urban messiah would come to personify the band’s sound. Bassist Adam Moochie and drummer Ray Beez joined soon after. The group adopted the new name Agnostic Front (at Stigma’s insistence because he thought it sounded like a movement), and they issued their first independent release, the United Blood EP, in 1983. This was followed by 1984’s career-defining Victim in Pain album, which contained a 15-minute blast of pure New York hardcore and saw the arrival of new members Rob Kabula (bass) and Jimmy Colletti (drums). It also confirmed Agnostic Front’s brief status as leaders (along with precursors the Cro-Mags and Murphy’s Law) of the already cresting movement, which found its weekly showcase via the now legendary Sunday matinees at favorite Lower East Side haunts A7 and CBGB’s.

Come 1997, however, Stigma and Miret began discussing a possible comeback for Agnostic Front. When top punk label Epitaph Records showed interest, the band’s long-rumored resurrection became fact, with former members Rob Kabula and Jimmy Colletti completing the lineup that recorded both 1998’s Something’s Gotta Give and 1999’s Riot, Riot, Upstart in quick succession. The latter boasted an especially strong set of retro-hardcore, and featured guest appearances from M.O.D.’s Billy Milano and Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen, among others. With the hardcore scene that they’d helped build effectively dead in the dirt, few listeners outside the group’s New York stomping grounds seemed to care about their return, but Agnostic Front continued to perform and record occasional albums like 2001’s Dead Yuppies (with bassist Mike Gallo), 2003’s Working Class Heroes, 2005’s Another Voice, 2011’s My Life My Way, and 2015’s The American Dream Died. Stigma, Miret, and Gallo teamed with lead guitarist Craig Silverman and drummer Pokey Mo to record 2019’s Get Loud; the cover art was an update of the images on Cause for Alarm, created by the same artist, Sean Taggart.

ALESTORM – Folk Metal · Power Metal

Following in the wake of buccaneering German pirate metallers Running Wild, Scotland’s Alestorm emerged in 2007 with a boozy blend of power metal and hard rock that looked to the high seas for inspiration. Their humor and swashbuckling melodies, which often evoke sea shanties and traditional English, Irish, and Scottish folk songs, first found favor with European audiences, with 2009’s Black Sails at Midnight making a strong showing in Germany. The band achieved international success with the release of their fourth long-player, 2014’s Sunset on the Golden Age, which debuted at number seven on the U.S. Heatseekers charts, and have continued to proudly fly the Jolly Roger on subsequent efforts like No Grave But the Sea (2017), Curse of the Crystal Coconut (2020), and Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum (2022).

Originally known as Battleheart, Alestorm formed in their original (pre-nautical) phase in 2004. As Battleheart, the group was initially a duo formed by Gavin Harper (guitar) and Christopher Bowes (vocals and keyboards), and recorded its first EP (a self-titled affair) in 2006. Over the course of the next year, feeling the need to bring their sound to the people of Scotland, Battleheart expanded to a four-piece with the addition of bassist Dani Evans and drummer Doug Swierczek. The new crew recorded another EP soon after, entitled Terror on the High Seas, and the buzz helped land a song from the release on Metal Hammer magazine’s Battle Metal V compilation. Later that year, in 2007, the bandmembers – after signing with Napalm Records – decided to change their name to further the cause of their swashbuckling brand of metal, settling on Alestorm. Eventually, the lineup coalesced a bit more, with Ian Wilson bringing stability to the drummer position, and Alestorm released their debut album, Captain Morgan’s Revenge, in early 2008. The band toured the United States later that year with fellow folk-metal giants Týr and Heidevolk before releasing its second full-length, Black Sails at Midnight, in spring 2009. They further cemented their reputation for grog-hoisting pirate-themed metal over the next five years by releasing two albums, 2011’s Back Through Time and 2014’s Sunset on the Golden Age, the latter of which found success both at home and abroad.

A year later, their fourth album guitarist, Dani Evans, left the group; he was eventually replaced by Máté Bodor (Wisdom), who made his first recorded appearance on their fifth studio album, 2017’s well-received No Grave But the Sea. The band decamped to Thailand with longtime producer Lasse Lammert for their sixth full-length effort, 2020’s Curse of the Crystal Coconut, which trafficked in the usual blend of seaworthy metal, folk, and hard rock, while even dabbling in some pirate rap-metal. Riffing on the title of Iron Maiden’s 1988 LP Seventh Son of Seventh Son, 2022’s Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum saw the band play to their strengths with another boozy, bawdy, and raucous effort.

ALLOCHIRIA – Post Metal

Allochiria is a post-sludge band formed in Athens, Greece in 2008.

They have released one EP (2010) and two full-length albums, Omonoia (2014) and Throes (Art of Propaganda, 2017). Their third album is called Commotion and will be released in spring 2023 by Venerate Industries.

The band has played countless live shows and festivals throughout the years, sharing the stage with bands like Amenra, Social Distortion, Deafheaven, Year of No Light, Altar of Plagues, Toundra, Minsk, Harakiri for the Sky, Deaf Kids, and more. They have played big festivals like Desertfest Athens (2017), Rockstadt Extreme Fest in Romania (2014, 2018) and Rockwave Festival Athens (2022) and have been in two European tours (2015, 2018). Their most recent European tour in 2020 had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Allochiria’s music is thematic; it revolves around humans as social beings, the corruption that defines them in modern societies, their vain struggles, painful routines and the consequences of their actions in the world around them.

AMORPHIS – Folk Metal · Melodic Death Metal

Finland’s Amorphis have been standard bearers for Nordic metal since the final decade of the 20th century. Originally conceived as a death metal band, they transcended the genre limitation early on as 1994’s Tales From The Thousand Lakes began incorporating elements of folk, Viking, and progressive metal into their sound. 2001’s keyboards-and-saxophone-drenched Am Universum went further, threading psychedelia into their sonic quilt. 2009’s globally celebrated Skyforger showcased riff driven melodic death balanced with hooky progressive tenets. 2015’s Under The Red Cloud took that sound as far as it could go to became a global bestseller.

Founding guitarist Esa Holopainen described the band’s m.o. this way: „We’ll change our style only if we manage to create something ourselves.” 2018’s Queen of Time managed just that with a meld of prog, psych and driving hard rock; its single „The Bee,” climbed international streaming charts. 2022’s saw the release of Halo, whose songs utilized shifting time signatures, intricate melodies, choirs, and ever changing dynamics to underscore the band’s unique, unrivaled folk-cum-melodic death metal fusion.

In March 2018, the band issued its most successful single „The Bee” ahead of 12th studio long-player Queen of Time, that arrived the following month. Produced once more by Bogren, the set featured the return of founding bassist Olli-Pekka Laine amid an ambitious slate of songs that included choirs, an orchestra and numerous guest spots – vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen, Loudness guitarist Akira Takasaki and Shining saxophonist Jorgen Munkeby all made appearances. Queen of Time also reached into the top five at streaming.

After spending the rest of the year and most of 2019 touring, the band settled into quarantine in 2020 to sit out the COVID-19 pandemic. They returned in 2021 with Live at Helsinki Ice Hall, the document of a homecoming show two years earlier. Throughout the year Amorphis worked on new material in the studio with Bogren. Several singles appeared in 2021 including „Brother and Sister,” and „Daughter of Hate” / „House of Sleep.” In February 2022, Amorphis released Halo, a sprawling, hook-laden, meld of psychedelic hard rock and progressive folk metal.

ARCH ENEMY – Death Metal

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that we need regular, jolting doses of heavy fucking metal to keep us on the right track. Over the last quarter of a century, no band has flown the flag for balls-out, melody-stuffed heaviness with more vigour or dedication than Arch Enemy. In 2022, the band’s brand new album, Deceivers, is destined to be this year’s most lethally effective cure for all ills. Increasingly unstoppable, not least since the recruitment of vocalist Alissa White-Gluz in 2014, Arch Enemy are about to remind the world what the real thing sounds like, with their 11th and most explosive album yet.

“We achieved so much with those first two albums with Alissa,” band founder and guitarist Michael Amott notes. “Both Will To Power and War Eternal did so well for us. We just kept building and building and we didn’t expect that. When Angela [Gossow, Arch Enemy’s iconic former vocalist] left the band initially, I thought the band would go down to some extent and we could slowly build it back up to where we were when she left. But instead, with Alissa, it just took off and became a whole new thing.”

The wind billowing their sails and an ever-expanding audience of diehard fans, Arch Enemy arrive in 2022 in the finest of form. Written during 2020, Deceivers is another self-evident labour of heavy metal love, from a band with confidence coursing through every vein. As Michael observes, Arch Enemy have successfully negotiated the ups and downs of the Covid era and come out the other side armed with their most destructive piece of work yet.

From the belligerent fury of recent single Deceiver, Deceiver and the dramatic, viciously melodic House Of Mirrors to epic and brutal deep cuts like In The Eye Of The Storm and Spreading Black Wings, the new Arch Enemy album feels like a celebratory encapsulation of everything that has made the band such a vital force.

All of their cherished trademarks are present and correct, from majestic, heart-rending guitar hooks and harmonies through to an unremitting barrage of catchy but crushing riffs, but this is a sharper and more ferocious Arch Enemy than we have heard before. Deceivers could not have been created by any other band, but somehow this one feels like a bold reaffirming of musical values.

Arch Enemy fans have learned to expect their favorite band to sound immaculate. Deceivers once again belongs firmly at metal’s cutting edge, but a change of environment and a change of collaborator has brought new depth and texture to the band’s sound, while helping to hammer home those metal hooks with more intensity than ever.

The greatest bands always rise to the occasion. Arch Enemy are back, with one of their most defiant and uplifting records to date: a magnificent eruption of pure fucking metal, Deceivers is an invigorating, world-class shot in the arm. Meanwhile, Arch Enemy are primed and ready to return to their natural habitat, well-equipped with new anthems and still enjoying every last second of their steel-plated mission.

“We can’t wait to get back out there,” Michael Amott concludes. “I’ve always said that I’m ready to come back and play when it’s safe for everybody. The last few years have been incredible for us. It’s bizarre, because our new material is the most popular material that we have in the live show. Hopefully we can add a few more audience favorites from the new one, too!”

ARCHITECTS – Death Metal · Hardcore · Post Metal

A versatile metalcore group based out of Brighton, England, Architects employ a lethal amalgam of breakdown-heavy hardcore, symphonic screamo, death metal, and ambient post-metal. That sonic malevolence is conducted from a platform built on veganism and environmental activism, with influences ranging from Hatebreed and Shadows Fall to Bring Me the Horizon. Emerging in 2006 as a punishing, no-frills metalcore act, the band expanded their sound on 2011’s The Here and Now, adopting a more melodic – though still punishing – and less predictably structured approach to the genre, which they perfected on 2016’s critically lauded All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us. Heading into the next decade they continued to refine their more varied sound on 2021’s For Those That Wish to Exist and 2022’s The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit.

Architects recorded their debut album, Nightmares, in 2006 with a lineup consisting of twin brothers Tom (guitar) and Dan Searle (drums), Tim Hillier-Brook (guitar), Tim Lucas (bass), and Matt Johnson (vocals), but the latter was replaced on-stage by new frontman Sam Carter in January of 2007 during the last show of the band’s subsequent tour. Later that year, they recorded their sophomore effort, Ruin (introducing new bass player Ali Dean), and signed a worldwide deal with Century Media for its re-release in 2008. Their first American tour was next on the agenda, and saw the group joining Suicide Silence, Beneath the Massacre, and the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, among other bands. Upon their return to England, Architects recorded their third album, Hollow Crown, which arrived in 2009. They took their sound in a relatively subdued, post-hardcore direction on their fourth album, 2011’s Here and Now, but transitioned back to a heavier sound the following year on Daybreaker. The band continued to expand their limits, pushing things in both extreme and ambient directions on their sixth album, Lost Forever // Lost Together, which appeared in 2014. Two years later, they issued the critically acclaimed and uncompromising All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, which they described as their „heaviest and darkest work” to date. It would be the final recording for founding guitarist and primary songwriter Tom Searle, who passed away in August of that year after a battle with cancer.

September 2017 saw the band issue the single „Doomsday,” which evolved from a song that was partially written by Searle before his passing. It appeared on the group’s eighth studio long-player, Holy Hell, that was released the following year. That album was the first to feature new guitarist Josh Middleton (Sylosis), who had filled in on tour. He co-produced and contributed to the writing on Architects’ ninth album, For Those That Wish to Exist, released in February 2021. The album deals with climate change and features guest vocals from members of Parkway Drive, Royal Blood, and Biffy Clyro. Unable to tour during the COVID-19 pandemic, the band filmed an elaborate livestream performance of the album at Abbey Road Studios and released it as a live album in March of the following year. After having made their previous LP remotely during the pandemic, Architects were able to return to the studio as a unit, capturing a more spontaneous live energy on their tenth album, The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit, which appeared in October 2022.

AVATAR – Heavy Metal

In terms of music, 21st century Sweden has become what England was in the sixties. Amongst that small, but beautiful, country lives a plethora of multi-talented individuals that create some of the most incendiary heavy music that is in the game today.

The group’s eponymous third studio album was released in 2009, and the next two years found Avatar hitting the tour circuit hard, including their first-ever U.S. jaunt. Arriving in 2012, the well-received Black Waltz peaked at the number 25 slot in their native Sweden, and 2014’s Hail the Apocalypse became the first Avatar outing to crack the Billboard 200. In 2016 the band issued its sixth studio long-player, Feathers & Flesh, a conceptual piece about an owl who declares war on the world. Their seventh, Avatar Country, arrived in early 2018.

Produced by Jay Ruston (Stone Sour, Anthrax, Steel Panther), the album featured the singles „A Statue of the King” and „The King Wants You,” as well as Avatar’s spin on the Swedish royal anthem „Glory to Our King.” The following year, the band released their first live outing, The King Live in Paris. 2020 found them returning to the studio once again with Jay Ruston to record their eighth album. The resulting Hunter Gatherer – which delivered a blast of melodic death metal – was issued toward the end of the year.

CALIGULA’S HORSE – Progressive Metal