2020 Primer – Heavy Blog’s Most Anticipated Releases of the Year (Thus Far)

Editor’s Note: I’m glad to welcome longtime reader Remi VL as a regular guest contributor to our Release Day Roundup posts! He submitted several of the albums listed below. Join his Facebook group for more recommendations.

Well, here we are: another year full of new releases. In lieu of our weekly Release Day Roundup, we thought we’d preview the months ahead of us and highlight which albums we’re looking forward to most. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and we hope you’ll comment with some of your own anticipated albums.

January 5

Haunt – Mind Freeze (heavy metal)

January 10

Aiming For Enrike – Music For Working Out (math rock, noise rock)

Beach Slang – The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City (power pop, alt-rock)

Bohren & Der Club of Gore – Patchouli Blue (dark jazz, dark ambient)

Lotus Thief – Oresteia (blackgaze, post-metal)

Snorlax – II (blackened deathgrind)

Unreqvited – Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse (blackgaze, atmospheric black metal)

January 17

Algiers – There Is No Way (post-punk, neo-soul)

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – X: The Godless Void and Other Stories (indie rock, art rock)

Antagonist A.D. – Through Fire (hardcore)

Anti-Flag – 20/20 Vision (punk)

Garganjua – Toward the Sun (progressive doom, sludge)

Gloe – Dead Wait (math rock, shoegaze)

The Good the Bad and the Zugly – Algorithm & Blues (skate punk)

Oberst – Paradise (post-hardcore)

of Montreal – UR FUN (indie pop, psych pop)

Oval – Scis (glitch, experimental electronic)

Pinegrove – Marigold (Midwest emo, indie rock)

Ryte – Ryte (stoner rock, heavy psych)

January 24

Acid Mammoth – Under Acid Hoof (doom metal)

Black Lips – Sing…in a World That’s Falling Apart (alt-country, garage rock)

Caspian – On Circles (post-rock)

Coogan’s Bluff – Metronopolis (prog rock, jazz fusion)

Elden – Nostromo (stoner rock, hard rock)

Higher Power – 27 Miles Underwater (alt-metal, crossover thrash)

Midnight – Rebirth by Blasphemy (heavy metal, black ‘n’ roll)

Nero Di Marte – Sisyphos (avant-garde metal, post-metal)

Thy Catafalque – Naiv (avant-garde metal, prog metal)

Kirk Windstein – Dream in Motion (sludge metal, stoner rock)

Raphael Weinroth-Browne – Worlds Within (modern classical)

Wire – Mind Hive (art punk, post-punk)

Wolf Parade – Thin Mind (indie rock, indie pop)

January 31

Big Scenic Nowhere – Vision Beyond Horizon (psych rock)

Dan Deacon – Mystic Familiar (indietronica, noise pop)

Deathwhite – Grave Image (goth rock, prog rock)

Destroyer – Have We Met (sophisti-pop, chamber pop)

Drive-By Truckers – The Unraveling (alt-country, heartland rock)

Fliege – The Invisible Seam (avant-garde black metal, industrial metal)

Former Worlds – Iterations of Time (sludge metal, doom metal)

Leeched – To Dull the Blades of Your Abuse (blackened hardcore, powerviolence)

Moloken – Unveilance of Dark Matter (post-metal, prog metal)

[STÖMB] – From Nihil (djent)

Sycomore – Bloodstone (sludge metal, noise rock)

February 1

hubris. – Metempsychosis (post-rock)

February 3

Abrynth – A Place of Buried Light (progressive metal, folk metal)

February 7

Antibalas – Fu Chronicles (Afrobeat, jazz-funk)

Atavisma / Void Rot – Split (death-doom)

Envy – The Fallen Crimson (post-hardcore, screamo)

Karg – Trakat (post-black metal)

Khruangbin & Leon Bridges – Texas Sun (Americana, country)

Øresund Space Collective – Experiments in the Subconscious (space rock, jazz fusion)

Sepultura – Quadra (thrash metal, death metal)

Seven Planets – Explorer (stoner rock, space rock)

Sons of a Wanted Man – Kenoma (post-black metal)

The Spirit – Cosmic Terror (black metal)

Svart Crown – Wolves Among the Ashes (death metal)

Sylosis – Cycle of Suffering (melodeath, thrash)

Thoren – Gwarth II (dissonant tech death)

February 14

Come to Grief – Pray for the End (sludge metal)

Disastroid – Mortal Fools (stoner metal, grunge)

God Damn – God Damn (noise rock, stoner rock)

Ihsahn – Telemark (progressive metal, black metal)

Izthmi – The Arrows of Our Ways (progressive black metal)

Kvelertak – Splid (black ‘n’ roll, hard rock)

Psychotic Waltz – The God-Shaped Void (prog metal)

Tame Impala – The Slow Rush (neo-psychedelia, synthpop)

February 20

Postvorta  – Porrima (post-metal, drone metal)

Skyforest – A New Dawn (melodic black metal)

February 21

Binary Code – Memento Mori (progressive post-metal)

InTechnicolour – Big Sleeper (desert rock, progressive sludge metal)

Polaris – The Death of Me (metalcore, post-hardcore)

Raspberry Bulbs – Before the Age of Mirrors (blackened punk)

VASA – Heroics (math rock, post rock)

Xenobiotic – Mordrake (progressive tech death)

February 28

Beneath the Massacre – Fearmonger (brutal tech death)

Caribou – Suddenly (neo-psychedelia deep house)

CB3 – Aeons (heavy psych)

Dark Fortress – Spectres of the Old World (black metal)

Insect Ark – The Vanishing (psychedelic doom metal, post-rock)

Intronaut – Fluid Existential Inversions (post-metal, progressive sludge metal)

FLUISTERAARS – Bloem (atmospheric black metal)

Tombs – Monarchy of Shadows (black metal, sludge metal)

March 6

Bacchae – Pleasure Vision (post-punk, riot grrrl)

Vredehammer – Viperous (blackened death metal)

March 13

Aronious – Perspicacity (progressive tech death)

The Goners – Good Mourning (hard rock, garage rock)

Human Impact – Human Impact (noise rock, post-hardcore)

Sutrah – Aletheia (tech death)

In Progress & Upcoming

A Day to Remember – You’re Welcome (melodic metalcore, pop-punk)

Carcass – TBA (melodeath)

Elder – TBA (stoner metal, progressive rock)

Ocean Grove – TBA (alt-rock, nu-metal)

Today is the Day – No Good to Anyone (progressive sludge)

Twelve Foot Ninja – TBA (prog metal, alt-metal)