After what was a brilliant year for rock music, what better way to usher in the new year than previewing the albums which will be blasting out of your speakers over the next 12 months?
It has been a hectic year for Hayley Williams and co, with the Farro brothers (Zac and Josh) leaving the band. That hasn’t stopped the Tennessee trio from getting back in the studio though, preparing for what promises to be a huge 2012. Although the currently untitled album has no official release date, it has been confirmed that it will hit our stores in “Early 2012.” If sample tracks In The Mourning, Renegade and Hello Cold World are anything to go by, Paramore aren’t missing the Farro brothers one bit.
After their gargantuan rise from cult following to the biggest rock band in the UK, Biffy Clyro have been very busy indeed. 2011 saw them continue to tour, release their brilliant live album (Revolutions/Live at Wembley) and they have recently confirmed that they have been back in the studio to start their sixth full-length album. Unlike most bands, they have been very open with the direction the new album will take. Firstly they announced that the album will be a move back to their more experimental days, seeing them embrace math-rock, goth and prog-country and earlier this week they announced the release would be a double album. No release date has been announced as of yet, although expect it to have hit record shops by summer 2012.
Despite Foo Fighters releasing Live and Loud Rock’s album of the year, Wasting Light, in April 2011, Dave Grohl has confirmed that the band will be back and recording the follow up sooner rather than later. Writing on the band’s official blog, Grohl wrote: “We’re not finished yet. There are still more shows to play, more songs to write, more albums to record, for years to come. I mean if you would have told me 17 years ago that in 2012 I would be writing songs for our eighth studio album…well.” Whether the album will be released in 2012 or not is yet to be announced, but the speed with which the writing process has begun is a good omen for fans in need of more new material in the coming year.
It is fair to say that the biggest news in the metal world in 2011 was the reformation of the original four members of the legendary Black Sabbath, for both a European tour and new album, set for release in late 2012. Talking at the November 11th press conference at which their reformation was announced, guitarist Tony Lommi said: “It’s now or never. We get along great. Everything’s really good.” With a headline slot confirmed at Download Festival alongside Metallica and The Prodigy, expect 2012 to be the year of the Sabbath.
To say that Bullet For My Valentine’s last album, Fever, was huge would be an understatement. Not only did it peak at number 5 in the UK album chart, it has since sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. To follow that up is not going to be easy, but 2012 is the year that BFMV are going to attempt it. Front-man Matt Tuck tweeted:
No matter what the album sounds like, if the song writing is as confident and the choruses as large as the last set which Tuck penned then the fourth studio album from BFMV could see them hit heights they didn’t think possible when they started out as a Metallica cover band over 13 years ago.
After writing one of the best debut albums in recent memory, it takes some real guts to state that you will “start again” on the follow-up, but that is exactly what Mumford & Sons aim to do in 2012. Last month, the band announced that they were currently working on tracks which were influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath and Nick Drake. Could such a drastic change in sound alienate fans, of course. it is more than likely that the band know exactly what they are doing though, and surely such an exciting project can only see their fan base grow. Live and Loud Rock can’t wait, that’s for sure!
November 2010 saw System of a Down officially reform after a four year hiatus, promising a new album which topped anything they had previously done together. The album has not yet surfaced and from an NME interview with drummer John Dolmayan back in October last year it sounds like the band are in no hurry to release their first album since reforming: “We don’t really want to rest on our laurels, where what you’ve done in the past is what you depend on. Well, I don’t want to do that, and I know the rest of the guys don’t want to do that. Instead of resting on our laurels, we want throw them away and create something new and specific for this generation that they can say that’s their System of a Down.” The album may be ready by late 2012, although it is looking more than likely that 2013 is a more realistic date, especially since front-man Serj Tankian recently announced he will spend 2012 on his next solo album.
Muse:
It is official. The follow-up to Muse’s brilliant fifth studio album The Resistance will be with us by October 2012 according to their manager Anthony Addis. Talking to NME magazine, he said “They’ve written a lot of material already but you don’t know how it’s going to gel between them all. They write constantly. They write on the road, so before or after a gig they’ll write nearly every night. It’s a serious process, but you don’t know how it’s going to turn out until you start practising it together, because everybody’s done it individually.” Exactly how the album will sound is yet to be seen,although front-man Matt Bellamy tweeted:
If their back catalogue is anything to go by, Muse will have something huge up those experimental sleeves of theirs.
Pontypridd rockers Lostphophets have announced the follow-up to 2010’s The Betrayed will be called Weapons and is scheduled to be released on April 2nd through Epic Records. Lead single Better Off Dead is available to download for free from the band’s Facebook profile. The album will be produced by LA producer Ken Andrews, who when questioned about the upcoming album said “They had a big hit here is the states in 2004 with the song ‘Last Train Home‘ from the album ‘Start Something’ which sold just shy of a million copies. They have been relatively quiet here since, but that’s all about to change.” A bold statement indeed, and only time will tell if Weapons can live up to the hype.
Trying to define the genre that Enter Shikari’s music falls into is impossible, as anyone who has listened to either of their two full length albums to date will agree. Their political mash-up of post-hardcore and dance/DnB music has won them a hell of a lot of fans over the years, and Live and Loud Rock expect new album A Flash Flood of Colour to be just as innovative. With two tracks currently making the rounds online, namely the brilliantly titled Arguing With Thermometers and Sssnakepit, there is plenty of reason for fans to get excited. The album is released on the January 16th via Ambush Reality in the UK and Hopeless Records in North America.
liveandloudrock 
No Sound Garden or Tool???
Posted by Adam C | May 8, 2012, 00:11I have reasons for both not being present in this list…The news of Tool releasing a new album (at the time of publication) was very vague, to the point where there was no way of telling whether it would happen this year, next year, or at all. As far as Soundgarden are concerned, I am not as big a fan as the vast majority of my peers. Personal preference has to come into lists like these, otherwise they would never end. Thanks for your feedback though and I am by no means ruling out reviewing either album when they are released.
Posted by liveandloudrock | May 9, 2012, 16:49