Doubtless, 2014 will begin with the metal world frothing and shrieking about a towering work of dark art while the mainstream pays no attention whatsoever. Always a pleasure. But on this occasion, and given this platform, I have to urge everyone reading this to check out the new album by veteran Polish extremists Behemoth. It's called The Satanist, and it is as powerful, inventive and brave as anything I've heard in years, all eerily backlit by frontman Nergal's recent triumph over leukaemia and his apparent creative rebirth. The band are playing a show in London in February, alongside our own Cradle of Filth and several others, and it already has "gig of the year" written all over it. Behemoth have always been a great live band, but The Satanist suggests that their powers have grown over the last few years. If nothing else, make sure you check out the frankly extraordinary video for the album's opening track, Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel. Not for the faint-hearted, naturally, but a lot more nourishing and artistically robust than Robin Thicke.
There are countless exciting new bands emerging from the metal scene's various ignoble substrata at the moment, but two in particular stand out as the year begins. First, Chicago-based tech-metal trio Alaya will finally release their debut album Thrones in 2014. A wonderfully diverse and daring whirlwind of dazzling technicality, polyrhythmic pugilism and, most importantly, huge melodies, Thrones is an outstanding piece of work that has had students of the tech scene frothing with anticipation for 18 months now. If the band can match the quality of their music with their live shows, we may be looking at a very big deal indeed. Less likely to have a commercial impact beyond the metallic diehards, Norwich's Shrapnel are a straightforward thrash-metal band and, on the surface at least, not particularly new. But one listen to their debut album, The Virus Conspires (out soon via Candlelight Records), confirms that the quintet have truly upped the ante and delivered a collection of songs that are easily the equal of anything the thrash scene has conjured up over the last 20 years. Vicious, vital and thrillingly precise, The Virus Conspires perfectly encapsulates the magic of thrash metal. And they're British, too, which makes a change.
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There is a certain crushing inevitability to the fact that Mastodon will release a new album in 2014, and it will be received amid drooling euphoria courtesy of pretty much everyone that writes about heavy music. Details on the Atlanta quartet's new tunes are scarce at this point, but it seems likely that (a) the album will be a concept piece of sorts, and (b) it will further cement Mastodon's reputation as one of the few modern metal bands with the potential to draw in mainstream rock fans. Meanwhile, vocalist and bassist Troy Sanders will also be popping up as a member of metal supergroup Killer Be Killed, alongside Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura/Soulfly) and Greg Puciato (Dillinger Escape Plan), and also as a contributor to Tronos, British studio guru Russ Russell's new collaboration with Napalm Death mainstay Shane Embury.
Twenty years on from their Burn My Eyes debut, Bay Area bruisers Machine Head are about to take residence at Green Day's Jingletown Studios in Oakland and piece together their eighth studio album. Head honcho Robb Flynn has given few clues to how the new material will sound, but thanks to his regular and wonderfully verbose Facebook updates it is pretty obvious that the whole band – including new bassist Jared MacEachern – are sincerely thrilled by what they've come up with so far. A summer release is tentatively scheduled, and it seems inevitable that Machine Head will descend on the UK – arguably the country that loves them most – later in the year for headline dates that, if past tours are any indication, will be absolute bedlam.
Finally, after a month or three of rumours and sporadic announcements, the British metal-festival summer now looks like being a particularly stunning one, with Download in June, Bloodstock in August and – perhaps most significantly – the return of Sonisphere at Knebworth in July. The latter will mark the first ever time that Metallica and Iron Maiden have headlined the same festival and even though the Prodigy might not be quite the final jigsaw piece metalheads were hoping for (Black Sabbath were strongly rumoured to be taking that slot), the combination of Maiden and Metallica should be sufficient to ensure a complete sell-out and a weekend to remember. What is less certain is whether Metallica will stop indulging their rich men's whims and actually finish a new studio album. Even less certain is whether that album will be any good or not, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of metal fans will be gagging to hear it. For my money, Metallica stopped being capable of making classic records two decades ago and will probably put out another confused and clumsy mess like 2008's Death Magnetic – but anything is possible in metal, right?