Editorials
Bloody Disgusting’s Most Anticipated New Albums for 2022!
Writing my top records for 2021 proved to be a challenge considering all the good music that came out last year ��� and 2022 already looks to be just as exciting. Across death metal, doom, ambient, avant-garde, nu metal, and even more, there’s a lot to be on the lookout for.
An important note that I want to share is that, while the below includes albums that have been officially announced with dates (or are at least in production/rumored), there are always a plethora of amazing records throughout a given year that arrive in under the radar. While the below includes records from incredible acts that you should be super excited for, make sure to keep in mind that other surprises are sure to appear throughout 2022.
Without further ado though, let’s look at some of those kick-ass records coming out!
Shadow of Intent – Elegy (1/14)
Not going to lie – I got into this band very much because of the “Halo” tag, but Shadow of Intent have proven themselves to be more than a gimmick (even if the gimmick is very cool). For me, I was really impressed with 2019’s Melancholy – which is a great work of melodic death metal and symphonic metal meets deathcore. Given alone what the band have shared from their single “Where Millions Have Come To Die,” Elegy looks to be another killer chapter for Shadow of Intent.
Mizmor – Wit’s End (1/14)
A.L.N. of Mizmor knows how to captivate and move listeners. Blending traits of doom, noise, and death metal, Mizmor is a remarkable force of existentialism and emotion. Wit’s End looks to continue down the path of heavy material the one-man act is known for; offering two tracks of breathtaking avant-garde sound, Mizmor once again invites listeners to experience a record of grand exploration and depth.
Boris – W (1/21)
This is one of those bands that I will be forever amazed by. Discovering them back in 2019 with their release of Love & Evol, Boris is an impressive force of noise, rock, and punk. Their 2020 collab with noise artist Merzbow is one of my favorite records of recent years, making for an experience of surreal sound that thrills and entrances. Given Boris’ incredible history of genre fusion and remarkable skill in technical performance, I am excited for what this band has in store for us with W.
Boy Harsher – The Runner soundtrack
The darkwave duo of Boy Harsher has a movie coming out this year called The Runner! Accompanying the film is a companion soundtrack, displaying the act’s awesome skills in creating captivating and chilling industrial dance music.
Korn – Requiem (2/4)
Frankly, I was never a huge Korn fan in my teenage years; it wouldn’t be until young adulthood with 2013’s The Paradigm Shift that the band really grabbed my attention. Korn has remained consistent in their later years, providing material that pulls from their earlier nu metal work, while blending in touches of electronic flair. Which is a good thing, given how their music works to both excite, while also providing lyrical substance when it comes to their subject matter. I won’t be surprised to hear Requiem kick a lot of ass.
Venom Prison – Erebos (2/4)
Following up that of 2020’s Primeval, Venom Prison is looking to charge ferociously into the new year. From the album’s single “Pain Of Oizys” alone, Erebos sounds to be a riveting work of crushing death metal. The menacing thrash appeal to Venom Prison’s music is enough to get anyone’s blood rushing, and this time around they are looking to push the boundaries of their artistry. When it comes to the new age of death metal, Venom Prison is a band you don’t want to miss out on.
George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher – Corpsegrinder (2/4)
While Corpsegrinder has been known to guest star on other albums, the Cannibal Corpse frontman is looking to unleash a solo effort this year. Containing a plethora of heavy genres, we can expect anything Corpsegrinder is working on to shred eardrums and faces off.
Zeal & Ardor – Zeal & Ardor (2/11)
Zeal & Ardor is one of the best musical acts I’ve discovered in all my years of music listening. 2016’s Devil Is Fine astounded me in its fusion of black metal meets electronic meets blues meets gospel meets soul presentation; a breathtaking work of musical ferocity that gets the blood rushing and unnerves. The depth to Manuel Gagneux’s material is remarkable, and he has only continued to expand upon his array of style. Gagneux has a brilliant talent for infusing his music with emotional depth, reflecting upon the cruelties and injustices of our world. Whatever he has planned for us in his upcoming self-titled effort, I am confident it will be breathtaking.
Blood Incantation – Timewave Zero (2/25)
One of my favorite heavy bands of today, Blood Incantation is a fantastic force of psychedelic death metal. With a jazz-like mentality to their compositions, Blood Incantation weave together pummeling instrumentation and mesmerizing ambiance to create surreal works of cosmic brutality. Their upcoming release looks to not only expand upon this quality, but to take things to a whole new sonic level for them. Blood Incantation is the closest we’ll probably ever get to communicating with the stars, so make sure that Timewave Zero is on your radar.
Animals as Leaders – Parrhesia (3/25)
The prog metal outfit has released a plethora of riveting, forward-thinking records throughout their career, and Parrhesia continues that trend. The instrumentation of Animals as Leaders has a tranquil, magical power to draw audiences into sonic landscapes of exciting wonder. In how guitar melodies swirl and contort, in how drums beat down alongside intricate bass rhythms – Animals as Leaders know how to craft songs of wonder.
TBA Releases:
Avenged Sevenfold
Fans eagerly anticipate a new release from one of heavy metal’s biggest bands. Avenged Sevenfold has always been proud to wear their influences on their sleeve, pulling inspiration from the great metal acts of thrash and groove to create their own brand of stadium rocking tunes. Whereas 2016’s The Stage was a great demonstration of the band further expanding upon their sound, it won’t be to anyone’s surprise that whatever the band has planned for us next will be a banger.
Coheed and Cambria
I love a band that uses music to tell stories, and it was the sci-fi epic tale found within the songs of Coheed and Cambria that got me into them. Throughout their career, the band has only evolved as a prog outfit, building upon their technical prowess and pushing themselves into new territories of style and play. The first couple singles released at the time of this writing are an absolute blast, providing a great rush and promising direction for Coheed’s upcoming album.
Revocation
Very excited for these New England metalheads to be releasing a new album! Following up 2018’s The Outer Ones, the band share that their new album should be out sometime in the fall. Expect a whole lot of thrashy death metal chaos!
Ghost
I’ve always found Ghost to be a fun band; maybe they aren’t meant to be fun, but I feel they have always been effective in creating dark pop-rock music. There is a tongue-in-cheek nature to their material that works to be playful, while still a little creepy. Their recent new track “Hunter’s Moon” (which is featured on the Halloween Kills soundtrack) is a whole lot of fun, and I expect nothing less from a new Ghost record but some good, creepy joy.
Rammstein
When it comes to moving a crowd, very few reach the level of extreme that is Rammstein. The German metal act has taken over the world with their ferociously catchy blend of industrial music, creating tunes that get folks riled up to dance and break things all at once. Their 2019 album made for another great chapter in the band’s discography, and I’m sure their next release is only going to rage with even more pop-industrial-metal fire.
Slipknot
2019’s We Are Not Your Kind is not only an impressive effort from the Des Moines, IA metal act, but also a brilliant return to form. Pulling from their musical history, the record is a remarkable fusion of style and depth, with touches of Iowa, Vol. 3: (Subliminal Verses), and All Hope Is Gone heard throughout. It appears that the band has a couple of releases they are looking to put out, with one involving music with a Radiohead-like sound to it. These songs are outtakes recorded during the creation of All Hope Is Gone, but the band does have another studio album in the works. Expect whatever Slipknot has planned for us to be heavy as hell.
Wednesday 13
When it comes to musical homages to horror, there’s no way one cannot mention Wednesday 13. While I will forever mourn the loss of The Murderdolls, Wednesday 13 is a kick-ass force of horror rock flavor; with a plethora of killer records like Transylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying, and the Dead, Calling All Corpses, and Necrophaze, Wednesday 13 knows how to entertain the ghouls and freaks.
Halloween Ends OST (John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, Daniel Davies)
With the final chapter in David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy arriving this year, we can expect an official record component from none other than the Master of Horror himself (with the help of his son and godson as well). Given what we’ve heard from the past two Halloween soundtracks, expect Ends to ride forth with electronic guitars and some fun, chilling synth. This will be a record to get one’s blood rushing.
*Album I hope releases this year – new Job for a Cowboy
Job for a Cowboy is one of the best gems in modern death metal and I am in need of a new record from them. Since that of 2014’s Sun Eater (which FYI, if you haven’t heard this record, get on it!) – the band has been on hiatus. With several members working among different bands (some even coming together for a new act called Serpents of Gnosis, who put out a record back in 2019), there has only been little pieces there and then regarding news of a new JFAC record. Here’s hoping 2022 is the year that these underdogs of technical death metal release a spanking new offering of metal ferocity!
What 2022 records are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments!
Genre classifications tend to fall apart the further we look back in time. That’s why nearly all the original versions of classic fairy tales contain at least one bizarrely horrific element or another. From the Evil Queen’s cannibalistic intentions in Snow White to the Big Bad Wolf successfully devouring both granny and Little Red Riding Hood, even the most innocent stories featured a twinge of terror back when they were first created. However, there is one fairy tale that remains surprisingly dark even in its current iteration, and that would be the chronicle of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
A simple yet memorable yarn about a pipe-playing stranger who takes revenge on the populace of medieval Hamelin once they fail to pay him for eliminating their rat problem, the story of the Pied Piper has influenced countless other works of art (even popping up as a recurring influence on the Slenderman mythos). That’s why I find it so surprising that there’s no definitive big-screen adaptation of the iconic story – unless you count stop-motion animation.
Enter Czech filmmaker Jiří Barta, a pioneer stop-motion animator working for Kratky Film in the early ’80s. Having already made a name for himself by contributing to a myriad of televised short films aimed at children, Barta and the humble studio wanted to branch out and create a large-scale project meant for older audiences. After some discussion, the director settled on a bold retelling of the Piped Piper, wanting to present the story in a way that would stay true to its Germanic roots while also taking inspiration from Viktor Dyk’s 1911 reinterpretation of the tale, Krysař (Rat-Catcher in Czech).
And so production began on a one-of-a-kind animated spectacle that would incorporate German expressionism and medieval artwork into its visual design. Over the course of a year, Kratky’s artists produced meticulously crafted puppets and locations meant to evoke wood carvings – as well as a rat infestation brought to life through taxidermized skins and the occasional use of live-action photography.
Not very appetizing.
In the finished film (which doesn’t require subtitles since the characters all speak in a fictional German dialect that we aren’t meant to understand), we follow the downfall of Hamelin as the wealthy townsfolk become corrupt in their miserly ways, with the bustling city eventually attracting a vicious swarm of rats. It’s only then that a pipe-playing stranger comes to town and is promptly hired to take care of the problem. Naturally, the Piper is soon betrayed, leading to a horrific comeuppance as the town faces the consequences of extreme avarice.
In 1986, Krysař (retitled to The Pied Piper in North America) would premiere to rave reviews, though this success remained mostly limited to the festival circuit and Eastern European theaters. It would actually take decades for the film to reach home video in America, with most Western cinephiles only coming across this landmark stop-motion fable through bootleg copies and international DVDs aided by the film’s lack of intelligible dialogue.
This aura of mystery may be partly responsible for the film’s enduring legacy as an obscure cult movie, with fans considering it one of the greatest hidden gems of all time, but it’s The Pied Piper’s exceedingly dark tone and imagery that really cemented its place as a classic.
While the general plot was faithfully recreated from familiar versions of the story, which is already one of the darkest fairy tales in existence (possibly due to its origins as an allegedly true horror story), it’s the flick’s deviations from its folkloric source material and the clear preference for Dyk’s bleak retelling that make it such a memorable experience.
For starters, the animated visuals actively enhance the story’s surreal undertones, making a serious experience that much more unsettling due to its whimsical presentation. Horrific moments like the murder and implied sexual assault of a sympathetic main character become downright disturbing when told through the eyes of wooden puppets, and the clockwork-inspired movements of the city folk reveal sinister implications about the inner workings of an oppressive metropolis.
“Them filthy rodents are still coming for your souls!”
The rat plague itself is also incredibly unnerving, with the rodents’ organic design intentionally clashing with the mechanical feel of the rest of the film. The director originally intended for the vermin to feel more alive and sympathetic than the jaded inhabitants of Hamelin, but the use of real rat taxidermy also adds an additional layer of uncanny terror to the mix as the furry plague invades a mostly sterile production.
Of course, the scariest addition to Barta’s The Pied Piper comes from its grisly ending, which ditches the traditional climax of having the Piper kidnapping the local children and instead goes down an unexpected route of city-wide body-horror. I won’t spoil the details for those who still haven’t seen this wood-carved masterpiece, but suffice to say that the finale will stay with you long after the credits roll.
Like the legend that inspired it, The Pied Piper is much more than just a horror story. It’s an anthropological cautionary tale. It’s also a tragic love story, as well as a cathartic revenge yarn. But regardless of how you interpret it, it’s the overall brutality of Krysař that makes it so unique. That’s why I’m glad that the folks over at Deaf Crocodile have finally given the film the remastered Blu-ray release that it desperately needed.
And in a world where adult-oriented animation is finally getting the attention it deserves, with filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro championing the cinematic format as a medium rather than a genre, I think it’s worth looking back on Barta’s magnum opus as a poignant reminder that nightmares are not limited to live-action.
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