Your guide to new rock, metal and punk bands worldwide
Our prolonged Christmas break is over and, like our first featured artist of 2021, we are back with a bang. Midgar is an unusual band for us, given that they started out more than a decade ago but, after a long hiatus, they're returning with a sound that's hard-hitting and intense yet melodic and intricate.
Manchester trio DDE's have stayed true to the city's indie roots in their creation of a catchy rock'n'roll sound that just sounds like Manchester.
Teenage sibling trio Speed of Light have honed a garage rock sound laced with punky undertones that's probably going to take you by surprise in its ferocity. In fact, the Santa Monica, California, band's dirty, riff-filled rock meets grunge meets desert rock sound is absolutely filthy as hell.
Irish trio Bitch Falcon not only have an eye-catching name but an intoxicating brand of diverse, unconventional post-punky rock that'll also stick with you. Indeed, it's a sound that they intriguingly describe to us as "heavy but melodic, aggressive, melancholic wave."
One-man band Noctry has honed an engaging but hard-hitting blend of alternative rock meets metal, which also incorporates elements of ambient, digital and electronic, and R&B.
Fusing progressive rock elements coming from a death metal background is always going to conjure up something pretty exciting, and that's exactly what we get from Brighton band Milk White Throat. The band offer up thrilling riffs, cheeky guitar solos and pounding rhythms in a heavy, intense and encapsulating sound.
Nashville newcomers Lonelyouth offer up an exciting, diverse sound that sits somewhere between nu-metal, metalcore and melodic rock. They've honed a sound that offers plenty of aggression and its fair share of groove, with booming guitar riffs fused with powerful vocals engaging melodies.
We've featured a couple of 'Internet bands' in the past, but Beyond The Badlands is definitely one of the most interesting. The band was founded in January by guitarist and songwriter Cuda Smith, who's currently stationed in Germany and spends six months of the year deployed with the military which leaves him another six months to hone his brand of southern rock.
Brighton band Demure are using a foundation of classic rock and building a wide range of musical influences on top of it, from funk and blues to psychedelia, reggae and even hip-hop. The result is an intoxicating fusion of delicious riffs, catchy vocals, funky instrumentals and plenty of musical diversity.
How would you feel about revisiting songs or even things you thought or ranted about 21 years ago? Personally, I think it's best not to even contemplate visit 15-year-old me's thoughts. However, that's exactly what brilliantly named Los Angeles rock band Flammable Animal (try saying that three times) are doing with their recently released debut EP that transports us back to our formative music days of the 1990s.
GigRadar 