From the very first single, “Babalon,” it was clear this wasn’t the same old Andrew W.K. Did anyone see this coming?Īndrew W.K., best known for being the happy-go-lucky guy who likes to party, turned full heel and dove headfirst into the dark, depressing waters of… I’m not sure how to say this without being offensive/insensitive to his pedigree and history… but, for lack of a better phrase… real music. In the year we thought would bring relief and a return to normalcy but instead just kept delivering gut punch after gut punch, what I craved most were singalong rock jams to ease my mind rather than music that must be absorbed, groked, digested and analyzed several times over.ġ.

Unlike Axl, however, with a few notable exceptions, I found myself pulled back towards the rock world in which my musical interests began some 30 years ago instead of further into the esoteric.

No disrespect whatsoever to all-time metal greats such as Mastodon, Gojira and Between the Buried and Me, to name but a few who put out new music this year - they’re still some of my favorites of all time, I’ll support them and go see them live forever and ever, and their new albums are indeed quite good! - but I found myself more interested in exploring other arenas in 2021, enticed by something different from the same old same old.

Like my best bud Axl, 2021 was the year I officially grew bored of all the bands you might expect to see on year-end lists (and you’ll likely see elsewhere).

New metal albums 2021