Black Sabbath or Motorhead may have created a genre with many ramifications, but they are not today’s most listened to bands. Acts like Metallica or Iron Maiden have incredibly successful tours but there are other artists that are doing much more exciting music within this style of music.
- System of a Down: the veterans of this list (they formed in 1994), they are still considered an up and coming band by the general public as they haven’t been releasing an album since 2005 and have been on hiatus since 2006. Several concerts have been performed since, but the most active member of the band remains their frontman Serj Tankian, who features prominently in several parallel projects.
- Mastodon: the most important metal band of the new generation, they formed in 2001 and mixes aggressiveness and technical skills in a masterful way. One of the innovators in the genre.
- Five Finger Death Punch: an alternative metal band from Las Vegas, among the few current formations to be certified platinum for one of their albums. Currently undergoing a tense phase in their career as their vocalist Ivan Moody is in a rehab facility.
- Pallbearer: one of the most successful doom metal bands around, they have been active since 2008. Their most recent record, “Heartless”, has been featured on Rolling Stone Magazine’s Best Records of 2017.
- Mutoid Man: a metalcore/progressive metal outfit from New York, fronted by Stephen Brodsky who also lead another successful band like Cave In. They have only released two albums and they look like they have a very promising career ahead of them.
- Sikth: along Meshuggah, this British act is considered the main band performing djent, a new sub-genre of metal we describe in detail elsewhere on the site. Despite a long hiatus, their latest album, “The Future in Whose Eyes?” was considered one of 2017’s best heavy metal efforts.
- King Woman: one of the rare bands in the heavy metal world that’s fronted by a woman. Kristina Esfandiari is a Californian singer and guitar player who’s known for her lyrics about growing up in a cult. The band recently formed and they only released the one album in 2017: “Created in the Image of Suffering” has, again, been hailed as one of the year’s most audacious, interesting and fearless records.
