Dan Hillier
Following on from the first part of our list – which you can find here – here’s the second part of the top 20 bands set to take the year by storm.
It’d be hard not to have noticed Lake Malice’s name popping up at almost every festival in the UK this year. For a band with only a handful of released songs they sure are making a name for themselves through relentless touring alongside their visceral live performances and penchant for visually striking imagery both on stage and in their music videos, Lake Malice put quality above all else, as it’s been nothing but solid gold from this duo since their inception.
Fusing elements of heavy music with high levels of electronic production, the result sounds a bit like what might happen if The Prodigy decided to remix a bunch of artists from Tech Fest’s line up, and then grabbed a feature from Mick Gordon for good measure. Keep your eyes peeled as you won’t be able to miss this band’s meteoric rise over the next year. They’ll be playing many of the UK’s best music festivals including Download, touring relentlessly and releasing their first full body of music later in the year. Lake Malice are not a band to do things by half measures, and it’s almost undeniable at this point that they’ll soon become a force to be reckoned with in the UK alternative scene. – Elliot Grimmie
Former and current members of God Damn, Table Scraps and Dead Slow (although hard to tell from their ‘names’ (Jim Thing, George Casual and Screamin’ Scott Vincent) have come together to form a metal worship, riff lovin’ machine from the home of Black Sabbath, Birmingham. Having teased out a couple of songs and playing a handful of shows last year they have kicked off 2023 releasing a new single ‘Death Lurks At Every Turn’ via notoriously heavy label Heavy Pysch Sounds. Sounding nostalgic in their clear influence from legends within the worlds of stoner, doom and pysch rock, they are putting their fresh spin in an area of metal that can become tired and well-trodden ground.
In their short existence they have already garnered positive live reviews for their energy. Considering they are just a trio this face melting power is mightly impressive. Get your flying V guitar worshipping boots and earplugs at the ready for their self-titled debut out April 21st and live appearances at Desertfest, Astral Festival and hopefully more shows to come. – Adam Vallely
Calva Louise have supported the likes of other vastly experimental bands like Strange Bones, Trash Boat and Boston Manor over the past year or so, and now they’re taking bold leaps into heavier musical territory, pushing the boundaries of not only their own music, but the world that they’re building alongside it too. The band have already got a comic, a movie and a card game under their belts; vocalist Jess even took the time to learn to animate within the Unreal Engine for their recent music video ‘Third Class Citizen’. With a killer new sound and more music on the way, it’s certain to be a riotous year for this multicultural Manchester based trio.
The band are as DIY as it gets, choosing to craft the storyline for their fictional world themselves, producing their own music, styling themselves both onstage and in their sci-fi laden music videos, it’d be an understatement to say they’re one of the hardest working upcoming bands in the UK right now. Expect plenty of high energy live performances and wildly innovative music from them in the near future. – Elliot Grimmie
Shtëpi may only have six tracks to their name right now, but given the amount of hype they are currently receiving within the scene one would be forgiven in thinking they have released six full lengths. With the recent post-punk revival wave now pulling back and leaving a scene saturated with mediocrity, this Guildford quintet are reenergising the sound of the genre in a way that’s refreshing, bizarre and truly unique. As proven with their latest offering ‘Leather’ and their 2010 EP Yacht Rock, Shtëpi take the off-kilter sound of classic post-punk prior to adding raw and analogue electronics to the mix. The end result sounds something akin to Idles and The Talking Heads having their minds fragmented by Raketkanon.
Understandably, such a fresh approach to a genre becoming increasingly stagnated has bequeathed the band with an air of uniqueness and allure that has already allowed the band to share stages with the likes of Public Body, Orchards, The Goa Express and others known for refreshing approaches to their respective genres. They may only have a handful of tracks under their belt currently, but with further dates forthcoming and an EP upon the horizon, it’s clear that Shtëpi are set to inject post-punk with a much needed dose of innovation. – Dan Hillier
With their craft as dark as the starless void above and denser than the most supermassive of black holes, there’s good reason why Moon Reaper are swiftly becoming one the most promising bands in their native South West scene. Devoted to capturing the desolate cosmic atmosphere of the beyond, the band’s sound is one composed with an encyclopedic knowledge of the heavy music art-form. Whilst blackened doom may be the foundation of their craft, elements of death, groove, post, sludge and even hardcore are captured the band’s gravitational pull, further fleshing out their expertly crafted approach to heavy and extreme music as a whole.
Their two initial standalone singles and 2021’s Descent EP did a brilliant job in showcasing their talents, yet it’s their live show that truly present Moon Reaper’s talents at their best. As proven with recent appearances with acts such as Forlorn, Mastiff and Godeater, Moon Reaper are a true and real force live, with those aforementioned aspects of their work and the phenomenal vocal range of Sirin Ann Bozjurt being made physically tangible in a manner most destructive and overwhelming in a live setting. With the band now taking their shot at performing at this year’s Bloodstock Festival, 2023 is set to see Moon Reaper harvesting the talents of their brilliance. – Dan Hillier
2022 was something of a rollercoaster for Japanese progressive metalcore outfit Paledusk; from dropping not one but two absolute bangers in ‘SLAY!!’ and ‘Area PD’ and headlining their own Australian tour, to losing two band members and having to scrap their US support appearances with current metal giants Loathe thanks to visa issues, wholly out of their control, you can’t help but feel a little heartbroken for the boys. However, with a musical style that defiantly refuses to be pigeonholed into a single style, and an energy that feels completely unmatched, Paledusk’s explosive creativity and complete disregard for musical rules makes them an incredily fun and electrifying musical experience, and solid candidates for the most exciting upcoming act in an already innovative scene, even with all of the setbacks they have faced.
There is simply no one else quite like them. With appearances at festivals across Europe, including the Czech Republic’s Rock For The People, and Germany’s Full Force Festival, you can’t help but feel like the band are endeavouring to finally break out onto the global stage, and gain the recognition they so rightfully deserve. – Ryan Ward
Fiercely dominating the soundwaves of their home scene with a flair for reaching the far corners of alternative misfit culture, alongside a mainstream appeal that’s far too good to overlook; the Los Angeles Indie Rock trio Beauty School Dropout, began their descent into musical delirium with an uphill battle as the Coronavirus pandemic stopped the world from spinning. As time passed and civilisation’s isolation period began to subside, the airwaves rippled with the steady flow of catchy poundings including ‘Demons’, ‘Starphucker’ and their debut single ‘Last Time’.
Being natives of the Mecca of creative innovation, this Pop Rock holy trinity are no strangers to basking in the limelight since collaborating with the likes of the Garden State indie pop darling Royal & The Serpent, the Inglewood post-hardcore legend Jason Aalon Butler as well as the iconic co-lead vocalist of Blink-182, Mark Hoppus; it’s pretty clear that since the release of their first EP – Boys Do Cry in 2021 and their debut studio album – We Made Plans & God Laughed, in the summer of 2022, that the major intrigue and intense successes with the support of their ever growing loyal fanbase, are the major indicators of a yet to be seen magnificent rise to contemporary Pop Rock sovereignty. – Bennie Osborne
Take a singer bearing their soul with venom and bile, some dirty southern fried riffs and a sound that makes you want to windmill through your front door…who do you get? You get Capra. Named for a creature in the Dark Souls games, this metallic hardcore crew are just as uncompromising and tough. They’re also signed to Metal Blade, if you needed any more reason to like this Louisiana crew, and have supported Eyehategod and Exhorder in the last few months.
Their debut, In Transmission is just over half an hour of non-stop, high energy aggression that can make you dance as much as it’ll make you spinkick. It also features a track called ‘Samuriah Carey’, which is as much of a banger as the name suggests. Preparing to drop their second LP at some point in 2023, you can rest assure it’ll be an uncomfortable, vitriolic cacophony of fuzzy guitars, rollicking drums and some uncomfortably raw, pained lyrics from vocalist Crow Lotus. Hardcore fans, metalcore fans, fans of riffs in general, get your ears around this band. You won’t regret it.
Previously going under the guise of Fangs, this nu-deathcore quartet only compounded their bite with a fresh name change. Hailing from Bristol physically and the realm of all things digitally fractured aesthetically, Chaos.Sequence take the aged and long-tatty blueprints of deathcore and 90’s dub and digitise them for a bleak and dystopian age. Whilst it would be easy to compare the harsh and disconcerting sound of the band to acts like Mick Gordon, Graphic Nature, Darkmatter and Vatican, to easily make a pretence of this this band with mundane comparisons would be doing their devotion to total atmospheric emulsion a great service. With their aesthetic at the forefront of their sound and vision, the quartet’s output is rich with an inspired, yet volatile sense of purpose and vision. Whilst previous appearances with the likes of Black Coast, Polar and Rxptrs have made this a fact tangible already, with more shows and content and a set at this year’s Tech-Fest to come later this year, it’s 2023 where Choas.Sequence are set to bare their teeth for the masses to see. – Dan Hillier
Bristolian post-black metallers Copse turned a few heads with last year’s two-track EP Mara | Mondrem, their fusing of ethereal, yearning melody with cathartic black metal that pulled equally in dreamy, ambient directions (such as the opening of ‘Mara’) and post-metal crescendos. The ethereality of Astronoid is fused with the post-metal explosiveness of Devil Sold His Soul to create something that’s not the typical aural punishment you might expect of black metal, but something far more beautiful. Those DSHS comparisons are no accident; their vocalist Ed Gibbs also mans the mic here, lending his desperate screams an extra dimension of pain and catharsis. Despite being just two songs, Mara | Mondrem was the sound of a band with a clear picture of their own identity and message, and with a handful of shows under their belt they’re set to re-enter the studio to work on – hopefully – a full-length that’s sure to push their existential musings to all new heights. If you want music that feels like a purging of emotion, a true mental cleansing, then Copse should be at the very top of your list.