The best new metal songs this week come from a 78-year-old who invented the genre and a hardcore band that refuses to let it soften. Tony Iommi released his first solo single with a video in 21 years. A Perfect Circle put out their second new song of 2026 and a 37-date tour to go with it. Hatebreed dropped the fourth taste of Fatal Paradox, Amon Amarth and Imminence both released full albums on Friday, and Wolves In The Throne Room showed you what the end of civilisation sounds like. Six songs, in the order you should hear them.
STREAM THE METAL BREAKDOWN DAILY NOW:
Scott Penfold breaks down the latest hard rock and metal news on today’s Metal Breakdown Daily. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and stream the show now.
If you missed the last edition, it’s still there. This one’s heavier.
Hatebreed – The Carrion Choir
Fourth single from Fatal Paradox, and the one that answers anybody who heard Kill Count Increase and wondered whether Hatebreed had gone thrash. They haven’t. The Carrion Choir is the pure hardcore cut on the record: two-step tempo, gang-vocal chorus, Jamey Jasta barking a title that sounds like a Slayer song and plays like a pit command. It’s built for a room of 800 people and it will work in a room of 8,000.
Fatal Paradox is out November 6 on BLKIIBLK, the metal imprint of Frontiers, produced by Chris ‘Zeuss’ Harris, who has been behind the desk for the band since Supremacy. It’s the first Hatebreed album since Weight Of The False Self in 2020, and the singles so far (Kill Count Increase, Make The Demons Obey, the title track, now this) have covered more ground than most Hatebreed records do in total. Release day doubles as night one of a European run with Life Of Agony, starting in Warsaw.
A Perfect Circle – To Whom It May Concern
Eight years without a note, and now two songs in four months. Starless arrived in late May and went to number one at Active Rock. To Whom It May Concern arrived Tuesday and is a different animal: lighter on its feet, built on melody rather than drone, with an eighties new-wave sheen under Maynard James Keenan’s vocal and Josh Freese back on drums. If Starless was the band reminding you they were heavy, this is the band reminding you they wrote Three Libras.
Billy Howerdel: ‘It’s exciting to finally get some new music out into the world, and seeing Starless reach number one at rock radio this week has made it even sweeter. To Whom It May Concern is next up. More to come.’
More to come is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Nobody has said the word album. What they have said is 37 dates: four in Latin America in late November, then North America from Vancouver on April 13 to Phoenix on June 13, with Puscifer opening the Canadian leg and The Cult on everything after. General on-sale was Friday. Keenan’s own summary: ‘New tunes, new dance moves, new hair hats. Figure it out.’ Where the new material sits against the catalogue is a question for the albums-ranked page once there’s an album to rank.
Tony Iommi – Stormwatcher
The song of the week, and it isn’t close. Stormwatcher is the second single from From The Dark, Iommi’s first solo album since Fused in 2005, and the first with a proper video: an animated ship fighting through a storm, which is the lyric made literal. Jørn Lande sings it, and co-wrote every song on the record, and the pairing makes immediate sense. Lande has spent his career being the best Dio-era voice not named Dio, and Iommi has handed him a riff that could have sat on Headless Cross without anyone noticing the join.
The band is Becky Baldwin on bass and Karl Brazil on drums, with Mike Exeter on keys and co-producing. Lande on the lyric: ‘We are the captain of our own vessel, a ship crashing through unknown waters, always navigating forward, steering steady through every storm, driven by dreams of new horizons.’ Iommi on the album: ‘We’re not trying to prove anything. It’s a great album, it rocks.’
He’s right. From The Dark is out October 23 on BMG. Iommi told Rolling Stone that Brian May plays the solo on another track, Death Wake, and that he’d wanted Geezer Butler on the record but Geezer couldn’t do it. Fourteen months after the last Black Sabbath show, the man who started all of this is releasing new riffs. Treat that like the event it is.
Amon Amarth – The Allfather Awakes
The Allfather Awakens, Amon Amarth’s thirteenth album, is out now on Metal Blade, and the band marked it with a video for the track that gives the record its name, give or take an N. The Allfather Awakes is the thesis statement: Odin trading an eye for wisdom, told at the mid-paced gallop that has been Amon Amarth’s default setting since With Oden On Our Side. Johan Hegg has been clear that the concept isn’t just Viking cosplay this time. His line on the album: ‘wisdom, knowledge and facts need to become the guide for the future.’
Jacob Hansen produced, across two sessions in Denmark in 2025 and 2026, and it sounds like a Hansen record: enormous drums, guitars stacked to the ceiling, every chorus mixed to be sung back by a festival field. It follows The Great Heathen Army from 2022, and where it lands among the thirteen is an argument we’ll be having for a while. The UK dates start October 9 and the European leg runs to mid-November, with Orbit Culture and Soilwork opening.
Wolves In The Throne Room – Estuary
The title track from the album of the same name, out October 23 on Relapse, and the one entry on this list that will clear a room as fast as it fills one. Estuary is raw, volatile black metal with industrial noise bleeding through the edges and the gothic guitar lines Wolves have been drifting toward since Thrice Woven. It’s also the opening track of a concept record with a premise worth quoting in full:
‘Our new LP Estuary is set 1000 years in the future after the end of civilization. Survivors of a cataclysm wander the haunted ruins. It is a world of mutant creatures and open portals. Post-apocalyptic religion takes form in a wild landscape.’
Nathan Weaver directed the video himself, and the band self-produced at their Owl Lodge studio in Olympia, Washington. It’s their first full album since Primordial Arcana in 2021, and the first single, Ghosts Among The Obelisks, was already a signal that the Cascadian-forest era was giving way to something colder. If you want to understand where this band sits in the lineage, start with the black metal bands that built the sound and work forward. Wolves play Fire In The Mountains at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, January 15 to 17.
Imminence – Shed Your Skin
Axis Mundi, the Swedish band’s first album for Sumerian, is out today, and Shed Your Skin, track nine, is the one they chose to put a visualiser behind on release day. Imminence are Eddie Berg’s band, and Berg is the only frontman in metalcore who plays violin as a lead instrument rather than a garnish, which is why their records never sound like anybody else’s even when the riffs are familiar. Axis Mundi was self-produced with engineer Henrik Udd and producer Drew Fulk, and follows The Black from 2024.
Guitarist Harald Barrett on the record: ‘Duality has always been at the heart of Imminence. Our musical expression is a conversation between darkness and light, violence and beauty, despair and hope.’ Shed Your Skin is that conversation at album scale. If you’ve been meaning to work out why modern metalcore keeps producing bands this ambitious, Imminence are a good place to start. They tour Europe with August Burns Red from January 8 in Gothenburg to February 6 in Malmö.
What’s Next
Three of these albums are still to come: Hatebreed’s Fatal Paradox on November 6, and Tony Iommi’s From The Dark and Wolves In The Throne Room’s Estuary both on October 23. Amon Amarth and Imminence are out now. A Perfect Circle have said nothing about an album and everything about a tour. Back next Friday.
TL;DR
- Hatebreed, The Carrion Choir: fourth single from Fatal Paradox (November 6, BLKIIBLK), the pure hardcore cut.
- A Perfect Circle, To Whom It May Concern: second new song of 2026 after Starless hit number one at Active Rock; 37-date tour from November.
- Tony Iommi, Stormwatcher: second single from From The Dark (October 23, BMG), his first solo album since 2005, Jørn Lande on vocals. Song of the week.
- Amon Amarth, The Allfather Awakes: near-title track from The Allfather Awakens, out now on Metal Blade.
- Wolves In The Throne Room, Estuary: title track and opener of their post-collapse concept album, October 23 on Relapse.
- Imminence, Shed Your Skin: track nine from Axis Mundi, their Sumerian debut, out now.
FAQ
What is the best new metal song this week?
Tony Iommi’s Stormwatcher, the second single from From The Dark, his first solo album since 2005. Jørn Lande sings it and co-wrote the record. The album is out October 23.
When is the new Hatebreed album out?
Fatal Paradox is out November 6, 2026 on BLKIIBLK. The Carrion Choir is the fourth single, following Kill Count Increase, Make The Demons Obey and the title track.
Is A Perfect Circle releasing a new album?
Not announced. The band has released two singles in 2026, Starless and To Whom It May Concern, and a 37-date tour running from November 2026 to June 2027. Billy Howerdel has said only that there is ‘more to come’.
Who sings on Tony Iommi’s From The Dark?
Jørn Lande, who also shares writing credit on every song. The band is Becky Baldwin on bass, Karl Brazil on drums and Mike Exeter on keyboards. Brian May plays a guest solo on the track Death Wake.
Which new metal albums came out this week?
Amon Amarth’s The Allfather Awakens (Metal Blade) and Imminence’s Axis Mundi (Sumerian) were both released on October 2, 2026.
Which of the six is going on repeat for you this weekend? Tell us in the comments, and send us the song we missed. Follow Loaded Radio for the best new metal songs every week.
The post Best New Metal Songs This Week: Tony Iommi Leads Six You Need To Hear appeared first on Loaded Radio.