Looking Forward to in 2010…

2009 was good, can 2010 be better? With these albums penciled in for 2010 it looks like we’ll have another good year for rock ‘n’ roll because there’s tons I’m looking forward to! I’ve listed tentative release dates where I could.

Ratt – Infestation (March): Ratt is one of the best bands to spring from the L.A. metal scene, I can’t wait to hear some new music from that.

Scorpions – Sting In The Tail: Well, hopefully we’ll see some new Scorpions. They haven’t gotten a U.S. distribution deal yet, but in this day of the internet, I don’t foresee any problems getting my hands on an import. According to the band, they’re going back to their “early ’80s” sound and scrapping the modern style they had on Humanity: Hour I. That’s a shame because I remember Klaus Meine being pretty adamant about the band not writing anymore “eighties” songs and I like Humanity a lot (which seemed to imply there’d be a sequel). Oh well, I liked 2004’s Unbreakable a lot too (the band’s most recent attempt at having that classic Scorpions sound), so either style they want is good with me.

Avantasia – The Wicked Symphony & Angel of Babylon (April 3): Edguy’s Tobias Sammet, one of my favorite vocalists, is back with his side project and he’s got two albums coming at us at once on the same day. The Scarecrow was really good and Sammet has tons of guest musicians lined up again, I just hope he hasn’t spread himself too thin by releasing two albums’ worth of material.

Accept: The band has reunited and Mark Tornillo (from TT Quick) is standing in for Udo Dirkschneider on vocals. I’m not a big Accept fan, but I like TT Quick, so I’ll give this one a chance. Supposedly the album is already done… so release it already!

Exodus – The Atrocity Exhibition… Exhibit B: The Human Condition (Spring): I’m trying out more thrash these days, so I’m willing to try this only having ever heard a few Exodus songs.

Peter Criss (April): I was surprised to see a recent interview where Peter said he’d have a new album coming out in 2010. The only album of his I’ve owned is his KISS solo album, but I liked parts of his other albums as well. I didn’t pick up One for All due to poor reviews and also because it wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll but Peter is aware of the criticisms about that release and promises a rock album this time around. We’ll see…

Bruce Kulick – BK3 (February 2): Speaking of ex-KISS members… This is a bit of a cheat because I already own the album because Bruce’s management was kind enough to send me a copy for review but I can’t wait until we get closer to the release date so I can talk about it and then everyone can go buy it. Now we just need Vinnie Vincent to crawl out from under his rock and release an album!

Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool (February 2): I missed out on The Sinister Urge and didn’t care much for Educated Horses, but Rob can usually deliver at least a handful of good tunes some I’m looking forward to this sequel to his best solo album.

Stone Temple Pilots (Spring): STP is my favorite “alternative” band and Velvet Revolver never lived up to their potential, IMO, so I’m glad to see Weiland back where he belongs.

Raven – Walk Through Fire (March 29): I have one Raven album in my collection and I liked it but I haven’t kept up with the band. This album was released in Japan earlier in 2009 but finally gets U.S. release in 2010. I didn’t even know they had a new album out until a few months ago, but I’ve heard that its pretty good.

Overkill – Ironbound (late January): I bought my first Overkill album a month or so ago and I liked it, so why not give the new stuff a shot?

Dream Evil – In the Night (late January): I missed their last release, but I loved their two previous albums. Dream Evil is one of metal’s best kept secrets.

Van Halen: Maybe? Eddie says he has tons of music written and that its just a matter of life settling down and then seeing what Roth likes. I wouldn’t hold my breath but it would easily be the biggest release of the year. I can see a Walmart exclusive deal going down.

Alice Cooper: Alice commented a few months ago he was writing for a new album and he’s kept a pretty steady pace of releasing albums over the last decade, so I’m sure we’ll see it sometime in 2010.

Armored Saint – La Raza (April 16): I love John Bush’s voice and I’m happy to see he moved on without Anthrax even if he’s already back in that band. It’s just a shame his being back in Anthrax probably means there will be very little touring/promotion for this release.

Fozzy – Chasing the Grail (January 26): Fozzy is a decent band, I’m not too impressed with “Martyr No More” though. I’ll wait for reviews, but it is on my radar.

Sebastian Bach: Bach has been working on two different albums at once for quite some time — one country and then a rock album that’s to be the follow-up to Angel Down but he has recently stated the country album is on hold and its full steam ahead for writing & recording the rock album. Angel Down was one of 2007’s best albums so I have high hopes for this one.

Still waiting for… (albums that were originally planned for 2009)

Iron Maiden: I guess doing a hugely successful world tour and DVD took precedence over recording new music. It happens. Hopefully the band will hunker down now and give us a new release.

Aerosmith:  Honestly, I don’t expect anything from Aerosmith considering all the drama that’s going on, but maybe Aerosmith sans Steven Tyler will put out something with a different singer..?

Anthrax – Worship Music: This was supposed to come out in 2009 with Dan Nelson on vocals, but he got kicked out (the band says he quit) for some undefined reason and now John Bush is back. Its expected they’ll scrap Nelson’s vocals in favor of Bush’s, but its entirely possible they may write brand new material. If I was Bush, I wouldn’t want to sing the new stuff, especially considering how quickly they dropped him a few years ago in favor of reuniting for Joey Belladonna (Do you see a pattern with how Anthrax treats their singers?).

Slash – Slash & Friends (April): Progress on this one seems to have gone a lot slower than intended, but I guess that comes with the territory with you’re basically doing a  release full of all-star cameos. There’s so many different timetables you have to operate on. This could actually end up being a mess given the variety of artists involved or end up being really good, but its Slash so I gotta have it.