Best Rock + Metal Debut Albums of 2022

We hear everyone loud and clear — support more new bands! Well, welcome to our list of the Best Rock + Metal Debut Albums of 2022, where you can catch up on the most exciting up-and-comers of the last year and hopefully discover something new to fall in love with along the way.

There's a certain electric feeling in rock and metal that has been a bit lacking over the past decade. It's natural for styles of music to ebb and flow and there is always the promise of some kids pooling together increasingly dynamic influences to put new twists on music in ways the world had never previously conceived.

Quite lot of the genre-mashing happening lately has been less cut/paste with styles and we're hearing reinventions of styles and the merging of some that are decades apart.

It's all a very positive sign that heavy music is in a prime position with a new underground bubbling beneath a mainstream surge that rock and metal haven't experienced in a long time.

Below, you'll find only the best debut albums from true newcomers.

Need to catch up on even more from this year? Follow our 2022's Best Metal Songs and 2022's Best Rock Songs playlists.

Honorable Mentions

We see you, veteran artists forming new bands!

However, we really wanted to reserve this space just for true newcomers and help the support the next generation of heavy music. You released killer albums with the ventures too, so that shouldn't go unnoticed.

Check all of those out once you're done flipping through all the new new bands!