Year: 2019

It’s rare that a career gets a second shot, let alone a whole second act, but then Anthrax isn’t your average band. Formed in New York in 1981, the group that would go on to sell over ten million records and become the living embodiment of America’s hi-top wearing, riff-spitting, ear-thrashing answer to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal has undergone not one, but two complete eras – but that isn’t their real achievement.

Polish death metal band Behemoth are no strangers to blasphemy. Over the course of the last 27 years, they’ve pushed the boundaries of black metal and heresy alike. Behemoth have been pivotal in the establishment of the Polish extreme underground metal scene. Time and again, the government of their native Poland has charged them with various “crimes” such as tearing up a bible onstage in 2007 and using the Polish coat of arms on a Behemoth t-shirt in 2017. We welcome their sacrilege with open arms to Download 2019!

For 18 years, Rise Against has kept their moral compass steady, using their international punk platform to speak out for social justice. After two successful underground releases, 2001’s ‘The Unraveling’ and 2003’s ‘Revolutions per Minute’, the activist, straight edge, vegetarians catapulted into the mainstream with 2004’s ‘Siren Song of the Counter Culture’ and have never looked back!

Download Festival 2018 was the first on Aussie shores and had one date in Melbourne. Organisers expanded the festival for 2019, taking it to Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse and Sydney’s Parramatta Park in March.

Over the course of their remarkable career, Alice In Chains have garnered multiple Grammy nominations, sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and amassed a diehard international fanbase whose members number in the millions. They remain one of the most successful and influential American rock bands of all time. Touring in support of recently released album ‘Rainer Fog’ which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Rock, Alternative and Hard Music Charts and No. 1 on the iTunes Rock Album Chart. The album, which is the band’s first in five years, has been drawing rave reviews from fans and critics alike, with Kerrang! writing, “it’s prime Alice In Chains and the work of a band still managing to hit new peaks of their powers.”Uproxx wrote that the album “boasts undeniable energy and rhythm,” Loudwire praised the band for “still making music that holds up to their legacy” andQ Magazine lauded the quartet for “juggling power and poignancy like masters.”

2018 is the year that Sydney five-piece, Polaris have cemented their place in the global scene among Australia’s most elite heavy music exports with a metalcore torch held high in their hands. In January, they toured with seminal down-under heavy heroes Parkway Drive and a show-stealing appearance at their second Unify Gathering. They have slapped a sold-out sign on all three of their Australian headline tours this year including their most recent national tour headlining their biggest shows to date.

Certain moments in life change everything. The trajectory splinters, and there’s no turning back. Detroit post-hardcore outfit I Prevail, are no strangers to this experience. After the release of the band’s 2014 debut EP, Heart vs. Mind, nothing would ever be the same. The EP moved over 100,000 copies as the band toured with the likes of Hollywood Undead and Crown The Empire.

The Amity Affliction will be landing at Download off the back of their fourth consecution ARIA #1, for their latest LP ‘Misery’. Gympie’s much-loved metalcore sons are loved for their passion, integrity and unflinching honesty. Their latest release weaving electronic elements and even bolder hooks into their signature sound, reinventing the bands anthemic songs.