Most Anticipated Rock Albums of 2009

Bands who lose their iconic lead singer -- either through personality conflicts (Van Halen) or untimely death (the Doors, INXS) -- often struggle to move forward as a unit with a new frontman. The latest example of this challenge will be Alice in Chains, who returned to the studio for the first time since 1995's Alice in Chains and the 2002 death of original singer Layne Staley. William DuVall has taken over vocal duties, but he'll have big shoes to fill -- Staley's demonic wails were an integral part to Alice in Chains' success during the 1990s.

Breaking Benjamin's last album, 2006's Phobia, was a promising step up creatively for the group. Their next record, overseen by Phobia producer David Bendeth, began pre-production last June, and while there's no concrete release date yet, the understanding is that the record will come out some time in 2009. The band hasn't released any music from the sessions, but they did start performing Aerosmith's "Dream On" in concerts during the fall, prompting questions about whether the song had any bearing on the sound or themes of the new record.

After years being identified as one of the godfathers of grunge with Soundgarden, Chris Cornell is moving into a more pop and R&B direction with Scream, his third solo album and first produced by hip-hop mastermind Timbaland. Scream's release has been delayed a couple times, but already several singles have hit the marketplace, including "Scream" and "Ground Zero." It will be interesting to see how Cornell's long-term fans respond to this radical change of sonic direction -- I'll reserve judgment until I hear the final product.

Korn are supposedly planning to reteam with producer Ross Robinson, who worked on their early records, to make their first album since 2007's Untitled. But it seems doubtful that the band will have a new album ready to go until the end of 2009 at the earliest. In the meantime, Korn fans will have to make do with the first solo record from Korn frontman Jonathan Davis. Expected in the early part of 2009, the album will reportedly not sound that much like a Korn album. The first track released from this solo project was a rap-rock cover of Lil Wayne's "Got Money."

American Idiot reenergized Green Day both commercially and creatively, raising expectations for their follow-up record. Adding to the anticipation, Green Day announced they'd be working with revered alternative-rock producer Butch Vig for the first time for the new album. 21st Century Breakdown promises, like American Idiot, to include thematically-linked songs, although in recent interviews frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has suggested it's not a concept album, despite the fact that it features two central characters and a three-act narrative structure.

Every Man for Himself, Hoobastank's 2006 album, failed to match the success of 2003's The Reason, whose title track was one of those ubiquitous hits that seemed to play on every radio format across the dial. Hoobastank's new album, Fornever, comes out January 27, preceded by the first single "My Turn." Whether or not Fornever has another colossal ballad like "The Reason" is uncertain.

Killswitch Engage are one of the best emerging metal bands, but their albums have yet to live up to their dynamic live shows. Hopefully that will change with their next record, which is being co-produced by Brendan O'Brien, who has worked with Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Korn and Rage Against the Machine. The album will hopefully come out in spring 2009, around the same time as they'll begin a tour with Disturbed.

Since Hole's breakthrough album Live Through This way back in 1994, Courtney Love has been more famous for her tabloid exploits than for her music. Will this change with her second solo record, Nobody's Daughter? It’s hard to know -- after initially planning on releasing the album on January 1, she announced through her MySpace page that "paranormal technical issues" in the recording studio were delaying its completion. (And remember, this was after she scrapped one version of the album after three years of work.) Right now, the drop date for Nobody's Daughter is unknown.

Mudvayne's current album, The New Game, came out November 18, sporting the single "Do What You Do." But if the metal quartet have their way, their next album might be unveiled as early as this summer. According to the band, The New Game was actually completed in the middle of 2007, giving them time to finish an entire other record by the summer of 2008. Drummer Matt McDonough told a reporter that the band will wait to see how The New Game performs before making a decision about when to release the next album.

Josh Homme, the main man behind Queens of the Stone Age, has promised that the band's next album will be a "desert orgy in the dark," which, come to think of it, is a great way to describe the group's output to this point. There's little known about this follow-up to 2007's stellar Era Vulgaris, but according to Homme the band will convene in his studio in the Southern California desert to work on the record. Queens of the Stone Age haven't made a top-to-bottom terrific record since 2000's R, but they've gotten awfully close a couple times.

When U2 release No Line on the Horizon on March 3, it will have been five years since the band's last album, the Grammy-winning How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Atomic Bomb and its predecessor, All That You Can't Leave Behind, were self-consciously return-to-form records that lacked the daring of the group's best work but reestablished their superstar commercial standing. Will No Line on the Horizon be a nervier album or a continuation of the last two records' solid but largely unremarkable craftsmanship?