M-Theory Audio has announced the beginning of a year-long celebration of its five-year anniversary. The celebration of “Five Years of Heavy & Metal” will see special announcements every month throughout the year of 2022 that will commemorate both the power and diversity of the albums that have been released since the label's inception in 2017.

The festivities will begin this month with the launch of an exclusive design inspired by the legendary Bathory that reinforces the love for underground metal that M-Theory Audio was founded upon and pays tribute to the roster of genre-pushing bands that have helped build the foundation of the label's first five years. You’ll see this imagery throughout the year and we’re pleased to announce a pre-order for its commemorative merch is available now at the label’s webstore, here.

While supplies last orders from the label’s webstore will also be shipped with commemorative stickers and/or buttons and every one will receive a free 2CD label sampler highlighting many of the artists released by the label these last five years with any order.

M-Theory Audio was launched in 2017 by Marco Barbieri. He was inspired by his three decades of experience within the heavy metal industry – first as founder/editor of Ill Literature Magazine in the 1990s, followed by lengthy stints as an executive at Metal Blade Records and Century Media Records, and more recently as a band manager operating under the umbrella of Salem Rose Music – to form the imprint as a nurturing home for developing bands that are poised to become the next generation of heavy metal and new music from re-energized greats of the last two decades. The label has also served a second home for vinyl reissues of landmark records from the genre's past.

The first five years of M-Theory Audio has seen the label introduce the world to a diverse roster of emerging acts from all over the world that specialize in all extremes of the heavy metal genre. The label is proud to have exposed the following bands - and more (just check out the label’s roster page on their website) - to new audiences:

- Portland’s dark power metallers Silver Talon
- Pacific Northwest progressive/black metal purveyors Vintersea
- Southern California pagan / folk metal band Helsott
- Progressive power metal wizards Immortal Guardian
- Mexico’s folk metal warriors Cemican
- Israeli symphonic metal titans Scardust
- Swedish epic metal/doom rockers The Sonic Overlords
- Los Angeles’ true heavy metal band Blade Killer

M-Theory Audio is also proud to have released new albums from veteran acts that have developed a newfound vitality during the label's first five years, such as New York hardcore heroes Sworn Enemy, Canadian progressive-metal icons Into Eternity, Florida melodic death metal behemoths The Absence, UK gothic blackened death metal band Hecate Enthroned and Bay Area alternative thrash innovators Mordred. The label has also breathed new life into landmark albums from the early 2000's New Wave of American Heavy Metal with vinyl reissues of seminal records such as Shadows Fall's Of One Blood and God Forbid's Determination, and has also given proper vinyl treatment to the back catalogs of Divine Heresy (featuring Dino Cazares of Fear Factory) and Southern California thrashers Hexen with more reissues on the horizon.

More information on M-Theory Audio's yearlong celebration of “Five Years of Heavy & Metal” will be revealed every month so keep checking the site and socials.