Happy New Year! The slate has been wiped clean on 2016 and we start fresh with a full year of rock and metal to come. There will be some great albums on the horizon and Loudwire's readers have voted Starset's Vessels as their pick of the litter for the month of January.

The album won by a convincing margin, outlasting Shallow Side's I and Sepultura's Machine Messiah as the most anticipated album of 2017's first month. And after an impressive debut disc, the fans are obviously salivating to pick up Vessels and see what new transmissions Dustin Bates and his band have in store.

Starset got a jump on 2017 by issuing the new single "Monster" this past fall. The track has been steadily rising in a short amount of time and just cracked the Top 20 at radio. The infectious beats and synthed-out sounds of Bates, Ron DeChant, Brock Richards and Adam Gilbert have hit their mark and the message should continue to spread over early 2017.

Meanwhile, just before the calendar turned, Starset unleashed the atmospheric song "Back to the Earth" as another instant grat track for those pre-ordering their disc. The band has also been teasing lyrics of other key songs from the album on their social media, with "Everglow," "Gravity of You," "Ricochet," "Starlight" and "Frequency" expected to be among the standout album cuts.

The band worked with producer Rob Graves and mixer Ben Grosse on the Vessels album. You can pre-order the disc now via Amazon, iTunes or GooglePlay in advance of its Jan. 20 street date via Razor and Tie.

Starset are also about to hit the road in support of the new album. They'll play select dates with Gemini Syndrome, with their tour officially launching Jan. 14 at the Machine Shop in Flint, Mich. and continuing into mid-February. Starset will also be a familiar face at several major U.S. rock festivals during the months of April and May. "We look forward to the freedom that headlining will bring -- allowing us to further realize our sonic and visual objectives. This will be the most immersive series of 'demonstrations' to date," says Bates. See all of their dates here.

Once again, congrats to Starset, as Vessels has been voted by Loudwire's Readers as the January 2017 Release of the Month.

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