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This is a timeline documenting the events of heavy metal in 2002.

Newly formed bands

• Apocalypse
• DevilDriver
• Eluveitie
• Massacration
• Probot
• Theocracy
• Teräsbetoni
• Viperine

Reformed Bands

• Prong
• Trouble

Albums

• 3 Inches of Blood - Battlecry Under a Winter Sun
• Agalloch - The Mantle
• Atreyu - Suicide Notes And Butterfly Kisses
• Behemoth - Zos Kia Cultus (Here and Beyond)
• Beseech - Souls Highway
• Black Label Society - 1919 Eternal
• Black Sabbath - Past Lives
• Blind Guardian - A Night at the Opera
• Bon Jovi - Bounce
• Cannibal Corpse - Gore Obsessed
• Cog - Just Visiting Part One
• Cog - Just Visiting Part Two
• Def Leppard - X
• Dio - Killing the Dragon
• Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
• Fear Factory - Concrete (originally recorded in 1991, but not released until 2002)
• Freak Kitchen - Move
• HammerFall - Crimson Thunder
• Hardline - II
• Immortal - Sons of Northern Darkness
• In Flames - Reroute to Remain
• Kataklysm - Shadows & Dust
• Killswitch Engage - Alive or Just Breathing
• Lacuna Coil - Comalies
• Lordi - Get Heavy
• Korn - Untouchables
• Yngwie J. Malmsteen - Attack!!, Concerto Suite LIVE
• Manowar - Warriors of the World
• Mastodon - Remission
• Mercenary - Everblack
• Motörhead - Hammered
• Nightwish - Century Child
• Nine Inch Nails - And All That Could Have Been (live)
• Opeth - Deliverance
• Otep - Sevas Tra
• Pig Destroyer - Benumb / Pig Destroyer (Split album)
• Pitchshifter - PSI
• Protest The Hero - A Calculated Use of Sound
• QueenAdreena - Drink Me
• Raunchy - Velvet Noise
• Rhapsody of Fire - Power of the Dragonflame
• Rush - Vapor Trails
• Saxon - Heavy Metal Thunder
• Sentenced - The Cold White Light
• Shadows Fall - The Art of Balance
• Slechtvalk - The War That Plagues the Lands
• Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos
• Sonata Arctica - Songs of Silence
• Stone Sour - Stone Sour
• Symphony X - The Odyssey
• System of a Down - Steal This Album!
• Theatre of Tragedy - Assembly
• The 3rd and the Mortal - Memoirs
• Týr - How Far To Asgaard
• Týr - Ólavur Riddararós
• Vintersorg - Visions From The Spiral Generator
• Visions of Atlantis - Eternal Endless Infinity
• WarCry - WarCry, El Sello De Los Tiempos
• Winds - Reflections of the I

Disbandments

• Fear Factory
• Megadeth
• Alice in Chains
• Godflesh

Events

• Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley is found dead on April 19 from an overdose of heroin. Thought to have died on April 5, the same day Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain is thought to have died eight years previously.
• Drowning Pool singer Dave Williams dies on Wednesday August 14, 2002. He was found inside his tour bus, dead from cardiomyopathy.
• Dave Lombardo rejoins Slayer.
• Tarot bassist Marco Hietala leaves Sinergy and joins Nightwish as their new bassist
• Guitarist Jeff Phillips joins Kittie as a session member, replacing Fallon Bowman Bassist Talena Atfield quits and is replaced by Jennifer Arroyo
• On April 26 Mötley Crüe drummer Randy Castillo died from a cancer.