Louder Now, Twenty Years Later: Taking Back Sunday's Red Rocks Reissue Anchors a Week of Legacy and New Metal Momentum
Some anniversaries hit different when you realize the record in question soundtracked a decade of basement shows, Warped Tour lineups, and every emo-adjacent mixtape burned onto a CD-R in 2006. This week that record is Louder Now, and the band celebrating it — Taking Back Sunday — just gave the US scene a reason to dust off the vinyl collection and start planning a road trip to Colorado.
Taking Back Sunday Turns Louder Now Into a Full-Circle Moment
Taking Back Sunday have announced a 20th anniversary reissue of Louder Now, complete with a bonus 7" that's already got collectors circling their calendars. The record, which pushed the Long Island band from scene darlings into arena-adjacent territory, gets the deluxe treatment right as its songs are aging into genuine classics rather than nostalgia bait. That's the tricky needle every band from this era has to thread — either the record ages into the conversation about the best metal albums of all time in its genre, or it fades into a footnote. Louder Now is clearly doing the former.
What makes this more than a vinyl reissue story, though, is the accompanying announcement: Taking Back Sunday will play a dedicated Louder Now show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre this October. If you've never seen a band perform a defining album front to back under that sandstone backdrop, you understand why this is the kind of show that gets circled the moment tickets go live. It's also a reminder that the post-hardcore and emo lineage this band came from never fully split from heavier circles — plenty of touring packages over the last two decades have blurred those lines, and TBS occupies a permanent seat at that table. For fans tracking upcoming shows across the region, this is shaping up to be one of the year's essential tickets.
Spiritbox Drop a Surprise Single and Signal What's Next
Meanwhile, one of the most-discussed metalcore acts of the last few years just reminded everyone why they're impossible to ignore. Spiritbox surprise-released "Mourning," their first new single since 2025's acclaimed Tsunami Sea, out now via Pale Chord/Rise Records. The track leans melodic and deeply affecting compared to some of the band's heavier output, and the accompanying music video dropped alongside it, giving fans an immediate visual companion rather than a wait-and-see rollout.
The timing is notable — Spiritbox's European and UK headlining tour launched this same weekend, meaning "Mourning" isn't just a standalone release but a statement piece heading into a run of shows overseas. For US metalcore fans, it's also a preview of the sound direction that will likely dominate stateside stages once the band brings this material home. Spiritbox has become a bellwether for where the genre is heading, and with three Grammy nominations already under their belt, whatever comes next from this camp is going to shape conversations about the best heavy metal songs of the year the moment it drops.
The surprise-single strategy is becoming standard practice for bands who've already proven they don't need a lengthy campaign to generate buzz — Spiritbox clearly falls into that category now.
Skindred's Benji Webbe Lends His Voice to a Protest Anthem
Across the pond, Skindred frontman Benji Webbe joined UK alternative metal act Defences for "More Of Us (Than There Are Of Them)," a defiant protest anthem that arrives on the back of Defences' sold-out headline tours and festival slots at Download, Takedown, and Burn It Down. It's a collaboration that speaks to something happening across alternative metal broadly right now — bands leaning into overtly political, communal messaging rather than shying away from it. That instinct isn't confined to the UK. US metalcore and alt-metal acts have increasingly used their platforms the same way, and it's worth watching whether this kind of cross-continental collaboration becomes more common as bands look to amplify shared messages rather than compete for the same festival slots.
Carla Harvey's The Violent Hour Keeps Building Momentum
Back on home turf, former Butcher Babies vocalist Carla Harvey continues rolling out material from The Violent Hour, the heavy rock project she formed alongside Charlie Benante of Anthrax and Pantera. The band just released the official music video for "Screenager," a single that first dropped back in August and pairs heavy riffing with the kind of commanding, hook-driven vocal performance Harvey has built her reputation on. It's a solid reminder that some of the most compelling new metal bands 2026 will have to contend with aren't necessarily brand-new — they're seasoned musicians reinventing themselves in fresh configurations, bringing decades of stage experience into projects that don't carry the baggage of their old bands.
That kind of reinvention has always been part of what keeps the US metal scene vital. Veteran players stepping into new lineups tend to produce records with a different kind of confidence — less about proving themselves, more about chasing whatever sound actually interests them now. The Violent Hour feels like exactly that kind of project.
Motionless In White Looks Back Without Regret
Speaking of reflection, Motionless In White frontman Chris "Motionless" Cerulli sat down with the JJO Discover New Music Podcast to talk about Decades, the band's latest full-length that arrived on Roadrunner Records back in July. Cerulli's take was refreshingly free of the usual hedging bands do a month or two after a release — he said flatly there's nothing he'd go back and change about the record. That kind of conviction matters in a genre where bands often spend years second-guessing mix choices or track sequencing after the initial hype cycle fades.
It's also a useful data point for anyone tracking where American metalcore stands heading into next year. Bands like Motionless In White have spent over a decade building a sound that blends theatrical horror-rock aesthetics with genuinely heavy songwriting, and Decades appears to be a confident continuation of that formula rather than a pivot. Fans of that same lane should keep an eye on acts like I See Stars, who've spent years blending electronic textures into post-hardcore and metalcore frameworks in a similarly unapologetic way.
John Sykes' Posthumous EP Ties Back to the 80s Metal Bands Still Shaping the Genre
On the legacy front, Golden Robot Records announced that One Way, a posthumous EP from guitarist John Sykes, will arrive November 6. Sykes' résumé reads like a master class in 80s metal — Tygers of Pan Tang, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Blue Murder — and the EP reportedly features some of his final known recordings. For a generation of guitarists who grew up idolizing his tone and phrasing, this release carries real emotional weight beyond the collector-item appeal.
Sykes' influence runs directly through the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal revival that's kept gaining traction in the US over the past several years. Bands channeling that same twin-guitar, riff-forward attack — including acts like Audrey Horne — owe a debt to the exact lineage Sykes helped define. It's a good moment to remember that the NWOTHM movement isn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake; it's musicians actively building on a blueprint that guys like Sykes wrote in real time, under real pressure, decades before streaming numbers existed.
The Bigger Picture for the US Scene
Taken together, this week's news paints a scene that's comfortable holding two ideas at once: honoring the records and players that built the foundation, while still pushing forward with surprise drops and new collaborations that keep things unpredictable. Taking Back Sunday celebrating two decades of Louder Now at Red Rocks, Spiritbox dropping an unannounced single mid-European tour, and a posthumous Sykes EP all landing in the same news cycle says something about where American metal and its adjacent genres currently stand — deeply aware of history, but not remotely stuck in it.
If you're a band chasing that same balance of legacy and momentum, or you think your project deserves a spot in these conversations, submit your band and get on our radar. And if you want to catch any of these acts live before the year wraps, check our upcoming shows listings — because between reissue tours and surprise singles, 2026 is shaping up to be a year worth showing up for.
