From King Diamond's Pumpkin Patch to Archgoat's Abyss: This Week's Metal News Runs the Full Spectrum
Some weeks the metal news cycle feels like a mixtape assembled by a very confused older sibling — one minute you're staring at a glossy picture disc built for a haunted living room, the next you're reading a eulogy for one of hard rock's most indestructible frontmen, and then you're knee-deep in a satirical column pitting a cranky dad against some of the nastiest black metal on the planet. That's exactly the week we just had, and buried in the noise are some real threads worth pulling for anyone tracking the US metal scene heading into 2026.
King Diamond's Halloween Treat Comes Back Right on Cue
Leave it to Metal Blade Records to know exactly when to drop a reissue. KING DIAMOND's "Halloween" — the three-song picture disc first unleashed back in 1986 — is getting a fresh pressing on October 23, complete with new artwork from Mario Lopez. The title track originally came off "Fatal Portrait," King's debut, and it's aged into one of the genre's definitive seasonal anthems, a falsetto-laced piece of theater that still gets spun every October in basements and dive bars across the country.
It's a small release in the grand scheme of things, but it's a reminder of how much American horror-metal culture owes to King Diamond's blueprint. That theatrical, story-driven, unapologetically campy strain of extreme metal runs straight through the US underground today, from doom-leaning acts steeped in occult atmosphere to black metal bands that treat their records like short horror films. If you're building a playlist of the best heavy metal songs for a Halloween party this year, the "Halloween" title track belongs near the top, right alongside whatever your local doom band is cooking up for the season.
Rose Tattoo Loses Its Growl: Remembering Angry Anderson
Sadder news arrived with word that Gary "Angry" Anderson, longtime frontman of Australian hard rock institution ROSE TATTOO, has died at 79, weeks after suffering a heart attack during the band's farewell run in Europe. Anderson made it home to Australia for treatment but ultimately couldn't recover.
Rose Tattoo's influence on American hard rock and metal is easy to underrate because the band never quite got the mainstream stateside push their Australian peers in AC/DC received, but ask any working musician in the 80s metal bands lineage and you'll hear Anderson's name come up. That gravel-throated, street-level delivery shaped a generation of frontmen who understood that hard rock didn't need to be pretty to be powerful. It's the kind of loss that hits differently in a scene built on lineage — every leather-clad singer barking through a PA in a club tonight owes something to guys like Anderson who did it first and did it loud.
Rush's Ghost Still Haunts the Prog Metal Bloodline
Meanwhile, RUSH's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson sat down with CBC's Tom Power alongside Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith to talk about "Neil Peart: No One's Disciple," the new documentary tracing the late drummer's rocky path to becoming one of the most influential percussionists in rock history. Lifeson admitted he had real reservations about touring again as RUSH without Peart, before falling, in his words, "totally in love with it" all over again.
Rush's fingerprints are all over American progressive metal, and that lineage is very much alive in the current US underground. Bands like the progressive metal act Heart of Cygnus, the heavy/prog hybrid outfit Solare Sanctum, and the genre-crossing prog metal group ElderSkald all carry that Rush DNA — odd time signatures married to melodic instinct, technicality that never forgets the hook. Even The Mars Volta, whose sprawling, unpredictable songwriting owes an obvious debt to that same progressive tradition, keeps that torch burning in a very different, very American way. When people argue about the best metal albums of all time, Rush's catalog isn't usually filed under "metal," but its shadow over the genre's more ambitious American acts is undeniable.
Europe's New Single and America's NWOTHM Wave
Swedish hard rock veterans EUROPE dropped the video for "Come This Madness," the title track off their upcoming album due September 25 via Silver Lining Music. The song opens with sharp, metallic riffing before easing into simmering verses — a reminder that the band responsible for one of the most inescapable anthems of the 80s still knows how to write a proper rock song.
Europe's continued relevance says something bigger about where hard rock and metal are right now: the 80s metal bands generation refuses to fade quietly, and that stubbornness has fueled a real resurgence of new bands chasing that same analog warmth. The New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal has quietly become one of the most active pockets of the US scene, and it's a genre this site hasn't given nearly enough ink. Acts like Dieselbeast are leaning hard into that leather-and-chrome aesthetic, while Mr. Bones and the speed metal-flavored Mortalis keep the riffs galloping without a shred of irony. Power metal act Death Dealer operates in a similar spirit — big choruses, bigger swords-and-sorcery energy. If you're compiling a list of new metal bands 2026 to watch, this traditional-metal underground deserves a hard look, and if you're curious who's actually playing rooms near you, the upcoming shows listings are the place to start tracking metal bands touring 2026 in this style.
Dave Mustcomplain and the State of Metal Criticism
On the lighter side of the news cycle, MetalSucks' recurring bit "Disgruntled Dad Reviews" — featuring the perpetually irritated Dave Mustcomplain — kept churning through an absurdly wide swath of new metal this week. He tackled Finnish black metal veterans ARCHGOAT's "Nightbringer, Lightbringer," the genre-warping chaos of SIGH's "Goh-Ka," French technical death outfit GOROD's "The Ember Gone," the crushing DEATHGRAVE full-length "Hell Is Evil," and grinding death act LEFT TO DIE's "Initium Mortis," while also getting dragged through NOTHINGNESS's "Godslaughter," MOTIONLESS IN WHITE's "Decades," and MARILYN MANSON's latest chapter.
Underneath the running gag is a genuinely useful survey of just how much extremity is circulating in metal right now, and it's a good excuse to point at the raw black metal underground this region has quietly built. Bands like Dis — who move between black metal, death metal, doom, and progressive songwriting without blinking — represent exactly the kind of genre-agnostic extremity that Archgoat and Sigh trade in overseas. Black metal specifically remains one of the most underserved genres on the site despite a deep US bench: Ancestral Oath, Tragic Death, and the doom-tinged Aethereal Shrine are all mining that same raw, unpolished vein that's driven the genre's underground appeal for decades.
The heavier, sludgier end of the Mustcomplain gauntlet also lines up with a strong regional doom contingent. The Texas doom, post-metal, and sludge act Suffering shares plenty of DNA with the crushing tempos and bleak atmosphere running through Nothingness's "Godslaughter," and it's worth mentioning alongside other doom-leaning US bands like Altar of Dagon, Coffinworm, and the death-doom act Dweller in the Valley. Death doom in particular remains almost entirely uncovered despite a healthy roster of bands working the style, and it's exactly the kind of crushing, funeral-paced material that deserves more spotlight as the genre keeps expanding underground.
On the more crossover-friendly end of the column — Motionless in White's metalcore polish and Electric Callboy's cartoonish genre-blending — there's an obvious parallel to the more melodic, hook-driven side of the American hardcore and metalcore scene. Acts like Crown the Empire have built careers on that same balance of aggression and accessibility, while Stick To Your Guns keeps the hardcore punk backbone honest, and Zebrahead's rap-rock hybrid energy isn't far removed from the genre-bending spirit Electric Callboy trades in overseas.
A Scene Worth Watching
Between a horror-metal reissue timed perfectly for October, the loss of a hard rock legend, a documentary reckoning with prog's most influential drummer, a new single from an 80s icon still writing sharp riffs, and a satirical column somehow surveying half the genre map in one sitting, it's a lot to digest in a single week. But it all points back to the same conclusion: the US metal scene isn't just preserving its past, it's actively building on it — in traditional metal garages, in black metal basements, and in doom-soaked practice spaces from coast to coast. If your band belongs in that conversation, you already know where to find us — go ahead and submit your band.
