Witches, Ghosts, and Nu-Metal Covers: Halloween Week Gets Weird Across the US Metal Scene
There's something fitting about metal news landing thick and strange right as the jack-o'-lanterns go dark. This week the US metal scene leaned hard into its spookier instincts — a literal anti-metal preacher resurfacing from the '80s, a witch-themed single getting the live-studio treatment, and a surf-rock novelty act somehow finding its way into Slipknot's catalog. Mixed in with the seasonal chaos are the kinds of stories that actually matter for where this genre is headed: new singles, tour cancellations, and bands quietly rethinking how they release music in 2026.
Ozzy's Anti-Metal Preacher Still Haunts Us
Metal Injection's look back at Ozzy Osbourne's role as a fire-and-brimstone preacher railing against heavy metal in 1986's Trick or Treat couldn't have landed at a better time of year. It's a reminder of just how far this music has traveled — from "these evil people have just got to be stopped" soundbites to stadium tours, Grammy respect, and a genre that now sprawls across hundreds of subgenres tracked in indexes like this one. The PMRC panic, the Satanic Panic, the congressional hearings — all of it reads almost quaint now, but it's worth remembering that the 80s metal bands who built this genre did it while actively being demonized by mainstream culture. Ozzy playing the villain in that fight, decades before his own death, is one of metal's great ironic footnotes.
In This Moment Leans Into the Witch Aesthetic
Speaking of things that go bump in the night, In This Moment's live in-studio performance of "I Want To Believe" at SiriusXM dropped online this week, and the timing feels deliberate. The band has built an entire visual and sonic identity around witchcraft imagery for over a decade now, and a stripped-down studio take during the final days of October is exactly the kind of content that reminds casual fans why this band still packs rooms. It's a small release in the grand scheme of things, but it's the sort of content play that keeps a band's profile warm between album cycles — something every act chasing relevance in the current US metal scene has to think about constantly.
Smash Mouth Covers Slipknot (Yes, Really)
If you needed proof that genre lines have completely dissolved in 2026, Smash Mouth covering Slipknot's "Duality" is it. Metal Injection's writeup captures the absurdity perfectly — a band synonymous with early-2000s shopping mall rock tackling one of nu-metal's heaviest anthems. It's a novelty, sure, but novelties like this travel fast online precisely because they're unexpected. Covers crossing genre boundaries have always been a weird litmus test for how deeply a song has penetrated the culture, and "Duality" clearing that bar two decades after release says plenty about its staying power among best heavy metal songs conversations.
New Music: Theftuous, Holy Wars, and 40 Below Summer
Buried under the Halloween noise were a handful of genuinely solid new track and video premieres worth your attention. Theftuous — featuring members with ties to Snot and Relative Ash — dropped "Ghost Town," their first new material of the year, via The PRP. The seasonal title aside, it's a track that leans into the moodier, more atmospheric end of alt-metal, and it's encouraging to see veteran players from the late-'90s/early-2000s nu-metal wave still putting out work that doesn't feel like a nostalgia cash grab.
Holy Wars also premiered the music video for "I.F.O.Y.G." this week, and the alternative metal outfit is backing it up with real road time — they're set to tour alongside Kingdom Of Giants and others this fall, which is exactly the kind of grind-it-out touring strategy that's defined so many of the metal bands touring 2026 circuits. Meanwhile, 40 Below Summer's "Cutting The Cord" video, shot under the direction of Alfonso Civile of Heartsick, gives the long-running post-grunge/metal act another visual calling card as they continue building momentum. None of these are headline-grabbing arena stories, but they're the connective tissue of a healthy scene — bands putting out work, shooting videos, hitting the road, and staying in motion instead of waiting for a label to hand them a moment.
Nonpoint's Two-Year Build to "The Last Word"
Nonpoint frontman Elias Soriano opened up on the JJO Discover New Music Podcast about the band's eleventh studio album, The Last Word, revealing the record had actually been in the works for about two years before its September 2026 release on 361 Degrees Records. That kind of patience is notable in an era where plenty of bands feel pressure to rush product out the door. Nonpoint has been grinding through the nu-metal-adjacent, rap-rock-informed lane since the late '90s, and a two-year gestation period for album eleven suggests a band still genuinely invested in getting it right rather than just checking a release-cycle box.
Killswitch Engage Rethinks the Album Format
Jesse Leach's comments to Australia's Heavy outlet are worth sitting with. The Killswitch Engage vocalist said he's open to the band releasing an EP or a handful of standalone songs instead of committing to a full-length record going forward. It's a conversation happening across metalcore and beyond — streaming behavior has fundamentally changed how fans consume music, and plenty of veteran acts are quietly questioning whether the traditional ten-to-twelve-track album still makes sense. For a band as established as Killswitch Engage to even float the idea publicly signals a broader shift that smaller and emerging acts should pay attention to. If one of metalcore's most reliable album-cycle bands is reconsidering the format, it's a safe bet plenty of new metal bands 2026 acts coming up right now are skipping the full-length entirely in favor of a steady drip of singles.
Triumph's Tour Cut Short
Less celebratory: Canadian rock legends Triumph canceled the second leg of their "Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded" U.S. tour, citing sudden and unexpected medical circumstances. The second leg was slated to hit major Midwest and Northern markets, and the cancellation is a gut punch for fans who'd hoped to catch one of the genuine survivors of the arena-rock era. Triumph's catalog sits comfortably alongside the best of the 80s metal bands canon, and any extended absence from the road is a reminder that the touring health of legacy acts remains fragile heading into 2026 and beyond.
Post-Metal's Quietly Great Year
BrooklynVegan's roundup of new Godflesh and Jesu material — with Phoebe Bridgers turning up in the mix — is a good excuse to step back and acknowledge just how strong 2026 has been for post-metal as a whole. Add in Steven Wilson's comments to Prog magazine about the long-awaited second Storm Corrosion album with Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt reportedly built around a single 45-minute piece, and you've got two corners of the heavier underground pushing toward patient, atmospheric, long-form songwriting at a moment when most of the industry is optimizing for three-minute streaming clips. It's a quiet rebellion, and one worth celebrating if you care about where the best metal albums of all time conversation gets its future entries from.
The Crossover Thrash Undercurrent
It's also worth noting that crossover thrash and hardcore-adjacent acts continue to be some of the most consistently active bands in the underground touring economy. That grind-it-out ethic is alive and well in acts like the crossover thrash and hardcore band Reasons, part of a wider national wave of bands blurring the line between pit-ready hardcore and old-school thrash riffing. That lineage runs through plenty of regional scenes right now, and it's exactly the kind of DIY energy that keeps the best metal bands conversation from being frozen in amber.
Brothers in Arms, 30 Years Running
On the lighter side, Nickelback bassist Mike Kroeger's appearance on SiriusXM's Trunk Nation touched on his three-decade working relationship with brother and frontman Chad Kroeger. His explanation — "we're just incredibly stubborn" — is as honest a summary of long-term band chemistry as you'll find anywhere. Love or hate Nickelback's place in rock history, three decades of a sibling partnership surviving the music industry's wear and tear is its own kind of achievement.
Keep the Scene Moving
Between witchy single reissues, novelty covers, EP philosophy shifts, and the slow-burn ambition of post-metal's biggest names, this week is a reminder that the US metal scene never actually slows down — it just shape-shifts with the season. If you're a band with news to share, submit your band to get into the mix, and keep an eye on upcoming shows as the touring calendar fills out heading into winter.