Redder Asphalt: A Grindcore Tour Title Collides With Ohio's Own Crossover Thrash Underground
Sometimes a tour name does the work of an entire press release. When California death-grind veterans Exhumed announced they're hitting the road this fall with Jarhead Fertilizer, Savage Master, and Molder under the banner "The Long and Grinding Road Part 2: Redder Asphalt," it landed on our desk with an unintentional bit of local resonance. There's no evidence this run is stopping anywhere near the Buckeye State's crossover thrash scene, and there's zero indication the tour title has anything to do with Ohio, but we'd be lying if we said the word "Asphalt" didn't make every editor here do a double-take. It's a coincidence worth noting if only because it gives us an excuse to talk about the real Asphalt, Ohio's own crossover thrash and sludge metal outfit that's been grinding away in the same aesthetic lane as bands like these tourmates for years now.
Redder Asphalt Rolls Through the Underground
The Exhumed-led package is a murderer's row for anyone who came up on the death-grind and crust side of extreme metal. Exhumed's gore-obsessed death metal, Jarhead Fertilizer's grind pedigree, Savage Master's NWOBHM-tinged occult heaviness, and Molder's old-school death metal filth make for one of the more purely nasty bills of the fall touring season. It's exactly the kind of run that reminds you how healthy the underground circuit remains heading into 2026 — a year that's already shaping up to be packed with metal bands touring 2026 in club-sized venues rather than just amphitheater package tours.
Ohio has always had a hungry pocket of fans for this exact strain of filth-caked extremity, and the state's own crossover thrash scene is proof the appetite runs deep. Beyond the aforementioned Asphalt, acts like 1point3 and CRS have been carrying the thrash-meets-hardcore torch locally, while Chaos Reigns keeps the riffs fast and the pits faster. If you've been sleeping on the crossover corner of the Ohio metal scene, a national tour with a title like "Redder Asphalt" rolling anywhere within driving distance is as good a reason as any to finally check your local listings and start searching "metal concerts near me" with a little more intention.
Wage War's Surprise Gut-Punch and Ohio's Metalcore Lineage
Florida's Wage War dropped a surprise one-off single this week, "Sweet Dreams," via Fearless Records, arriving hot on the heels of their "It Calls Me By Name" EP, and they didn't waste time getting a music video out either. It's a crushing, no-warning release that fits the current metalcore playbook of dropping singles between albums to keep momentum alive rather than waiting on a traditional cycle.
That approach isn't lost on Ohio, a state that's arguably punched above its weight in the metalcore and post-hardcore world for two decades running. The Devil Wears Prada helped define the genre's more chaotic, keyboard-laced wing out of Dayton. Like Moths To Flames and The Plot In You have both carried heavy, emotionally bruising post-hardcore into rooms far bigger than their hometown clubs, and Hawthorne Heights remains one of the most recognizable names to ever come out of Dayton, period. When a band like Wage War proves a surprise single can still generate this much noise, it's a good reminder that Ohio's own metalcore lifers wrote a lot of that playbook first.
CKY Honors Brent Hinds With One Last Solo
As the one-year anniversary of Brent Hinds's passing approaches on August 20, CKY released "Beware Of The Heartless," a new single featuring a guitar solo the late Mastodon guitarist and vocalist recorded before his death. Hinds and CKY had been slated to tour together before tragedy intervened, and this release plays like both a tribute and an unfinished conversation finally allowed to land. It's a heavy, bittersweet moment for anyone who's followed the extended family tree connecting sludge, stoner, and heavy metal scenes across the country — a tree that has plenty of Ohio branches, given how much crossover exists between Midwest sludge and doom acts and the Mastodon-adjacent Southern heavy scene. Fans of Ohio's own doom and sludge contingent, including acts like Sofa King Killer and Wurm Sun, will recognize exactly the kind of riff-first songwriting Hinds helped popularize.
Deathcore and Beyond: Reminitions, Save Us, and the New Guard
California deathcore outfit Reminitions dropped the music video for "Hellraiser" ahead of a new EP due this September, and Solid State's newest signee Save Us premiered a video for "Far" off their upcoming label debut, also due in October. Both point to a deathcore and modern extreme metal pipeline that's staying aggressively active heading into next year, with plenty of new metal bands 2026 lineups already forming around these kinds of late-year EP and debut announcements.
Ohio's death metal scene has been one of the most talked-about regional stories in extreme metal over the past few years, and it's not hard to see why national deathcore momentum keeps drawing comparisons back here. Columbus slam outfit Sanguisugabogg has become one of the most recognizable names to come out of the state's underground in recent memory, and Cleveland's 200 Stab Wounds has built a reputation on the exact kind of unrelenting, riff-driven brutality that deathcore bands like Reminitions are chasing. Add in thrash-leaning death metal act Enslaved, and it's clear the Buckeye State's death metal bench is deep enough to stand toe-to-toe with anything coming out of the coasts right now.
Weird, Wonderful, and Worth Your Time
A few smaller stories rounded out an unusually eclectic week in metal news. Evil Island released the video for "T-Hexx," featuring a rare guest vocal spot from Fugazi's Guy Picciotto — his first recorded vocal appearance since 2002, which is the kind of underground crossover moment that gets old post-hardcore heads talking regardless of genre lines. Meanwhile, ex-members of Norma Jean, The Chariot, mewithoutYou, Underoath, and Every Time I Die quietly assembled into a new project called Unless and dropped their debut single "Sun Gone Low," a supergroup lineup that reads like a who's-who of 2000s heavy music's most chaotic and spiritually intense corners.
On the lighter end of things, A Killer's Confession released a video for their cover of The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" ahead of their upcoming album "Victim 3," continuing metalcore's long love affair with pop covers. This week's Weekly Injection roundup also flagged a wave of bands covering Smashing Pumpkins, alongside new releases from Raunchy, Coyote Man, Hemorage, and Dead Tired — proof that the new-release calendar shows no signs of slowing down as we head into fall. And in the category of news nobody asked for but everybody clicked on: Korn's Jonathan Davis expanded his "Freak On A Leash" pet lifestyle brand with a new cat collection, because even nu-metal icons need a side hustle.
The Classic and Progressive Corner
Sweden's Graveyard shared "A Means To An End," the first single from their seventh album "Fever," due October 9, 2026 on Nuclear Blast, while prog institution The Flower Kings announced their eighteenth studio album "Hope" with lead single "In A World Of Fools," due October 23, 2026. Both bands represent the kind of songwriting-first, musicianship-heavy approach that traces directly back to 80s metal bands and the classic rock era that spawned them — a lineage Ohio's own progressive and heavy metal underground clearly studies closely. Acts like Asymmetry, Galactic Mechanics, and Skeptic Lens are all proof that the state's progressive metal community isn't just surviving, it's actively pushing the genre's technical boundaries in ways that would make any list of the best metal bands take notice.
Where This Leaves the Ohio Scene
Between a tour title with an accidental Ohio callback, a wave of surprise metalcore releases, and a genuinely moving tribute to a fallen guitar hero, this week's headlines are a reminder that the best metal albums of all time and the best heavy metal songs didn't come from nowhere — they came from scenes just like the one we cover here, built one club show and one surprise single at a time. If you're hunting for heavy metal concerts near me listings or just want to know what's actually worth your Friday night, check our upcoming shows page before you commit to anything. And if you're in a band making noise anywhere in this state and we haven't covered you yet, don't wait around — submit your band and let us do the digging.
