Original Keys, No Excuses: What Andi Deris and Geddy Lee's Vocal Longevity Means for Ohio's Metal Lifers
There's a quiet flex happening in two very different corners of the metal world this week, and it's worth pausing on before we get to the usual chaos of festival meltdowns and lawsuit updates. Andi Deris told a podcast that Helloween can still play its classic catalog in the original tunings — the same keys Michael Kiske sang three decades ago, before Deris even joined the band. Meanwhile, over in Rush world, Geddy Lee is out there on the "Fifty Something" tour hitting the same notes he hit on "2112," refusing to drop things down a whole step just because he's earned the right to. Add Doro Pesch, who says she's healthier now than she was in the '80s, and you've got a theme: the singers who built this genre are not interested in coasting.
That kind of stubborn commitment to doing it right — not the easy version, the real version — is something the Ohio metal underground understands better than most. This state has never been about shortcuts. It's been about grinding out records in basements, playing rooms that hold eighty people, and showing up night after night because the songs demand it. So let's use this week's national headlines as a lens on what's happening closer to home.
The Long Game: Vocal Integrity as a Metal Value
Deris's comments matter because they cut against a common industry assumption — that a singer in his sixties simply can't do what he did at thirty. Geddy Lee said something similar to Rolling Stone, framing the choice to sing in original keys as a promise to the audience rather than a vanity project. It's a philosophy, not just a vocal exercise: you don't get to reinvent the song just because it's inconvenient to sing it right.
Deris essentially argues that Helloween owes its audience the real thing — not a watered-down, key-dropped version of the songs that made the band's reputation in the first place.
Ohio's scene has its own version of that ethic, minus the arena lighting rigs. Thrash outfits like SSA and death metal acts like Ton aren't chasing radio-friendly compromises — they're playing the music the way it's supposed to sound, full stop. That's the same instinct Deris is describing, just without the tour bus.
If These Trees Could Talk Gets the Disgruntled Dad Treatment
Speaking of bands that do things the hard way: Ohio's own post-metal institution If These Trees Could Talk is the subject of the latest "Disgruntled Dad Reviews" column over at MetalSucks, where Dave Mustcomplain takes on the band's record "The Hidden Hand." Whatever the verdict, the fact that a purely instrumental post-rock/post-metal band out of Ohio is getting national ink from a column built around skepticism says something about the band's reach. If These Trees Could Talk has spent years building crescendos instead of choruses, letting the guitars do the talking a vocalist would normally handle, and that patient, unhurried songwriting style has earned them a following well outside state lines.
It's a good reminder that the phrase "best metal bands" doesn't have to mean the loudest or the most extreme — sometimes it means the band that can hold a room in total silence for eight minutes before the drums finally kick back in. If you haven't caught them live, keep an eye on upcoming shows, because their set is one of the more physically overwhelming experiences in the Ohio metal scene even without a single scream.
Gothic Tones and Fall Touring: The Ecliptor News
On the touring front, Baroness guitarist Gina Gleason's other project, Ecliptor, just announced a fall mini-tour with Witching — a pairing that leans into atmosphere, mood, and the kind of gothic-adjacent heaviness that's been creeping back into fashion. It's a good moment to point at Ohio's own Eris, a death metal and gothic metal outfit that trades in that same shadowy, melodic-but-crushing territory. If you're the type searching "metal concerts near me" hoping something in that vein rolls through the Midwest, Eris is worth tracking, and their live shows are exactly the kind of regional booking that makes a night out worth the drive.
Drama in Tampere: Abbath's Two-Minute Set
Not every act on this week's news cycle handled their business with the same professionalism as Deris or Lee. Abbath, the project fronted by former Immortal frontman Abbath Doom Occulta, walked off stage at Finland's SaariHelvetti festival roughly two minutes into the set, throwing down his guitar mid-song. Bandmates cited health issues afterward, and the whole thing has become one of those clips that gets passed around as a cautionary tale about touring burnout. Whatever the cause, it's a stark contrast to the professionalism Doro Pesch describes when she talks about staying road-ready — she credits the discipline of the job itself for keeping her sharp decade after decade. Ohio bands playing club circuits every weekend understand that discipline intimately; nobody in this scene has the luxury of a bad night costing them a festival slot on the other side of an ocean, but the lesson about pacing yourself for the long haul still applies whether you're playing a 200-cap DIY space or headlining a European fest.
Slipknot Walks It Back, Manson Moves Forward
Elsewhere in the news cycle, Slipknot guitarist Jim Root and other band members are publicly walking back earlier comments about percussionist Sid Wilson's status with the band, essentially admitting the initial TMZ-fueled reports weren't accurate. It's a messy example of how quickly misinformation spreads in this genre's news ecosystem, and a good argument for waiting on confirmed sources before reacting — something worth remembering the next time a wild headline about your favorite band crosses your feed.
Marilyn Manson, meanwhile, is pushing forward on multiple fronts: the video for "Unalive," the opening track from "One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2," dropped alongside news that Ashley Walters's sexual assault lawsuit against him is now headed to a jury trial in fall 2027. It's a reminder that the legal and creative tracks of an artist's career don't always move in sync, and audiences are left to sort out how they feel about both simultaneously.
Wednesday 13, John 5, and the Metalcore Machine
On a lighter note, Wednesday 13 confirmed he'll be joining John 5's band The Creatures for the 2027 touring season, marking the first time John 5's solo outfit has toured with a dedicated vocalist. It's an intriguing pairing of shock-rock theatricality and guitar virtuosity that should draw crowds well outside the traditional metal audience.
Meanwhile, Florida metalcore act Wage War dropped a video for their new single "Sweet Dreams" off the "It Calls Me By Name" EP, continuing the genre's push toward tighter, more aggressive songwriting. Ohio's metalcore and deathcore scene — anchored by acts like Arise the Titan — has been part of that same conversation for years, proving the region can hang with the bigger festival circuits when it comes to breakdown-heavy, vocally brutal songwriting.
Keeping an Eye on the Underground
Between Dogstar's Fallon appearance, Darkest Hour wrapping four new music videos, and the usual pile of new releases in this week's Weekly Injection roundup — Raunchy, Coyote Man, Hemorage, Dead Tired, and a wave of Smashing Pumpkins covers — it's clear the national metal conversation isn't slowing down heading toward 2026. Ohio's scene isn't waiting around either. Whether it's the thrash attack of Cincinnati's Sinister, the heavy metal muscle of Scarlet, or the death/thrash hybrid of Cabal, this state keeps producing bands that play like they mean it — no dropped tunings, no shortcuts.
If you're in a band grinding it out in this scene and haven't gotten on our radar yet, submit your band and let us help get the word out. Whether you're chasing the next wave of new metal bands in 2026 or you've been holding it down since the '90s, Ohio deserves its place next to any other region when people start ranking the best metal albums of all time — or arguing about the best heavy metal songs ever written.