Iommi's Farewell Riffs, Slade's Last Bow, and the Case for Ohio's NWOTHM Revival
There's a particular kind of week in metal journalism where the news cycle feels like a changing of the guard, and this is one of those weeks. Tony Iommi is sharing behind-the-scenes footage of a music video. Chris Slade is hanging up his sticks for good. Cliff Burton's last surviving sibling has passed. Meanwhile, Ohio keeps grinding away in basements, VFW halls, and DIY venues from Cleveland to Cincinnati, proving that the riffs those legends invented are still very much alive down here. Let's get into it.
Iommi's Send-Off and Slade's Retirement: The Founders Take Their Bows
Tony Iommi — the man who basically wrote the blueprint for every doom, sludge, and stoner riff that's followed since 1970 — has posted behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the "World Alone" video, the first single off his upcoming solo record "From The Dark," due October 23 via BMG. It's a small piece of content, but it lands with weight. This is the guy whose downtuned, detuned riffs (courtesy of a workplace accident and sheer stubbornness) essentially invented the vocabulary that every band on this website is still speaking in one dialect or another.
Around the same time, journeyman drummer Chris Slade — AC/DC, Tom Jones, Manfred Mann, The Firm, sixty years behind a kit — announced his retirement from drumming in a heartfelt video message. "With a heavy heart, it's bye for now," he told fans. It's a reminder that the architects of what we now casually call classic or 80s metal bands are aging out of the game in real time, and the responsibility of carrying that tradition forward has quietly shifted to the next generation.
That's exactly where Ohio comes in. This state has one of the most underappreciated NWOTHM and traditional heavy metal undergrounds in the Midwest, and it deserves more ink than it gets. Bands like Alexander and Mournblade are out here writing riffs that would sound right at home on a 1981 compilation tape, while Voidgazer and Leather are proving that heavy metal in the truest, most unpretentious sense — twin leads, galloping rhythms, no apologies — still has a pulse well outside the UK's NWOTHM epicenters. If you're building a mental list of the best heavy metal songs coming out of the Midwest right now, these bands belong on it, and they deserve real stages, not just algorithm scraps.
Remembering the People Behind the Music
Sadder news this week: Connie Burton, the last surviving sibling of Metallica's Cliff Burton, has passed away. The tribute from her family described the room as "heavy with the spirit of her brother Cliff, her mother Jan, her brother Scott, and her father Ray" — a gutting reminder that the metal family extends far beyond the musicians on stage. Cliff Burton's playing changed what a bass guitar could do in this genre forever, and losing the last connection to that bloodline hits different for anyone who grew up idolizing "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)."
In an even more sobering headline, a drummer collapsed and died mid-set during a rock festival performance this week — the kind of story that stops scrolling cold. Whatever your relationship to the music, moments like this are a reminder that the people making noise on stage are just people, and the communities around them — including this one — exist because we show up for each other, not just for the merch table. If you're not already checking the upcoming shows calendar for your local scene, this is as good a nudge as any to go support a band in person while you can.
Ghost Goes Cinematic, Savatage Teases a Return, Europe Says They're Not Done
On a lighter note, Ghost is doubling down on spectacle with "2 Big To Rig," a live album timed to accompany their new IMAX concert film. The movie drops August 26, with the soundtrack following the next day. Say what you want about Ghost's theatrical excess, but there's something admirable about a band treating a live show like it deserves the biggest screen format humanly available. It's a lesson in ambition that smaller regional acts can take to heart even at a much smaller scale — presentation matters, and Ohio has no shortage of bands who could stand to think more like showmen.
Meanwhile, prog metal pioneers Savatage might actually tour the U.S. again. Bassist Johnny Lee Middleton told Metal Mayhem ROC that the band will "probably" play some American shows in 2027 after a run of sporadic European and South American dates. For a band whose fingerprints are all over the symphonic and progressive metal that acts across the Midwest still draw from, that's genuinely exciting news, even with the multi-year runway.
Sweden's Europe is also reminding everyone they're not a nostalgia act. Drummer Ian Haugland discussed the band's upcoming album "Come This Madness," out September 25 — the follow-up to 2017's "Walk The Earth" — describing an "upgraded" songwriting process nearly a decade in the making. And In Flames and Trivium just announced a massive 2027 UK/European tour with Paleface Swiss and Vola. No U.S. leg yet, but tours like this tend to eventually cross the Atlantic, and if history is any guide, a Midwest stop isn't out of the question. Keep an eye on those metal bands touring 2026 and beyond announcements — Ohio has landed its share of arena-level packages before, and this could easily be another one worth planning around.
The Underground Keeps Moving, With or Without the Spotlight
Not every headline this week is about legacy acts. Basement locked in a February 2027 European/UK run with Fleshwater and Béton Armé. Cage Fight announced a fall European tour with Soul Splitter and Kabbel. Butcher Babies added October headlining dates in the middle of their run with Chad Gray and Devil's Cut. And the avant-garde black metal unit Krallice quietly dropped a new streaming track, "Kill The Guardian," for anyone who likes their extremity technical and disorienting.
On the doom and gothic side, Messa's "The Spin" — one of the best records of the year by most critics' accounts — just got an exclusive vinyl variant, which is as good an excuse as any to talk about Ohio's own doom contingent. This state has a genuinely deep bench in that department: Tomorrow carries the slow-motion dread forward, while Churches Burn, Sofa King Killer, Frayle, and Moontemple all bring their own flavor of heaviness to the doom and sludge conversation. If you're compiling a list of best metal albums of all time from this region in your own head, at least a couple of these acts deserve a spot on it.
It's also worth noting how much of this national news is about European touring cycles — Cage Fight in Germany and France, Basement across the UK, In Flames and Trivium blanketing the continent. It's a good reminder that while the overseas circuit thrives, Ohio's own death metal and thrash scenes are still mostly building from the ground up, stage by stage, without the benefit of a continent-spanning festival circuit to lean on. Cleveland death metal band Ton and Ohio thrash outfit SSA represent exactly the kind of homegrown, unglamorous work ethic that keeps this scene functioning — the same spirit that acts like 200 Stab Wounds, Proper Burial, and Existential Animals bring to the death metal side, and that Chemikill and Montez bring to the state's speed and thrash lineage.
Where This Leaves Ohio
None of these national headlines are about Ohio directly, but that's sort of the point of doing this column week after week — the story of the Ohio metal scene is always happening in the margins of the bigger news cycle. Iommi is closing out a solo era while our own heavy metal revivalists are just getting started. Ghost is filming an IMAX concert movie while bands here are filming phone footage from a basement show that fifteen people attended and loved every second of. That gap is exactly why this index exists.
If you're in a band that belongs in this conversation — whether you're chasing that 80s metal bands sound, writing riffs indebted to Iommi, or building something nobody's heard before — we want to know about it. Head over and submit your band so we can keep tracking what's actually happening on the ground here, one release and one show at a time.