Ohio Mourns a Deathcore Forefather as the Genre's Founding Generation Faces Its Mortality
Some weeks the metal news cycle hits differently, and this is one of them. The passing of Andy Williams — the towering, beloved guitarist who helped define Every Time I Die's chaotic, genre-blurring sound before going on to front Atomic Rule — landed hard across the entire heavy music underground, and Ohio's scene felt it as much as anywhere. Williams suffered a medical emergency at a pro wrestling event, and in the hours and days that followed, tributes poured in from Josh Scogin, Matt Hardy, his former Every Time I Die bandmates, and seemingly every corner of the post-hardcore and metalcore world that his band touched over two decades. "I love you, Big Man" became the refrain of the week, repeated across social feeds until it felt less like a hashtag and more like a eulogy the whole scene was writing together.
Every Time I Die was never an Ohio band on paper, but let's be honest — their fingerprints are all over this state's heavy music DNA. The mathy riffs, the Southern-fried swagger bolted onto hardcore aggression, the willingness to be genuinely weird within a genre that too often plays it safe — that's a blueprint a lot of Buckeye State bands have quietly followed for years. You hear echoes of it in the way Columbus and Cleveland deathcore and metalcore acts refuse to stay in one lane. It's the reason a band like Suffer, Ohio's own death metal and deathcore outfit, can lean into brutality one song and unexpected groove the next without it feeling forced — that genre-blending instinct didn't come from nowhere. Williams and Every Time I Die helped make it acceptable, even celebrated, to zig when metalcore told you to zag.
It's worth using this moment to point Ohio Metal Index readers toward the deathcore and metalcore acts carrying that same restless energy forward locally. Beyond Suffer, bands like Vile Sanctum and Solipsist are working similarly hybridized territory — groove, death metal, metalcore all colliding — while At Daggers Drawn keeps the melodic death/metalcore lineage alive. None of these bands need a comparison to a legend to justify coverage, but in a week like this, it's hard not to draw the line from what Williams built to what's still being built here.
Faith, Mental Health, and the Weight of Touring Life
Elsewhere in the news cycle, two very different frontmen were opening up about the internal cost of a life in heavy music. Shinedown bassist and producer Eric Bass, who recently announced he'll sit out his band's late summer 2026 tour dates to seek treatment following what he described as a serious personal setback, got candid on his Talk O'Tuesdays podcast about how the ordeal has strained his relationship with faith. "Right now I don't feel close to God," Bass admitted, a stark and vulnerable statement from a guy who's built a career on arena-sized hooks and larger-than-life production.
"Right now I don't feel close to God." — Eric Bass, Shinedown
Meanwhile, Disturbed's David Draiman used a recent podcast appearance to dig into how his Jewish identity has shaped his career, touching on the October 7 attacks, antisemitism, and the way his heritage informs both his lyrics and his public stance on Israel. It's a heavier, more political conversation than Bass's, but both interviews land on the same essential truth: metal's biggest voices are dealing with real, complicated internal lives that don't fit the genre's tough-guy mythology.
That tension between public image and private struggle is nothing new to Christian metal pioneers Stryper, either, who just dropped the lyric video for "Here In Your Heart," a new single off their upcoming eighteenth studio album Throne Of Thorns, due September 25 via Frontiers. Stryper have spent four decades being both mocked and beloved for wearing faith on their sleeve (and their bumblebee-striped guitars), and hearing Bass wrestle publicly with belief while Stryper doubles down on theirs is a reminder that metal has always been a place where spiritual conviction — or the loss of it — gets processed at full volume.
Reign In Blood Turns 40, and Ohio's Thrash Scene Salutes
Slayer fans got a gift this past weekend when fan-filmed footage surfaced from the band's first-ever full-album performance of Reign In Blood for its 40th anniversary, captured live in Shakopee, Minnesota. Has it really been four decades since that record redefined how fast and how vicious thrash metal could get? For anyone building a list of the best metal albums of all time, Reign In Blood is a non-negotiable entry, and watching a band this far into their storied catalog still commit to a start-to-finish victory lap of it is a genuine event for the genre.
Ohio's thrash underground owes a real debt to that record, and it shows in the number of bands still mining that vein of relentless, riff-first aggression. Cephalon keep the technical, breakneck spirit of vintage thrash alive, while L.O.U.D. and Societal Decay both prove the genre still has teeth in 2026, and Skiba splits the difference between doom's crawl and thrash's sprint in a way that keeps things interesting. If you want to understand why thrash refuses to die, spend a weekend with any of these bands at a local show — the through-line from Slayer's 1986 blueprint to what's happening in basements and clubs across Columbus, Akron, and Cleveland tonight is not subtle.
The NWOTHM Wave Ohio Hasn't Fully Reckoned With Yet
National headlines this week skewed heavily toward legacy acts and heritage sounds — Sammy Hagar firing back at Alex Van Halen's "idiot" comments, Devin Townsend performing intimate solo sets across Europe on his Metamorphosis tour, former Voivod vocalist/bassist Eric Forrest reflecting on stepping back in for a European run and calling it "one of the best tours I've ever done in my life." It's a week that, intentionally or not, put classic songwriting and old-guard chops front and center. And that matters for Ohio, because this state has quietly built one of the more interesting new wave of traditional heavy metal (NWOTHM) undergrounds in the Midwest — a scene that hasn't gotten nearly enough ink yet.
"It was a real honor and privilege to play with Voivod again... one of the best tours I've ever done in my life." — Eric Forrest
Bands like Voidgazer, Naked Truth, and Stormchilde are chasing that same NWOBHM-descended sound that's currently having a global moment — twin-guitar harmonies, soaring vocals, riffs that feel like they were smuggled out of 1982 and polished up for a new generation. Allegiance straddles black metal, symphonic metal, and NWOTHM territory in a way that makes them one of the more unpredictable acts in the state right now. If you grew up on 80s metal bands and have been wondering where that sound went, the answer is: it never left, it just relocated to Ohio basements and DIY venues where it's being reimagined by musicians who weren't even alive for the first wave.
Small Stories Worth Watching
A few other threads worth a mention: Peter Tägtgren confirmed Pain has at least five more singles coming in the months ahead following "I Don't Give A Fukk," promising each one sounds "really different" — a reminder that industrial metal's elder statesmen are still restless. Country star Carrie Underwood covering Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park at Velocity Festival made the rounds as a novelty, but it's a small data point in a much larger trend of mainstream artists openly flirting with nu-metal and rap-rock nostalgia, something Ohio's own genre-blending acts like Bilmuri have been doing from the inside for years rather than as a covers-set gimmick. And if you're stocking up on merch, Metal Injection's Labor Day sale — 15% off the entire store — wraps today, so that window's closing fast.
It's a heavy week in every sense of the word. We lost a genuine legend in Andy Williams, watched two frontmen wrestle publicly with faith and identity, and got reminded that both thrash's founding fathers and metal's new traditionalist wave still have plenty to say. Ohio's scene sits at the intersection of all of it — deathcore acts carrying forward Every Time I Die's restless spirit, thrash bands honoring Slayer's blueprint, and a genuinely exciting NWOTHM underground that deserves way more attention than it's gotten. Keep tabs on who's playing where via our upcoming shows listings, and if your band belongs in this conversation, submit your band — we're always looking for the next chapter of Ohio's heavy music story, especially in genres like NWOTHM that have been criminally under-covered until now. This is a big year for new metal bands in 2026, and Ohio's not sitting it out. And of course, our thoughts remain with Andy Williams's family, bandmates, and everyone who's ever screamed along to Every Time I Die at 2 a.m. in a sweaty club. Rest easy, Big Man.
