Akron's If These Trees Could Talk Get Roasted (Gently) by MetalSucks' Angriest Dad
There's a particular kind of validation that comes from getting on the radar of a critic who hates almost everything. This week, Akron post-metal institution If These Trees Could Talk found themselves in the crosshairs of MetalSucks' recurring "Disgruntled Dad Reviews" column, where the pseudonymous Dave Mustcomplain tears into new releases with the weary disdain of a guy who still thinks the last good record came out in 1994. The band's latest full-length, The Hidden Hand, got the full treatment, and whether or not Mustcomplain actually liked it is almost beside the point — the real story is that an instrumental post-rock band from Northeast Ohio is getting national column inches at all.
That matters for a scene that too often gets reduced to a handful of touring deathcore exports. If These Trees Could Talk have spent close to two decades building a quietly devoted following on patience, dynamics, and the kind of cinematic build-and-release songwriting that doesn't need a single scream to hit hard. Getting dragged — even affectionately — by one of the genre press's most reliably crotchety voices is a reminder that the band's cerebral, atmospheric approach still cuts through the noise. In the same column cycle, Mustcomplain also took aim at Marilyn Manson's One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2, which tells you everything about the format: nobody is safe, and that's exactly why people keep reading.
Hardcore's Reinvention Season: Hatebreed, Vended, and the Studio Grind
Elsewhere in the heavier end of the spectrum, Hatebreed is re-entering familiar territory with a newly re-recorded version of their Under The Knife EP, and reports suggest a documentary component is being developed around the project. Re-recording catalog material has become something of a cottage industry in metal and hardcore over the last few years — a way for bands to reclaim masters, reintroduce a song to a generation of fans who discovered them on a playlist rather than a CD rack, and generally remind everyone why the riffs worked in the first place. For a genre built on urgency and immediacy, there's something fitting about a band circling back to sharpen the knife rather than just resting on the original pressing.
Meanwhile, Vended — the project featuring Simon McMichael, son of Slipknot's Corey Taylor — has landed in the studio with producer Nick Raskulinecz, sharing session clips as the record comes together. Raskulinecz has a track record with heavy, hook-driven rock, and pairing him with a young band still defining its sound is the kind of move that tends to produce a defining record rather than a transitional one. And in a related vein, Burn Eternal, the new project from Killswitch Engage personnel, is teasing its debut single "Wounds I've Made" ahead of a full release this week — another reminder that the metalcore family tree keeps sprouting new branches even as its elder statesmen keep touring.
Ohio's own metalcore and post-hardcore lineage runs deep enough that none of this should feel like outside news. Christian metalcore exports Wolves At The Gate have long operated in the same breakdown-heavy, melodically ambitious space that acts like Killswitch Engage helped define, and Of Mice & Men carry the same hybrid of aggression and hook-forward songwriting into arenas well beyond the state line. When a band like Vended works with a heavyweight producer or Hatebreed revisits its own back catalog, it's not just industry gossip — it's a signal for where the genre's sound is heading, and Ohio bands working in that same lane should be paying close attention.
Scott Ian's AC/DC Devotion and Ohio's Quiet Heavy Metal Revival
Anthrax's Scott Ian used his recent appearance on the official Bon Scott YouTube channel to reaffirm something he's said for decades: Bon Scott-era AC/DC is, flat out, his favorite band of all time. He traced it back to a junior high lunchroom in Queens and a cassette of Powerage, with "Rock 'N' Roll Damnation" as the song that sealed the deal. It's a small piece of music-nerd nostalgia, but it's also a useful reminder of just how foundational that era of 80s metal bands remains to everything that followed, thrash included. Anthrax wouldn't exist in the form it does without that primal, swaggering riff language, and neither would half the thrash scene that grew up idolizing both bands in the same breath.
That lineage is alive and well in Ohio. Thrash acts like SSA and CRS are still mining that same vein of riff-first, no-frills aggression that traces its DNA straight back to the NWOBHM and the Bon Scott playbook — tight songwriting, groove over gimmick, and a healthy disrespect for anything that sounds overproduced. It's also worth flagging for anyone tracking the broader NWOTHM (New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal) revival happening nationally: Ohio has its own quiet contingent of bands carrying that torch. Heavy, riff-driven acts like Sabre and groove-leaning outfits like Darkhold both work in that classic heavy metal and hard rock pocket that Scott Ian was essentially describing — big, unpretentious riffs built for a room full of people who just want to bang their heads. It's a corner of the scene that doesn't always get the column inches that deathcore or black metal does, but it's exactly the kind of back-to-basics songwriting that keeps pulling new listeners toward the genre's roots.
Vinyl Season Never Really Ends
On the collector side of things, Metal Injection wrapped up its "Month-Long Massacre" vinyl deal series with a final haul of 92 records, all priced at $31 or less — a reminder that record collecting remains one of the most democratized corners of metal fandom left. You don't need a festival wristband or a merch booth line to participate; you just need a turntable and some patience. For Ohio heads, that same impulse plays out at record shops from Columbus to Cleveland, where digging through the metal and hardcore bins is still a Saturday ritual for plenty of us. If you're building out a collection heading into 2026, it's as good a time as any to fill gaps with both certified classics and the kind of regional releases that never got a wide pressing run in the first place — because some of the best metal albums of all time started as a few hundred copies sold out of a van.
Bigger Picture Heading Into 2026
Zoom out and the throughline across all of this week's news is reinvention: Hatebreed revisiting old material, Vended building something new in the studio, Burn Eternal launching fresh off Killswitch Engage's reputation, and even Scott Ian re-litigating why a 45-year-old AC/DC record still matters to him. That's the metal ecosystem working as intended — legacy acts feeding new projects, new projects referencing the legacy, and critics like Dave Mustcomplain keeping everybody honest in between. It's also a good framework for thinking about what's coming out of Ohio. The state's scene has never been shy about blending its hardcore, thrash, and post-metal corners, and bands like If These Trees Could Talk proves that patient, boundary-pushing songwriting can still land a band in national conversations even outside the blast-beat news cycle.
As we look toward what new metal bands 2026 will bring and which acts land on next year's list of metal bands touring 2026, keep an eye on the local underground — Ohio's thrash, metalcore, and heavy metal contingents are quietly stacked, and plenty of them are just waiting for the right stage. If you're in a band that deserves to be part of that conversation, submit your band to get on our radar, and check upcoming shows to see who's already lighting up stages around the state this month.