Thrash Drama, Deathcore Shakeups, and Ohio's Own Heavy Metal Lineage: This Week in Metal
Thanksgiving leftovers aren't the only thing reheating this week — the national metal news cycle is serving up a weird buffet of band drama, legacy reissues, and 80s nostalgia, and there's plenty here for Ohio headbangers to chew on. From a messy thrash metal exit out west to a fresh vocalist stepping into one of deathcore's biggest names, let's get into it.
Forbidden's Drummer Drama Hits Close to Home for Thrash Lifers
Bay Area thrash veterans Forbidden are dealing with an ugly exit this week after drummer Chris Kontos announced via social media that he was leaving the band — reportedly without giving his bandmates a heads-up first. Kontos cited "irreconcilable" issues with how the band operates, and whatever the backstory, it's a reminder that even legacy thrash outfits aren't immune to the kind of internal friction that sinks far less storied groups.
It's the kind of story that resonates in Ohio, a state with a deep and often underappreciated thrash pedigree of its own. Bands like Condemner, Immortal Soul, and Crysis have been grinding out riffs on local stages for years, proving that the genre's old-school discipline — tight lineups, relentless touring, no ego — still matters. Crossover acts like Shankable Offense show the thrash torch is being carried into heavier, punkier territory too. If there's a lesson in the Forbidden saga for any up-and-coming Ohio metal bands touring 2026, it's that communication inside the band is just as important as the riffs you write.
Deathcore Gets a New Voice
Thy Art Is Murder dropped "Squeeze," the first single to feature new vocalist Jerry Grimefeld, and it's already being described as a jolt of pure aggression for anyone needing a wake-up call stronger than their morning coffee. Vocalist transitions are always a gamble in extreme metal — fanbases can be brutal about it — but the early reaction suggests the band picked a capable frontman to carry the torch.
Deathcore and technical death metal have a real foothold in Ohio's current scene, and bands like Harlots and Druparia are proof the region can hang with the genre's heaviest hitters. Whenever a flagship act like Thy Art Is Murder navigates a lineup change successfully, it's a small but real encouragement to the new metal bands 2026 crowd grinding it out in basements and VFW halls across the Buckeye State — reinvention doesn't have to mean a step down.
The Old Guard Still Delivers
Florida death metal institution Obituary announced "Xecutioner's Return" and "Darkest Day" shows tied to a round of physical reissues dropping this December, while New England hardcore stalwarts Hatebreed dropped the video for "Decisions Become Destinies" ahead of their first new album in six years. Both stories are a reminder that the genres built in the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s haven't lost an ounce of relevance — they've just matured into institutions that can still sell out rooms and move physical media in an era when that's genuinely hard to do.
Ohio's death metal underground has plenty of bands carrying that same brutal, no-frills energy forward. Solidification and Crypt Rot both traffic in the kind of punishing, low-end-heavy death metal that Obituary helped pioneer, while Artillery Torture and Mutilation Barbecue keep the state's reputation for genuinely nasty, uncompromising death metal alive and well. If you're compiling your own list of the best metal albums of all time and it doesn't have at least one Obituary record on it, you might want to revisit your criteria.
The 80s Nostalgia Machine Keeps Rolling
This week also brought a small avalanche of heritage-act news: Iron Maiden and Z2 announced a graphic novel adaptation of "Somewhere In Time" for the album's 40th anniversary, the Scorpions biopic "Wind Of Change" locked in a March 2027 North American theatrical release, and members of Lamb Of God, In Flames, GWAR, Death Angel and more gathered aboard the Headbangers Boat cruise for an all-star tribute marking 40 years of Metallica's "Master Of Puppets." On top of that, Finnish journalist Timo Isoaho's long-gestating Children Of Bodom visual history book finally has a release window of April 2027.
It's a lot of anniversary content at once, but it underscores something worth remembering: the 80s metal bands that built this genre are still the gravitational center of the whole scene, four decades later. That history matters locally too. GWAR bassist Mike "Blöthar the Berserker" Bishop gave a new interview this week reflecting on the talent of the band's late, legendary frontman Dave Brockie — a reminder that theatrical, over-the-top heavy metal has deep Midwest and Rust Belt roots, and that the lineage connecting shock-rock spectacle to today's heavier, weirder bands runs right through states like Ohio.
Spotlight: Ohio's Heavy Metal and Doom Lineage, Carried by Three
With all this 80s nostalgia circulating nationally, it feels like the right moment to shine a light on Three, one of Ohio's own standard-bearers for doom metal and heavy metal songwriting that doesn't chase trends. Traditional heavy metal and the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal (NWOTHM) revival have been quietly undercovered in this region despite a real cluster of bands keeping riff-first, no-gimmicks metal alive, and Three sits right at the intersection of that movement and the slow-burning doom tradition that Ohio has always done well.
That doom lineage runs deep here — Christmas has built a reputation on heavy, atmospheric post-metal songwriting that rewards patience, and together with bands like Three, they make the case that Ohio's doom and heavy metal underground deserves the same kind of attention usually reserved for the coasts. If you're building a list of the best heavy metal songs coming out of the Midwest right now, this corner of the scene belongs on it. For listeners who associate "Ohio metal" purely with hardcore or metalcore, Three is a solid entry point into a heavier, slower, more classic-leaning side of the state's identity.
Thrash and Death Metal Veterans, Ohio Edition
Rounding out the thrash and death metal conversation sparked by the Forbidden and Obituary news, it's worth mentioning Enslaved — not the Norwegian black metal institution of the same name, but Ohio's own death-thrash outfit, which shows how much crossover there still is between the two genres at the regional level. That blurred line between thrash aggression and death metal weight is exactly what made records like "Master Of Puppets" and Obituary's catalog so enduring in the first place, and it's a formula plenty of current Ohio bands are still mining successfully.
Other Notables Worth Watching
A few smaller stories rounded out the week: hardcore-leaning Pure Noise signees Concealer. will reissue "This Room Could Be Heaven" in December, post-metal outfit Rosetta previewed "Self-Dealing Position" off their reportedly final album "Temporal Lapse," and (hed)p.e. frontman Jared Gomes announced he's undergoing total knee replacement surgery this December after an old injury from a Soulfly guest appearance finally caught up with him. None of these are Ohio stories directly, but they're the kind of national-scene signals worth keeping an eye on if you're trying to track where metal bands touring 2026 are headed next — reissues and "final album" announcements tend to precede big farewell runs, and farewell runs tend to swing through the Midwest.
What This Means for the Local Scene
None of this week's headlines originated in Ohio, but that's sort of the point of paying attention to the national conversation — it tells you where the genre's center of gravity is, and it's squarely on thrash, death metal, deathcore, and heritage-act nostalgia right now. Ohio's scene has representation in every one of those lanes, whether it's the thrash discipline of Condemner and Crysis, the death metal brutality of Solidification and Crypt Rot, the deathcore/metalcore hybrid energy of Harlots and Druparia, or the doom and traditional heavy metal songwriting of Three and Christmas.
If your band belongs in any of these conversations and isn't already in our database, now's the time to fix that — submit your band and get on our radar. And if you're looking for where to catch any of this energy live around the state, keep an eye on our upcoming shows listings as venues and tour dates continue to roll in for 2026.