#hard-rock

#hard-rock

I was too embarrassed to sing in my apartment, he says on a video call. But my roommate at the time was dating the preacher's daughter, and had keys to the church across the street. In the dead of night, the madcap bassist and singer took his recording equipment to the empty church, set up on the podium, and first sang his anti-war song Too Many Puppies.

We wanna do two days in Aston Villa [in Birmingham] and then come to America. And we wanna hear from everyone where we should go in America. And also we've gotta find a lot of young, new talent, because that's what [Ozzy] would want. That's what Ozzfest was all about. That second stage, that was the incubator - that's where so many [bands] came out of.

The category's been going around social media for a bit, but there's even a domain exclusively for Cigarette Mom Rock. There, the meaning of the genre is described as a "feminine counterpart to 'divorced dad rock,'" but is also meant to conjure up images of your own hard-working '90s mom, driving you to baseball practice with the windows down and a cigarette in one hand.

Master of Puppets is one of the few "perfect" albums in rock history (in other words ... all killer, no filler), and arguably the greatest thrash metal LP ever recorded. Tragically, though, it would prove to be the last Metallica album to feature the legendary Cliff Burton on bass.

"When I read the fine print, it was 'an experience with REO Speedwagon's music.' It's none of the original members," Fletcher recalls. "I don't want to promote the show unless it's the real thing. I don't know why you would want to see that. It's just a cover band. To me, that's a little bit strange." He adds, with a sigh, "If there are no original members, who cares?"

Bass Magazine celebrated all things bass at their annual awards on Thursday night (1/23), which happened at The Observatory in Santa Ana. Les Claypool was one of the evening's honorees, and he performed with Primus, who had a few special guests on hand for the occasion. They brought out Green Day's Mike Dirnt and Tool's Justin Chancellor for "Too Many Puppies," Metallica's Robert Trujillo for "My Name is Mud," and Marcus Miller for "Tommy the Cat." Watch attendee-taken video below.

I'd always assumed I'd just live my life, complain a lot, and die,

Sepultura have been making their way through a very long farewell since 2024 and now they've announced a 2026 trek that they say will be their final North American tour. They'll be joined by a pretty incredible batch of bands for this, including thrash legends Exodus, metallic hardcore veterans Biohazard (who are fresh off making a big comeback with last year's great Divided We Fall), and new-school death-metallers Tribal Gaze.

There isn't one songwriter, and so the flavour of the band is always going to change, says Dave Vanian, reflecting on 50 years of the group of which he has been the sole constant member, the Damned. Captain Sensible is a great fan of syrupy pop music and prog and glam rock. So his writing is very poppy, melodic and quite wonderful.

Avatar have announced a Spring 2026 US tour with Fleshgod Apocalypse and Frozen Soul. Dates kick off April 16th in Sacramento, California, and run through May 20th in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. The itinerary includes stops in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and New York City, as well as festival appearances by Avatar at Welcome to Rockville and Sonic Temple.

"Certainty" is certainly one of the best songs by Black Veil Brides to date. Forget that this is the same band from their 2010 debut album We Stitch These Wounds, because this doesn't sound anything like that, nor is it remotely screamo. Rather, we get high caliber melodic metalcore with some nice alt-rock inflections via the clean singing of vocalist Andy Biersack. He sounds equally strong during the harsh, chuggy parts here, as well.

Fresh off a trek with the B-52's late last year, the band announced a West Coast run aptly titled the Mutate, Don't Stagnate tour, and has now filled out its 2026 schedule with a batch of June dates in Eastern North America. All those shows will take place ahead of Devo's remaining Cosmic De-Evolution Tour gigs with the B-52's, in England.