Madball Brings 'Not Your Kingdom' Home as NYHC's Old Guard Refuses to Bow
There's a particular kind of pride that runs through New York when one of its own hardcore institutions drops a record ten albums deep into a career and still sounds hungry. That's the story this week with Madball, the Lower East Side crew that's been carrying the NYHC torch since the late '80s. Frontman Freddy Cricien sat down for a new interview to talk through the making of "Not Your Kingdom," the band's tenth studio full-length, released July 24 via Nuclear Blast, and his comments landed with the kind of blunt clarity you'd expect from a guy who's been screaming into New York basements and stages his whole life.
"We know who we are as a band, for better or worse," Cricien said, addressing how Madball's songwriting and recording process has evolved across a decade of albums.
That's the whole ethos of New York hardcore in a sentence. No pivot to trends, no chasing whatever's algorithmically hot — just a band that has known its identity since before most current fans were born, still refining the formula rather than abandoning it. For anyone building a mental list of the best metal bands to come out of this state, Madball has to be near the top of any conversation about hardcore's crossover into heavier territory, and "Not Your Kingdom" is another data point in a catalog that keeps proving longevity and identity aren't mutually exclusive. If you haven't caught them live recently, keep an eye on upcoming shows around the state — NYHC package tours have a way of materializing with little warning.
Touring Shake-Ups Remind Us 2026 Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Speaking of touring, this week brought two reminders that keeping a band on the road in 2026 is as much about health management as it is about setlists. DragonForce vocalist Marc Hudson is stepping back from a full role in the band due to tinnitus issues, with a replacement already announced to cover his reduced touring load and the band's forthcoming album cycle. Around the same time, word came down that Forbidden's Chris Kontos and Matt Camacho will sit out the band's fall tour, with temporary fill-ins lined up so the dates stay intact.
Neither story is unique to those bands — anyone tracking metal bands touring 2026 has probably noticed how often lineup adjustments for health reasons are becoming part of the conversation rather than a footnote. It's not a crisis, it's just the reality of veteran musicians who've spent decades standing in front of stacks of amplifiers finally reckoning with the physical toll. For NY fans, it's worth remembering that the region's own club and DIY circuit runs on the same math: bands push through injuries, hearing damage, and burnout because the alternative is walking away from something they've built their identity around. It's the same stubborn survival instinct that keeps acts like Madball going ten albums in.
Legacy Metal in 2026: Accept, Amon Amarth, and the Weight of History
On the legacy-act front, Accept guitarist Wolf Hoffmann made clear in a new interview that the band isn't in any rush to start writing a follow-up to 2024's "Humanoid," despite having just wrapped their 50th-anniversary release "Teutonic Titans 1976–2026." Half a century deep, Accept remains one of the standard-bearers for what people mean when they talk about 80s metal bands — that mid-'80s German/American sound that helped define the genre's second wave and still gets namechecked whenever anyone compiles lists of the best metal albums of all time. Hoffmann's patience is its own statement: bands who've already cemented their legacy don't need to rush product to stay relevant.
Meanwhile, Amon Amarth's Johan Hegg and Ted Lundström described the recording of "The Allfather Awakens," due October 2 via Metal Blade, as "very smooth sailing" — a phrase that should terrify no one and excite everyone waiting on more Norse mythology set to double-kick drums. Between Accept's anniversary victory lap and Amon Amarth's newest chapter, this is a strong reminder that the bands who built the genre's foundation are still actively shaping what gets called some of the best heavy metal songs being written today, decades into their careers. New York's own heavy metal lineage — bands like Sanhedrin, who've built a sound rooted in that same classic metal DNA — exists in direct conversation with that legacy, proof that the old-school approach still has plenty of gas left in the tank right here in-state.
A Captain, a Guitar, and Riot Fest: William Shatner Goes Metal
And now for something completely unhinged: William Shatner, 95 years old and evidently unwilling to let a single genre go unconquered, performed live for the first time with his newly formed heavy metal band THE *UCKERS at a Riot Fest aftershow in Chicago, tearing through covers of Metallica, Motörhead, and Ozzy Osbourne. Say what you want about novelty acts, but there's something genuinely charming about a guy who spent decades in space finding his way to thrash covers this late in life. It's a reminder that metal's gravitational pull doesn't discriminate by age or résumé — and honestly, New York's scene has always had a soft spot for theatrical, genre-blurring weirdness. Acts like Coheed and Cambria have spent their entire careers proving that concept, spectacle, and heavy riffs aren't mutually exclusive, so a 95-year-old sci-fi icon fronting a metal band doesn't feel as far removed from the local ethos as it might elsewhere.
Sending Strength: Amanda Somerville's Diagnosis
On a heavier and more somber note, singer-songwriter and vocal coach Amanda Somerville — known for her touring work with Epica and Avantasia — revealed she's been diagnosed with a malignant and aggressive brain tumor. Somerville has spent years behind the scenes coaching countless metal vocalists, and the news landed hard across the international scene this weekend. Between this and the health-related lineup changes at DragonForce and Forbidden, it's been a stark week for reminders about the physical and mental costs musicians carry to keep this genre alive. The metal community has always shown up for its own in moments like this, and that solidarity matters as much as any album release.
From Avalon to Fallen Angel: New York's Own Answer the Call
In a lighter bit of coincidence, Swedish hard rock outfit Black Blood STHLM — featuring former members of Skintrade and Therion — just released their self-titled debut EP, with tracks including "Fallen Angel" and a prior debut single titled "Avalon." Funny enough, New York's own scene has two bands carrying those exact names, and they deserve the spotlight regardless of the naming overlap. Fallen Angel, flying the power metal and speed metal banner right here in-state, represents exactly the kind of high-velocity, dual-guitar-harmony tradition that keeps that subgenre alive outside of Europe's usual power metal strongholds. And Avalon holds down the heavy metal and NWOTHM lane — a corner of the New York metal scene that's been quietly gaining momentum as more bands lean into that classic, no-frills, riff-forward revival sound rather than chasing modern production trends.
It's worth pointing out that New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal has been one of the more underserved corners of coverage locally despite a real cluster of bands working in that style statewide. If you're hunting for new metal bands 2026 has to offer that aren't reinventing the wheel so much as sharpening it, both Fallen Angel and Avalon are worth digging into on their own merits, coincidental EP-title overlap aside.
The Bigger Picture
Zoom out and this week's headlines paint a pretty complete portrait of where metal stands heading into the back half of 2026: veteran bands like Madball proving identity beats reinvention, touring lineups adjusting to the realities of aging and injury, legacy acts like Accept and Amon Amarth still setting the bar, and a genuinely strange William Shatner detour reminding everyone that metal's tent is bigger than any of us assume. New York's scene, from NYHC lifers to NWOTHM revivalists, fits right into that continuum. If your band has news, a release, or a show worth covering, don't wait for someone else to tell your story — submit your band and let's keep this index as complete as the scene it's tracking.
