Biohazard Are Still Standing, A Promoter Gets Called Out, and New York's Heavy Metal Underground Keeps Grinding

There's a particular kind of gratitude that only comes from surviving something most people don't walk away from. Brooklyn hardcore-metal institution Biohazard know that feeling better than almost anyone in the New York scene, and this week bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld put it plainly in a new interview tied to the band's reunited classic lineup and 2025 album "Divided We Fall." After decades of touring, personal fallout, and the kind of hard living that's claimed plenty of their peers, Seinfeld summed it up simply:

"It's incredible that we're all alive."

That's not hyperbole from a guy doing press. Biohazard helped build the bridge between New York hardcore and groove metal in the early '90s, and their survival into 2025 as an intact, functioning unit says something about the durability of this region's extreme music community. New York doesn't just produce bands — it produces lifers, the kind of people who keep showing up to practice spaces and dive bars decades after the trends that birthed them have come and gone. That ethos runs straight through the current underground, from hardcore crossover acts to the traditional metal revivalists quietly building rosters across the five boroughs and upstate.

The NWOTHM and Power Metal Pulse Is Still Beating

While the national conversation skews toward legacy reunions and nostalgia tours, there's a quieter story happening in practice spaces and small clubs across New York: a real appetite for traditional, riff-forward heavy metal that doesn't apologize for loving the genre's roots. New York heavy metal act Lace is part of that current, leaning into the kind of straightforward, hook-driven metal songwriting that recalls the genre's golden era without playing dress-up with it. On the more ambitious end of the spectrum, power and progressive metal outfit Arka is doing the heavier lifting of blending technical musicianship with the kind of soaring, melodic songwriting that power metal fans have craved since the genre's '80s heyday.

It's worth saying plainly: New York doesn't get credited enough as a breeding ground for new metal bands in 2026 the way Texas or California scenes do in national coverage. But the state's heavy metal and NWOTHM underground — bands drawing direct lines back to 80s metal bands without being pure cover-band nostalgia acts — is deep enough that outlets covering the scene nationally are missing a real story. Acts like Lace and Arka sit alongside traditional metal and thrash-leaning bands such as 25th Mission, Killerwatts, and Mystic, all of whom are proof that the appetite for riffs-first, no-gimmicks heavy metal never actually left New York — it just stopped getting the press.

If you're trying to build a mental list of the best metal bands coming out of this region right now, don't just default to the legacy names. Check the bar shows. Check the basement bills. That's where the next chapter of the state's metal story is actually being written, one Tuesday-night set at a time.

A Cautionary Tale: Amerakin Overdose and the Promoter Problem

Meanwhile, a less glamorous but extremely relevant story surfaced this week that every touring or gigging New York band should pay attention to. Amerakin Overdose wrote and released a new track, "Parasite," in direct response to getting stiffed by a promoter — a dispute serious enough that it drew local media coverage of the band's claims. Whatever the specifics of that individual case, the underlying issue is one that's haunted regional scenes for as long as there have been promoters taking a cut off the top: bands get booked, bands play, and sometimes bands simply don't get paid what they were promised.

This isn't a New York-specific problem, but it's absolutely a New York-relevant one. This state has one of the densest overlapping networks of DIY venues, mid-size rooms, and touring stops in the country, which means more opportunities — and more opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of bands who are just trying to get their music in front of people. Turning the frustration into a song is a time-honored move in punk and hardcore circles (and a pretty good one, honestly), but it's also a reminder that bands need to vet promoters the same way venues vet bands. Word of mouth in this scene travels fast; so should accountability.

For bands navigating that landscape locally, keeping tabs on upcoming shows through channels the scene actually trusts matters more than ever. And if your band is building a following and wants real visibility instead of a sketchy DM from a stranger claiming to be a promoter, you can always submit your band to get on the radar the legitimate way.

Band Loyalty, Tested

In a lighter but still telling bit of scene discourse, MetalSucks' new "Do I Suck?" advice column tackled a genuinely uncomfortable question this week: is it wrong to want to replace a bandmate in his own band while he's facing a jail sentence? It's the kind of question that sounds absurd out of context but is more common in underground music than anyone likes to admit — bands are small businesses built on personal relationships, and when one member can't show up, loyalty and practicality collide hard.

It's a useful thought experiment for any New York act operating below the radar, where losing a member for even a few months — to incarceration, injury, relocation, or burnout — can functionally end momentum that took years to build. There's no universal right answer, but the fact that it's being discussed openly as a column topic says something about how much more transparent band dynamics have become in an era where everyone's dirty laundry eventually ends up online anyway.

The National Touring Picture Looms Large for 2026

Zooming out, the broader touring and release calendar is shaping up to be one of the busier stretches in recent memory, and a lot of it will eventually funnel through New York stages. Bad Company is set to release their "Live In London" concert film and album on November 13, 2026, marking the tenth anniversary of their 2016 O2 Arena show — a reminder that classic rock's live-album industrial complex shows no signs of slowing. System Of A Down appear to be teasing a Los Angeles stadium show, with projections and posters popping up across that city, fueling speculation about what the band has planned heading into 2027.

Elsewhere, Rush had to postpone a San Jose concert after drummer Anika Nilles came down with the flu, a small but real reminder of how fragile even big-budget tour schedules are to something as mundane as a seasonal bug. My Chemical Romance dropped a rare 2007 live performance video for "Someone Out There Loves You," a nice bit of archival catnip for New Jersey-adjacent emo kids who grew up on that band's run. And in one of the stranger crossover stories of the week, 95-year-old William Shatner told Fox News his Riot Fest performance proved the "viability" of his upcoming heavy metal album, tentatively due in 2027 via Cleopatra Records — a sentence that reads like satire but is, in fact, real news.

None of that happens in a vacuum. Every one of those bands eventually routes through New York venues, whether it's an arena date, a late-career theater run, or a legacy act testing new material in front of a crowd that's seen everything. As the 2026 touring calendar fills in, keep an eye on which rooms across the state start locking in dates — the best heavy metal songs of the last fifty years were often road-tested in exactly these kinds of mid-size New York venues before they became setlist staples.

The Throughline

Between Biohazard's hard-won survival, a promoter dispute turned protest song, and a quiet but real undercurrent of traditional heavy metal bands building something real in small rooms, this week's headlines point to the same conclusion they usually do: New York's metal scene runs on persistence, not hype cycles. The bands putting in the work — whether they're reuniting after decades or just playing their fifth basement show this month — are the ones worth paying attention to, long after the algorithm moves on to the next viral Grohl cameo.