Nu Metal News 14 October 2026: downset. Rebuild And Book Europe, Memphis May Fire Cross The Continent, Chad Benekos Goes Solo

Nu Metal News 14 October 2026, welcome to Wednesday. Today is built on bands who refused to stay in the past tense. downset. have finished rebuilding and booked a European headline run, Memphis May Fire and Dead By April have put twenty two dates on the board for next spring, and a guitarist who spent years in one of the loudest bands of the era has quietly made a record of his own. There are two videos worth your time, one benefit bill stacked with names you grew up on, and a debut album from Phoenix that deserves a lot more attention than it is getting.

downset. Finish The Rebuild And Book Europe

downset. have spent a long time being talked about in the past tense by people who were not paying attention, and on Monday they put an end to that. The Los Angeles band confirmed the lineup that will carry them forward and announced a twelve date European headline tour for March 2027, their first proper run on that continent in years. Guitarist Rogelio Lozano remains the spine of the thing. Around him, the band has assembled a version of itself that reads like a reunion and a reboot at the same time.

Christopher “Krasp” Lee is back behind the kit, which matters more than a line in a press release suggests. He was there at the start, and downset. always lived or died on whether the drums and the bass could hold a groove heavy enough for the vocals to ride rather than fight. Loki, who has been handling vocals live for a while now, is officially in the band. Liam Dunne, known from Countime among other projects, completes the rhythm section. That is a lineup with history in it and a lineup that has already been road tested, which is not always the same thing.

The routing is a proper club tour rather than a victory lap. It opens on 2 March in Braunschweig and works through Osnabruck, Kassel, Malle, Sneek, Brussels, Frankfurt, Vienna and Budapest before finishing with Aarburg, Rorschach and Dusseldorf on 14 March. Those are rooms where this band makes sense, where the low end hits you in the chest instead of arriving from a hundred metres away. The band signed to New Age Records a while back and has said new material is in progress, though no release details have been attached to it yet.

What is worth saying plainly is that downset. were doing this before most of the bands who got rich from it. The politics were real, the hardcore roots were real, and the groove was heavy enough that it never needed a gimmick. A band that rebuilds carefully and then books twelve shows in thirteen days is a band that intends to be seen. If you have followed the way other acts have put new lineups together this autumn, including the signings and roster moves we covered on 11 October, this is the version of that story with the deepest roots.

Memphis May Fire And Dead By April Split The Bill Across Europe

This is the kind of pairing that looks obvious once somebody does it. Memphis May Fire and Dead By April announced a co-headlining European and UK tour on Tuesday, twenty two dates running from 30 April to 28 May 2027, with Seven Blood opening the whole thing. Two bands who both built their sound on the collision of a clean chorus and a genuinely heavy verse, splitting a bill in rooms big enough to matter and small enough to feel. Tickets go on sale Friday, 16 October.

The run opens in Scandinavia, where Dead By April have always been strongest, with Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo and Copenhagen in the first four nights. From there it is Berlin, Hamburg, Warsaw and Vienna, then a long German stretch through Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart, with Aarau in Switzerland and Sint-Niklaas in Belgium threaded in. Cologne, Utrecht and then the UK leg: Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester and London on 28 May. That is a lot of driving and very few nights off.

Dead By April have always been a slightly odd fit in the heavy world and that is exactly why they work. They put an enormous pop melody on top of a riff that would not be out of place on a metalcore record, and they have never apologised for either half. Memphis May Fire come at the same problem from the opposite side, heavier by default, with Matty Mullins pulling the melody out of it. Put them on the same stage and you get a night that covers more ground than either would alone.

For anyone building a 2027 calendar, this sits alongside the long multi continent routing we wrote about when Nickelback mapped out their own tour on 9 October. The pattern this autumn is clear enough: bands are booking further out and committing to longer runs than they have in years. Tickets for this one are through the usual promoters, with Live Nation listing the London date among others.

Chad Benekos Steps Out With Now Or Never

Chad Benekos spent years as a guitarist in (hed) p.e., a band whose whole identity was built on refusing to pick a lane, and on Monday he announced a solo album called Now Or Never, due 22 January. The guest list is the part that made us sit up. Scott Holiday of Rival Sons co-produced it and plays bass, keys and percussion. Kellii Scott of Failure is on studio drums. Ryan Blake adds keys and Cody Requejo contributes additional guitar. Machine, whose credits include Clutch and Lamb Of God, handled the mix and the master.

Read that list again, because it tells you what the record is likely to sound like before you hear a note. Failure and Rival Sons are not nu metal bands. They are bands built on space, on tone, on letting a part breathe until it means something. A guitarist coming out of the (hed) p.e. world and choosing those collaborators is making a deliberate statement about what he wants to do with the room, and Machine on the desk means it will still land heavy when it needs to.

No single has been released yet and no label has been attached publicly, so there is not much to listen to until the new year. What there is, is a release date and a genuinely interesting set of names, which is more than most solo announcements arrive with. We will be listening when it lands, and if the first single shows up before January we will say so here.

Filth Put Shell Town On Screen

Filth released the video for “Shell Town” on Monday, directed by Toddi Babu, and it is the best argument yet for the EP it comes from. Welcome To Shell Town landed back in March through Crowdkill Records and has been doing slow, steady work since. The track is all low-tuned swing and shouted hooks, the sort of thing that sounds like a pit forming in real time, and the video has the good sense to just let the band be the spectacle rather than dressing it up.

They are taking it on the road in December with Narcotic Wasteland and Killcrown on A Very Filthy Christmas, which we covered when the dates first dropped on 10 October. The run opens on 11 December in Portage, Indiana, and works through Battle Creek, Milwaukee, Louisville, Greenville, Dayton and Akron before finishing in Albany on 20 December. Eight shows in ten days in the middle of December is a commitment to the bit, and the bit is good.

The Number Twelve Looks Like You Return With Trust Chaos

“Trust Chaos” arrived on Monday and it is the last piece before the album. Howls From The Holographic Heart is out this Friday, 16 October, through Equal Vision, and it is the first full length The Number Twelve Looks Like You have released in seven years. The band put it simply enough on social media: “I think we spend so much of our lives trying to make sense of everything.” That is a fair description of what the song does to you on first listen, in the best way.

This has always been a band that treats a song as a place to go rather than a shape to fill. “Trust Chaos” lurches between sections with no interest in warning you first, and then drops into something almost tender before it has finished. Seven years is a long time to leave a gap, and the easy thing would have been to come back with a safer version of themselves. They have not. If anything the new material sounds more committed to the chaos in the title than the records that made their name.

Friday is a big day for them twice over, because a remastered version of Mongrel arrives alongside the new album. That record has been a word of mouth favourite for years and a clean master is overdue. Two releases on the same day, one new and one restored, is a neat way of telling people where you have been and where you are going at the same time.

Sully Erna Lines Up A Celebrity Jam For The Scars Foundation

Godsmack’s Sully Erna has revealed the lineup for The Scars Foundation Celebrity Jam, happening Thursday 10 December at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida. David Draiman of Disturbed is on the bill. So is Nuno Bettencourt of Extreme and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, with members of Staind and Three Days Grace also expected to take part and more names still to be announced. Erna founded the foundation to support people dealing with mental health challenges, and proceeds from the night go to that work.

Benefit shows can be a photo opportunity. This one reads differently, mostly because of who is on it. Bettencourt and Whitford are two of the most respected guitarists in American rock and neither of them turns up to things casually. Draiman has been open about these subjects for years. Erna put it in one line: “None of us should have to carry our pain alone.” For a scene that spent a long time treating a certain kind of silence as toughness, a room full of those players saying otherwise is worth something.

Featured Band: Commoner And The Former Self They Left Behind

Looking Ahead: Friday Is Busy

Friday 16 October does double duty. Howls From The Holographic Heart and the remastered Mongrel both arrive from The Number Twelve Looks Like You, and tickets for the Memphis May Fire and Dead By April European run go on sale the same day. If you want both, set an alarm, because the first one will eat your morning and the second one will eat your afternoon.

Sonic Temple is still filling in its 2027 bill. The batch including Emmure, PeelingFlesh and Showing Teeth that we ran through yesterday was not the last word, with more names landing this week and the full lineup expected before the month is out. If you are already planning what to wear to a field in Ohio, our metal festival outfit guide covers the practical side of standing in the sun for twelve hours.

Further out: Commoner’s Former Self on 13 November, Chad Benekos’ Now Or Never on 22 January, the Scars Foundation Celebrity Jam on 10 December, and downset. opening their European run on 2 March. Filth start A Very Filthy Christmas on 11 December. It is shaping up to be a loud winter.

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Nu Metal News 14 October 2026, Your Questions

When does the downset. European tour start and where?

The run opens on 2 March 2027 in Braunschweig, Germany, and finishes on 14 March in Dusseldorf. Twelve dates in total, taking in Osnabruck, Kassel, Malle, Sneek, Brussels, Frankfurt, Vienna, Budapest, Aarburg and Rorschach along the way.

Who is in downset. now?

Rogelio Lozano continues on guitar, original drummer Christopher “Krasp” Lee has returned, Loki is officially the vocalist after handling the role live, and Liam Dunne of Countime has joined. The band is signed to New Age Records and has said new material is in progress.

When do Memphis May Fire and Dead By April tickets go on sale?

Tickets go on sale on Friday 16 October. The tour runs from 30 April to 28 May 2027 across Europe and the UK, twenty two dates with Seven Blood opening, finishing in London on 28 May.

What is on Chad Benekos’ solo album?

Now Or Never is out on 22 January. Scott Holiday of Rival Sons co-produced and plays bass, keys and percussion, Kellii Scott of Failure plays drums, Ryan Blake adds keys and Cody Requejo plays additional guitar. Machine mixed and mastered it.

When is the new The Number Twelve Looks Like You album out?

Howls From The Holographic Heart arrives on Friday 16 October through Equal Vision, their first full length in seven years. A remastered version of Mongrel is released the same day.