Nu Metal News 29 September 2026, welcome to Tuesday. Today is the calm before a very loud Friday. coldrain have put their new double record in front of you in one four minute sitting, Ghostkid and Butcher Babies are both forty-eight hours from release day, Story Of The Year have finally given “See Through” the video it deserved, and Slipknot have started talking about how album eight actually sounds. Our featured artist is Amira Elfeky, who drops “Breakdown” tomorrow.
coldrain Fold OPTDEMISE Into Four Minutes
coldrain released OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE on Friday 25 September through Century Media, their first full length for the label, and today they followed it with a highlight medley that runs under four minutes and touches all seven new songs. It is a smart piece of housekeeping. The record is built as two halves, the five track OPTIMIZE EP from last year and the seven track OPTDEMISE side that is new, and the medley is the quickest way to hear what the second half adds.
What it adds is weight. “Ex-Humanity” and “Poison” were already out, the latter with Bert McCracken of The Used sitting in, and both land harder in sequence than they did alone. “Digitoll” and “Picture Perfect Hell” are the ones that jump out of the medley, all downtuned chug and Masato Hayakawa pivoting from a clean top line into a scream inside a single bar. “Savior” closes the album with Kenta Koie guesting, and it is the most open the band have sounded in years.
The Nagoya five piece have been doing this since 2007 and have never really sat still. Individual visualisers for every track are on their channel if you want the full versions, and the band spend the rest of the year at home, starting at Club Citta in Kawasaki on 6 October and finishing at Toyosu Pit in Tokyo on 9 December. Twelve songs, two moods, one record. It holds together better than a double album has any right to.
Ghostkid Go Down The White Rabbit Hole On Friday
Ghostkid release Follow The White Rabbit this Friday, 2 October, on Century Media. It is eleven tracks, it is the project’s third album, and it arrives two years after Hollywood Suicide. Sebastian “Sushi” Biesler has built the whole thing on Lewis Carroll and the American McGee’s Alice game, which sounds like a gimmick until you hear how literally he means it. “Once you’re in that mood and going down the rabbit hole, you’ll face many scary and weird things that will make you question your own sanity,” he said of the record.
“Ivory” was the lead single and it is the clearest signpost: industrial-leaning riffs, a chorus that opens all the way up, and the kind of electronic detail Biesler has always layered underneath the heavy parts. “I Destroyed You” followed and pushed further toward the dancefloor without losing the low end. Track titles like “Mother Death”, “Purple Snakes” and “White Rainbow” tell you the Wonderland thread runs the length of the album rather than sitting on the sleeve.
This is also a new chapter for the project in the plainest sense, with Biesler steering it since May. Bands rebuilding around a single person is becoming the story of this autumn; Scary Kids Scaring Kids ended their own search and named their lineup last week. Ghostkid have gone the other way, tightening to one vision, and on the evidence of the singles it has sharpened the songs rather than thinned them.
Butcher Babies Bring Nightbloom In On The Same Day
Butcher Babies put Nightbloom out on Friday 2 October through Judge & Jury Records, ten tracks and the most deliberate record they have made. Heidi Shepherd has been open about where it came from: “This new album isn’t about the suffering, it’s about the survival.” Henry Flury framed the sessions as “writing with purpose”, and you can hear that discipline in how little fat there is. It is also the first full album with Shepherd as sole vocalist, alongside Flury, Sean Violet and Dave Nickles.
“Leaving California” is the one to start with. It is slower than people expect from this band, built on a clean guitar figure that never quite resolves, and Shepherd carries the whole vocal arc herself. “Blame It On The Wind” came first and is the heavier counterweight, with a chorus that would work in a room three times the size of the ones they are playing. “Sincerity” has been out since late 2024 and finally has an album around it, while “Black Clouds Over Georgia” sits between the two and is probably the best thing here.
Records like this take a long road to the shelf, and this autumn has been full of them. Hollow Front finally put a name and a date on their own album on Sunday, and Friday now carries both. Butcher Babies have been going since 2010, which makes an album this unguarded at this point in a career genuinely unusual, and worth the pre-order.
Story Of The Year Give See Through Its Video
Story Of The Year have shared a video for “See Through”, one of the standouts from A.R.S.O.N., their seventh album, released back in February on SharpTone Records. Jordan Phoenix directed it, and the band have been cheerfully upfront about the reference point, describing the concept as “making a girl. Actually making a girl. Like Frankenstein, except cuter.” It is a Weird Science homage played completely straight, which is exactly why it works.
Seven months is a long gap between a song and its video, and it says something about how A.R.S.O.N. has kept moving. “See Through” is the track on the record that leans hardest into the band’s early 2000s instincts, the octave-chord verse and the huge unguarded chorus, and giving it a proper visual now is a fair reward for a song that has been quietly growing all year.
They are back out in November with Silverstein on the second leg of Camp Screamo, opening on 16 November in Seattle and closing on 13 December in Boston, with Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore and New York in between. Co-headline bills have been the shape of this autumn, and Bullet For My Valentine built Social Apocalypse the same way last week. Two bands with twenty years each and a crowd that knows every word is a very hard evening to beat.
Jim Root Describes Album Eight From The Inside
A day after Slipknot turned a fortnight of cryptic posters into a nineteen stadium run for 2027, Jim Root spent Monday answering fans in his Instagram comments about what the eighth album actually is. “One very important thing for us at this time is to not repeat ourselves,” he wrote. “It’s gonna hurt some feelings. We’re really experimenting with different approaches.” Then the line people have been passing around all day: do not expect another Iowa or another self-titled, because “we’ve been there”.
The detail underneath that is the interesting part. Matt Wallace is producing, the man who made four Faith No More records, and the band are tracking live on the floor with Eloy Casagrande behind the kit and analogue gear in the chain. Root described the result as “uneasy” and said it “reminds me of recording in the earlier days”. He has been vocal about wanting less polish, and a live room with a drummer of Casagrande’s speed is the most direct way to get it.
It will be the first album on the band’s own (sic)est Records. One note worth keeping straight: “Arsenal”, released earlier this month, is not on it. Sources have not agreed on a release window and the band have not named one, so treat any date you see as a guess. What is confirmed is the approach, and a Slipknot record cut live to tape with a Faith No More producer is about the most interesting sentence anyone has written about this band in a decade.
AURA Fest Fills Its Second Savannah Night
AURA Fest has revealed the bill for its second 2027 date, and it is the kind of lineup this column exists for. Belmont headline District Live in Savannah, Georgia on 13 February, with Silly Goose, I Set My Friends On Fire, Zeta, Babe Haven, Fury In Few, Drook, The Maxines, Candy Truck, Oshiner, Pixel Chix and Speakslow filling the rest of the day. Eleven support slots on a single bill is a serious amount of room given to bands who mostly do not have a booking agent.
The first date, on 23 January, is already set: The Callous Daoboys, Oh Sleeper, Left To Suffer, Great American Ghost, Softspoken, Enox, Wiltwither, Peacemaker FL, Volition Impulse, Corrupted Empire, Nygma and Emersion. Between the two nights that is twenty-four bands in one venue in one city, weighted heavily toward acts still building their first real touring radius, and Savannah is a genuinely good room for it.
Two dates three weeks apart is an unusual shape for a festival, and it works in the bands’ favour. Nobody is competing with a second stage, every set gets the full room, and a February show in Georgia is the kind of date that fills up when the rest of the calendar is empty. If you are making the trip, our guide to festival outfits that survive a full day on your feet covers the practical side.
Featured Artist: Amira Elfeky Breaks A Long Quiet Tomorrow
Amira Elfeky grew up in Simsbury, Connecticut, moved to Los Angeles, and has spent three years building one of the most distinctive voices in this corner of heavy music. Her father is Egyptian, her mother American, and the sound she has landed on pulls Evanescence and Deftones through a layer of gothic pop and shoegaze haze that she and her listeners have taken to calling nu-gaze. Two EPs, Skin to Skin in 2024 and Surrender in 2025, mapped that out.
Tomorrow, Wednesday 30 September, she releases “Breakdown”, her first new song in roughly eighteen months. The announcement arrived with almost no warning, which is very much her method. Expect the thing she does better than most: a verse sung so softly you lean in, and then a chorus that arrives with the guitars already at full height and her voice pushing straight through the middle of them.
She has been working with producer Zakk Cervini since 2024, guested on Architects’ “Judgement Day” and on I Prevail’s “Paradise”, and opened for Bring Me The Horizon in the States. Right now she is on I Prevail’s Violent Nature Tour with Polaris, which runs to the middle of October, so “Breakdown” lands in front of a room that is already warm. If you want the visual side of what she does, our guide to the nu metal aesthetic is the right companion piece.
Looking Ahead: Friday Is Stacked
Wednesday belongs to Amira Elfeky and “Breakdown”. Then Friday 2 October arrives and does not let up. Ghostkid’s Follow The White Rabbit and Butcher Babies’ Nightbloom are the two covered above, and they are landing alongside Imminence’s Axis Mundi on Sumerian, Miss May I’s No Place for Me on Solid State, Of Virtue’s Death Of The Altar on Arising Empire, Escape The Fate’s The Last Goodbye and Dead Poet Society’s Monarch on Spinefarm.
That is seven records in one day across the heavier end of the spectrum, which is a lot of pre-orders competing for the same wallet. If you can only take one, the pick here is Ghostkid, purely because it is the one most likely to sound unlike anything else you own by Saturday. The Contortionist are also worth watching after posting studio footage this week, their first hint of new music since the Our Bones EP in 2019, though no title, label or date has been attached yet.
Beyond that, AURA Fest’s two Savannah nights in January and February are now both fully booked, and the coldrain Japanese run starts in Kawasaki next week. We said last Thursday that this autumn was filling up fast, and a week later it has closed ranks completely. Back here tomorrow with whatever Wednesday brings.
Get Your Band In This Column
We run a featured artist every single day, and the slot is open to anyone. If you are in a band, send us the song, the links and the dates through our Get Featured form. Unsigned is fine, first single is fine, a demo recorded in a bedroom in a town nobody has heard of is very much fine. We read everything that comes in, and the bands we cover get an email with the link so they can share it.
Nu Metal News 29 September 2026, Your Questions
What is on coldrain’s OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE?
It is a twelve track double record released on 25 September 2026 through Century Media. The first five songs are the OPTIMIZE EP from last year and the seven that follow are the new OPTDEMISE half, including “Ex-Humanity”, “Poison” with Bert McCracken and “Savior” with Kenta Koie. The highlight medley shared today covers all seven new tracks.
When does Ghostkid’s Follow The White Rabbit come out?
Friday 2 October 2026 on Century Media. It runs eleven tracks, it is the project’s third album, and Sebastian Biesler built it around Lewis Carroll and the American McGee’s Alice game. “Ivory” and “I Destroyed You” are the singles already out.
Is Nightbloom the first Butcher Babies album with one vocalist?
Yes. Heidi Shepherd has been the sole vocalist since 2024, and Nightbloom is the first full album recorded that way, with Henry Flury on guitar, Sean Violet on bass and Dave Nickles on drums. It arrives on 2 October through Judge and Jury Records.
What did Jim Root say about the next Slipknot album?
Writing in his Instagram comments on Monday 28 September, he said the band are “really experimenting with different approaches” and told fans not to expect another Iowa or self-titled record. Matt Wallace is producing, the band are tracking live with analogue gear, and it will be the first release on their own (sic)est Records. No release date has been announced.
Who is playing AURA Fest 2027 in Savannah?
Two nights at District Live. On 23 January: The Callous Daoboys, Oh Sleeper, Left To Suffer, Great American Ghost, Softspoken, Enox, Wiltwither, Peacemaker FL, Volition Impulse, Corrupted Empire, Nygma and Emersion. On 13 February: Belmont, Silly Goose, I Set My Friends On Fire, Zeta, Babe Haven, Fury In Few, Drook, The Maxines, Candy Truck, Oshiner, Pixel Chix and Speakslow.
- The Nu-Metal Agenda, coldrain celebrate new album with OPTDEMISE highlight medley
- Century Media, OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE release page
- Century Media, Ghostkid Follow The White Rabbit release page
- Butcher Babies, Nightbloom release page
- Chaoszine, Story Of The Year release See Through music video
- Dork, Story Of The Year share See Through video
- Louder, Jim Root on the next Slipknot album
- Lambgoat, Jim Root on the upcoming album
- ThePRP, second 2027 AURA Fest date announced
- Melodic Magazine, Amira Elfeky announces Breakdown
- Lambgoat, The Contortionist tease first new material in seven years
- Metal Collision, new metal releases week 40