Metal Edge Presents
Highlights
5 MUST-SEE BANDS AT SONIC TEMPLE
AMON AMARTH Photo: Dimitry Mak The almighty Viking metal warlords are setting sail for Columbus, Ohio on May 17th, bringing their conquest to the Cathedral Stage at Sonic Temple. Currently storming through the final stretch of the Amonklok tour, the band is arriving battle-hardened — we caught them absolutely destroy Brooklyn Paramount on this same run. Come ready to raise a horn, row the mosh pit, and chant alongside thousands of fellow warriors. ATREYU Photo: Josh Beech The Orange County metalcore veterans have gold records, Top 20 Billboard debuts, and over two decades in the game, and they're showing up to the Citadel Stage Friday with something to say. The End Is Not The End, their tenth album, dropped just weeks ago, and by the band's own account it's their heaviest and most adventurous record yet. Hope they dig into the new record with "Dead," "In The Dark," and our own Song of the Week "Children of the Light," because this is the rare festival slot where the new material is actually the reason to show up early. CASTLE RAT Photo: Dimitry Mak Riley Pinkerton performing as the Rat Queen leads the Brooklyn doom outfit through choreographed battles between life and death every single night, and the crowds have been answering back in character across every stop of the Amonklok tour. We caught them at Brooklyn Paramount on this run and the line to get in was as long as we've ever seen for an opener — everybody wanted to be inside before the first note dropped. Castle Rat hits the Altar Stage first at 1:15 on Sunday, and we have a feeling Columbus is going to look the same. Get there early. KREATOR Photo: Ana Rita Alves Forty-plus years into their career, Mille Petrozza and company are showing up to the Altar Stage on Saturday with their sixteenth album and zero interest in coasting. Krushers of the World dropped in January and has been one of our favorite records of the year — produced by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios, the same pairing behind Phantom Antichrist and Gods of Violence, it sounds enormous. After wrapping a massive European run through 20 countries with Carcass and Exodus, the band took a well-deserved breather before making Sonic Temple only the second stop of their North American dates. They're arriving rested and ready to turn the Altar Stage into a giant circle pit. "Blood of Our Blood" and "Seven Serpents" are at the top of our list. ARCHITECTS Photo: Dimitry mak We caught Architects on the The Sky, The Earth & All Between tour at Terminal 5 last August and left with sore necks. The Brighton metalcore veterans hit their first-ever number one at US Active Rock Radio with "Everything Ends" and the album has moved over 90,000 units — the momentum has been building all year. Now they're back in the States on the Broken Mirror Tour and Sonic Temple is one of the last stops. Sam Carter is one of the most commanding front men in the genre, and the Sanctuary Stage on Saturday is going to be loud. Sonic Temple tickets are 96% sold out. Don't miss it.
LOATHE ANNOUNCE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
Fresh off the announcement of their new album A Stranger to You, Loathe have wasted no time — the Liverpool outfit just dropped a full North American tour bearing the album’s name, and the routing is stacked. The A Stranger to You North America Tour launches September 19 in Royal Oak, MI and runs through October 13 with a closer at San Francisco’s The Masonic. Along the way, the band hits Brooklyn Paramount, Hollywood Palladium, Austin’s Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater, and Atlanta’s Tabernacle, among others. Special guests Fleshwater and Prostitute round out the bill for the full run. Loathe have spent the last few years quietly building one of the most devoted fanbases in modern heavy music, and this tour is a direct reflection of that growth — these are not small rooms. Tickets go on sale May 1st. Full dates below.
FIVE MUST-SEE BANDS AT WELCOME TO ROCKVILLE
1. Lamb of God — Saturday, May 9 Into Oblivion, their March release, is the sound of a band that stopped caring about where heavy metal was trending and just wrote the record they wanted to make. It's their most ferocious output in years, informed by genuine rage: Blythe has been vocal about the album being a direct response to what he sees as the accelerating moral rot of American society — the willing surrender of critical thinking, the normalization of things that should horrify us. After a full North American headline run wrapping just weeks before Daytona, they arrive sharp and angry. The new songs have been landing as hard as the catalog cuts every night — Morton and Adler locked in, Cruz hammering, Blythe at the lip of the stage with nothing left to give. Saturday night, find the pit. 2. Black Veil Brides — Saturday, May 9 The timing here is almost absurdly perfect. Vindicate, BVB's seventh album and their debut on Spinefarm, drops May 8 — their Rockville performance the very next day is essentially a live premiere. Andy Biersack has described this record as the most personally honest writing he's done since his early solo work, built around themes of revenge and vindication as dual forces — the kind that can either push you forward or hollow you out entirely. The pre-release run of singles has been strong across the board, culminating in "Revenger," a track featuring Robb Flynn of Machine Head that signals the album has no interest in playing it safe. Fourteen tracks, full orchestral ambition on the bookends, and a band that's been building toward something for a while now. The album is fourteen tracks of Biersack at his most unguarded, and the Rockville set will be the first time any of it exists outside a studio. The ink is barely dry. Be there when it hits air. 3. In Flames — Thursday, May 7 There's a generation of fans that treats In Flames like furniture — always there, always reliable, easy to overlook. That's a mistake. The Gothenburg melodeath founders don't have peers at this point; they have descendants. Every band that built a career on threading melody through brutality owes something to what Anders Fridén and company were doing in the '90s, and unlike a lot of legacy acts, In Flames still plays with purpose. They've spent the early part of 2026 grinding through Latin America before heading north, arriving in Daytona sharp and road-ready. Fridén still stalks that stage like he has something to settle. Thirty years in, the genre owes them a debt — and they collect it every night. 4. Castle Rat — Thursday, May 7 A 1:15 PM slot on the Inferno Stage might look like a band still working their way up. Spend ten minutes watching Castle Rat and that read evaporates. The Brooklyn outfit — led by frontwoman Riley Pinkerton, who performs in character as "The Rat Queen" — has built one of the most distinctive identities in modern metal: medieval fantasy doom with full theatrical staging, choreographed onstage battles, and riffs rooted deep in vintage Sabbath worship. Their 2025 album The Bestiary landed on year-end lists at Rolling Stone and NPR, and their Kickstarter to fund it raised over $130,000 in under 40 minutes. They've spent 2026 on the road with Amon Amarth and Dethklok. Riley Pinkerton — chainmail, Gibson SG, longsword — calls out to the crowd and they answer back in character. It's the most fun you'll have at a metal festival this year, and it's happening at 1:15 in the afternoon. 5. The Warning — Friday, May 8 The Villarreal sisters — Daniela, Paulina, and Alejandra, three siblings from Monterrey, Mexico — have been quietly building one of the most compelling stories in rock for years, and 2026 is the year everything is clicking. Their March single "Kerosene" is a high-velocity guitar track with a hooky, defiant chorus that goes after copycats and identity thieves with real teeth. Earlier in the year they collaborated with Mexican country star Carín León, showing an artistic range that most rock bands their age aren't attempting. They'll spend much of 2026 opening for Yungblud internationally, with a handful of headline dates including a Pier 17 show in New York this summer. That touring profile means standalone US festival appearances are scarce this year. Three sisters, one stage, no backing tracks, no safety net. Watch Daniela's hands for thirty seconds and you'll understand why people are already calling this the most exciting rock band on the planet.
