Six stories. Friday. No fluff, just the stuff you’ll actually argue about today.
If something moved overnight, this is where it lands: album rollouts, old wounds reopening, side-project weirdness, and one more reminder that Record Store Day still knows how to start a fight.
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Electric Callboy finally put a name and date on the next chapter. Tanzneid is set for August 7, and “Hypercharged” sounds exactly like what this band does when it knows subtlety is a waste of time: giant hooks, party-metal sugar rush, and enough cartoon velocity to keep the crowd moving. After Tekkno, the real question was whether they would play it safe. They didn’t.
Iron Maiden are in, but they are not showing up. Rod Smallwood confirmed the band will miss the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony because the Run For Your Lives schedule has them on the other side of the planet that week. That tracks. Maiden acknowledging the honor without pretending it matters more than the tour feels very Maiden.
BABYMETAL are pushing the deluxe METAL FORTH cycle a little further out of the obvious lane. The new Major Lazer remix of “from me to u” featuring Poppy leans harder into the crossover angle instead of sanding it down. If the point was to make the track feel bigger, weirder, and more festival-ready, mission accomplished.
Chris Poland is not pretending old Megadeth history suddenly got soft around the edges. In a new interview, he said his upcoming book Now Leaving Metalopolis will push back on what he called “total B.S.” from Dave Mustaine over the years, including long-running personal accusations. He also made it clear he is not carrying the grudge like a daily religion, but he is done leaving that part of the story uncontested.
Slipknot fans already knew Look Outside Your Window was never going to behave like a normal Slipknot release, and Clown is still leaning into that. The latest wrinkle is Cristina Scabbia showing up on the record, which makes the whole project feel even further removed from the main band’s blunt-force identity. At this point, the curiosity factor is doing as much work as the music.
One of the uglier stories heading into Record Store Day has nothing to do with flippers or sold-out exclusives. Chicago’s Pinwheel Records said it got sent copies of an unnamed artist’s album it never ordered, then got stuck in what it described as a guerrilla-marketing play. The shop is refusing to sell it outright, which tells you how badly that strategy landed. It is exactly the kind of marketing-brain idea that forgets record stores are still part of the culture, not just another disposable ad channel.
That’s Friday’s stack. For the full archive, hit Past Rundowns.
Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale reflects on the band’s early ‘Christian rock’ label, Polaris add Ryan Neff for their North American run, and Venom drop a new single.
April 13 rundown: Enter Shikari’s surprise LP, Jay Weinberg on Slipknot, ADTR’s cruise lineup, Evanescence’s ‘Sanctuary’ details, and more.
Iron Maiden's LA show gets bumped for a football game, Sabaton reschedule their North American run after a bassist injury, and Stephen Carpenter opens up about
Today’s heavy-music news cycle is packed: new 2026 tour routes, charity moves from arena giants, a major Australian festival cancellation, […]