Nekrogoblikon Turns 20, Slash Gets His Flowers in Hollywood, and Alien Ant Farm Calls Out the Gaslighters
Some weeks the California metal scene hands you a tidy narrative. This week it hands you a goblin king reflecting on two decades of chaos, a guitar legend getting honored a few miles from the Walk of Fame, and a Riverside nu-metal institution dropping a single about toxic relationships right as the genre's back in rotation everywhere. Let's get into it.
Nekrogoblikon Hits 20 and Realizes We're All Too Old for Leo
Few California bands have built an identity as gleefully unhinged as Nekrogoblikon, and this week frontman John Goblikon used his MetalSucks column to mark the band's 20th anniversary with a characteristically chaotic retrospective. The piece, part origin story and part running joke about the band now being too old to pull a Leonardo DiCaprio, is a reminder of how long Nekrogoblikon has been blending comedy metal, melodic death metal, and power metal into something that shouldn't work on paper but absolutely slaps live.
Two decades is a long time for any band to stay together, let alone one built on a bit — goblins, capes, and all. But that longevity says something real about California's underground: the scene has always had room for bands willing to be weird as long as the musicianship backs it up. Nekrogoblikon's melodic death metal chops are no joke even when the lyrics are, and that tension is exactly why the band has outlasted plenty of acts who took themselves far more seriously. If you're building a list of the best metal bands to come out of this state in the 2000s, you cannot leave these guys off it, bit or no bit.
Slash Gets the Les Paul Spirit Award, and Hollywood Remembers Its Guitar Royalty
Monday night, the Les Paul Foundation and Gibson Gives tapped Slash for the 2026 Les Paul Spirit Award during an intimate ceremony at the Les Paul Recording Studio inside Universal Master Recordings in Hollywood. It's a smaller, quieter honor than an arena induction, but arguably a more meaningful one — this is an award about musical stewardship, not just chart success, and it's hard to think of a guitarist more synonymous with the instrument's modern image than Slash.
It's also a reminder that California isn't just where metal bands come to tour through — it's where a huge chunk of the instrument's mythology lives. Hollywood has been handing out guitar hero accolades since the Sunset Strip days, and the thread connecting Slash's Spirit Award to the state's current crop of guitar-driven bands is longer than people give it credit for. Whether you're talking about the shredders keeping the NWOTHM revival alive in garages from Sacramento to San Diego, or the next generation cutting their teeth on 80s metal bands they discovered through their older siblings' vinyl, the lineage runs straight through moments like this one.
Alien Ant Farm Goes After the Gaslighters
Riverside's own Alien Ant Farm dropped a new single and video this week called "Gaslighter," a track that goes straight at liars, manipulators, and toxic relationships without much subtlety — which is exactly the point. The song is the first taste of the band's upcoming album via Judge & Jury Records, and it arrives as the multi-platinum act gears up for a run of shows designed to put the new material in front of audiences who've followed them since the "Smooth Criminal" days and newer fans who discovered them through the ongoing nu-metal resurgence.
It's worth sitting with how much California nu-metal and alt-metal has mattered to the broader genre conversation. Alien Ant Farm never fully left; they've just been quietly putting out records while the internet caught up to how good their songwriting actually is. "Gaslighter" leans into bigger hooks and more direct lyricism than some of their deeper cuts, and if the band's upcoming tour dates bring them through your city, it's worth catching — especially with a new album apparently on the way. Keep an eye on upcoming shows for dates as they land.
A California Producer's Fingerprints on a Roadrunner Signing
Here's a detail that might get buried in the broader hardcore news cycle but shouldn't: Haywire's newly announced signing to Roadrunner Records and their forthcoming LP were produced by Mat from California death metal and grindcore act Citizen. The record was then mixed by Taylor Young, whose own band God's Hate pulled off a surprise Sound & Fury set followed by an out-of-nowhere new EP — the kind of move that keeps that festival's reputation for chaos intact year after year.
This is the part of the metal news cycle that doesn't always get headlines but absolutely should: California's underground isn't just producing bands, it's producing the people behind the boards shaping records for labels like Roadrunner. Mat's production credit is a quiet flex for the scene that birthed Citizen, and it's a good reminder that the death metal and grindcore infrastructure in this state extends well past the stage. If you're trying to map out where the next wave of heavy records is actually being built, start with who's engineering them, not just who's touring behind them.
The Touring Landscape Heading Into 2026
Zoom out a little and the broader metal touring picture for 2026 is starting to take real shape. Darkest Hour's "Suffer Divine" lands October 30 via MNRK Heavy, with the new single "Warrior" showing off the melodic death metal tendencies that have always run through their metalcore foundation — a good sign for anyone hoping the band brings that record out west. Meanwhile Cypress Hill, whose "Dios Bendiga" dropped back in July, just announced a fresh round of "Haunted" shows, proof that the lines between hip-hop, metal, and everything in between keep blurring in exactly the way California audiences have always been comfortable with.
All of this points to a 2026 touring calendar that's going to be packed, and California venues are going to be fighting for routing slots the same way they do every cycle. For fans trying to figure out which metal bands touring 2026 are worth building a travel budget around, the smart move is watching for West Coast-specific announcements rather than assuming a tour will swing through automatically. Regional club bookers and the upcoming shows page are going to be your best friends over the next few months as these cycles firm up.
Where This Leaves the Home Scene
It's easy to get swept up in the bigger names — Slash's award, Alien Ant Farm's new single, Cypress Hill's tour routing — but the real story of the California metal scene has always been what's happening underneath that. Bands like California heavy metal and power metal act Decision are part of a thrash and NWOTHM undercurrent in this state that rarely gets the same press as the bigger reunion tours, but keeps clubs full on a Tuesday night regardless. Nekrogoblikon's two decades of existence proves longevity is possible without compromise. Citizen's studio credit on a Roadrunner signing proves the talent pipeline runs deeper than the stage. And Alien Ant Farm's continued relevance proves that California's nu-metal and alt-metal export from the early 2000s never actually stopped mattering — it just waited for the rest of the world to catch back up.
If there's a throughline connecting the Les Paul Foundation honoring a Hollywood guitar legend and a goblin-themed melodic death metal band celebrating twenty years of existence, it's that California rewards bands and musicians who commit fully to a vision and stick around long enough for people to notice. Whether you're chasing the best metal albums of all time in your record collection or hunting for the next wave of new metal bands 2026 is going to produce, this state keeps delivering both ends of that spectrum without much fuss.
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