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  • A View From The Back Of The Room: Garbage & Skunk Anansie (Dean Palmer & Matt Bladen)

    Garbage, Skunk Anansie & Du Blonde, Depot Live, Cardiff Castle, 22.06.26


    Matt:

    The first open air gig of the year as part of Depot Live at Cardiff Castle and it’s a 90’s grunge/alt rock feast for Generation Xers, before all that though was the opening act Du Blonde (7), the stage name of British musician Beth Jeans Houghton.

    This was just the right sort of music to kick off the evening as Du Blonde play gritty grungy, punky, pop with confessional lyrics and high energy power rock. Having collaborated with Laura Jane Grace, Ezra Furman and Shirley Manson, there’s no doubt why she was chosen to open the show.

    Dean:

    A great person, I have no idea who, once stated “There are levels to this”, and whilst it’s a quote which has been refused for many scenarios, I can only assume that the real origins of the quote came from somebody who had just seen Skunk Anansie (10) live and had realised that in the live sphere there are virtually none their equals.

    This is a band who have headlined Glastonbury (1998), survived cancer (seriously, look up the story about bassist Cass’ journey and eventual all clear), founded charities, stood up for human rights and been on a 32 year journey and in that time have pretty much mastered the live show.

    Taking the stage as the first of the headliners Skunk Anansie smash through opener This Means War in such an intense manner that you know frontwoman Skin is using this as a declaration of the next 80 minutes, prowling the stage whilst delivering a vocal assault that most singers wish they had the pipes to belt out.

    And for the next hour and change the band deliver over and over, hitting every make musical food group with powerful singalong anthems such as Weak, Shame and Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good), going hard with belters like Yes It’s Fucking Political, Cheers and Charlie Big Potato, and bringing main party vibes with Twisted (Everyday Hurts), I Can Dream and An Artist Is An Artist. During all of which guitarist Ace is tearing through some incredible riffage, Cass is hitting every bass note perfectly and drummer Mark simply doesn’t miss a beat. This is a live band that has everything honed to perfection, but can improvise as a unit with zero hesitation.

    And improvise they have to, as the queen leading the group is not afraid to take the show elsewhere and as such the band have to play around this (and do so, perfectly). Skin is, put simply, an icon and legend of the alternative world. For me there isn’t a single frontperson on this planet who comes even close to the levels of charisma, talent and being as much of a sheer force of nature as her. She crowd surfs for fun, she heads to the middle of the audience to create a female-only mosh pit and she carries her “Skin-cam” around with such style that by the end of the show everybody remembers why this band deserve all their flowers.

    Ending with seminal belter Little Baby Swastika the band exit the stage and the crowd are left to catch their breath. Special.

    As impossible to follow as that is, Garbage (8) grab the reigns after an interval and take on the task in fine style. Bring brutally honest, I’ve seen Garbage many times and whilst some shows have been earth shattering, I’ve come away from equally as many slightly flat and that has always been down to what I can only describe as some very odd setlist choices (except that one time somebody thought it would be a good idea to book them in the concourse of a football stadium, but that’s another story).

    Thankfully tonight is not one of those nights as Shirley Manson takes to the stage on a mission to absolutely lay waste to Cardiff castle with menace in her eyes and a band of musical royalty in the form of Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker (with Veruca Salt’s Nicole Fiorentino on touring bass duties) to give maximum firepower so she can do so.

    Tonight we get a far stronger setlist from the band, with some heavy hitters like Vow, Stupid Girl, I Think I’m Paranoid and Push It being delivered to maximum effect, and keeping the crowd happy whilst they worship at the altar of Shirley.

    There are still a couple of odd choices, such as The Day I Met God closing out the set instead of Only Happy When It Rains (which is played just before, and it is noticeable how many are making an early break for the exit afterwards, instead of staying for the last song) but this doesn’t detract from a phenomenal night in one of the best outdoor venues in the UK.

    Seminal.

  • FESTY-VILLE 5 Set To Rock Lismore This October

    Anyone who has headed to Lismore for Festy-Ville in the past will tell you what a great day it is, so it comes as no surprise to hear that the fifth incarnation of the musical extravaganza is scheduled for the weekend of October 2 through to October 4. To be held at Blah Bar and […]

  • Beartooth Unleash Emotionally Brash New Track ‘Bullshit’

    Beartooth are back with another taste of their upcoming album ‘Pure Ecstasy’, and it is the most rampant and raw offering so far.

    Titled ‘Bullshit’, it is teeming with the sort of aggressive release that such a word feels defined by. A grooving, tension-filled, unashamed look at what it means to be completely done with yourself, a step back into the old way of songwriting that Caleb Shomo became so accustomed and known for in the band’s early history. It’s a shock to the system following the positivity that has defined the band over last couple of years, but a welcome reminder that those difficult feelings don’t just go away.

    Between the caustic catchiness, this is still Caleb using the band to help him make sense of all of this in whatever way he can.

    He has explained things a bit further, adding, ““Bullshit’ is a familiar song I’ve written many times.  I wanted to revisit the musical style that was the catalyst of so much healing and discovery in my earlier years of Beartooth. It’s an exercise in letting the truth out about what you’re sick of in your own life. Sometimes the easiest way to deal with something is to yell about it as loud as you can. Can confirm, it felt as amazing to do this exercise now as I’d did when I was 19.” 

    The band’s new album ‘Pure Ecstasy’ is set for release on August 28 via Fearless Records. It will also feature the previously released title track, which sounds a lot like this:


    The band will be making their way across the UK and Europe in support of the record’s release shortly after it drops. Here are all of the dates you need to know.

    SEPTEMBER

    17 – FRANKFURT Jahrhunderthalle
    18 – OBERHAUSEN Rudolf Weber Arena
    19 – HAMBURG Sporthalle
    21 – BRUSSELS Ancienne Belgique
    22 – TILBURG 13
    24 – PRAGUE SaSaZu
    25 – BERLIN Uber Eats Music Hall
    26 – MUNICH Zenith
    27 – VIENNA Gasometer
    29 – MILAN Fabrique
    30 – ZURICH Halle 622

    OCTOBER

    01 – PARIS Elysee Montmartre (France)
    03 – LONDON O2 Academy Brixton
    05 – LEEDS O2 Academy Leeds
    06 – GLASGOW Barrowland Ballroom

    The post Beartooth Unleash Emotionally Brash New Track ‘Bullshit’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

  • Tygers of Pan Tang Release New Album Electrifyed on 11 September 2026

    The magnificent Tygers of Pan Tang are set to give us a slab of New Wave of British Heavy Metal nirvana with the release of their new album on 11 September 2026 via Mighty Music. It is titled Electrifyed and we are promised that they are returning to a heavier and more aggressive sound while […]

    The post Tygers of Pan Tang Release New Album Electrifyed on 11 September 2026 first appeared on New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

  • Exploring Birdsong – ‘EVERY HOUSE WE BUILT’

    The comedian Nick Revell once performed a show based on the premise of exploring birdsong. It was hilarious, funny enough to remember decades later. The premise was that beneath the beautiful songs were base emotions. If you understood what the songs were about you would be driven mad by the mixture of relationships, territoriality, romance, all the things birds sing about. As such, Exploring Birdsong seems like the ideal name for a band. Because, of course, it’s how birds express themselves; Communication through beauty. That seems like a great way to define their debut album ‘Every House We Built’.

    Discussing the record’s sound is quite difficult without mentioning the idea of genre collapse. Genres are basically categories for discussing music. They’re elastic and difficult to define, especially after the late 90s when the boundaries between genres became increasingly blurred. Once nu-metal hit the mainstream, it became difficult to describe what sound a band was pursuing or separate what a mainstream sound might be. In effect, it can feel like metal despite displaying none of its characteristics. Hence, ‘Every House We Built’ is difficult to classify. Mostly it’s a series of lush soundscapes that border on soft rock, often it’s the kind of ballad you might find on a film soundtrack but occasionally it’s heavy enough to give Sleep Token a run for their money. Sometimes it’s all these things combined. However, it’s always coherent, thoughtfully assembled and, if you allow yourself to be swept along, breathtaking. A good point of comparison is Within Temptation or perhaps Delain (or again, Sleep Token) but because the sound is allowed to shift and evolve you might also find yourself thinking of Tori Amos or even Whitney Houston.

    ‘Archipelago’ gently eases you into their sound, beginning like a gentle wave rushing up the shore and then breaking against the rocks. The sound is rich but uncluttered and deep without being too unfocused. It’s a fantastic opening, kicking the record to life while establishing its beauty and sense of scale. It also gives you a taste of Lynsey Ward’s incredible talents.

    Ward is a member of Espera, the vocal trio famous as Sleep Token’s backing band. Obviously, you don’t get to be part of a vocal trio if you aren’t a great a singer, but her actual talent is writing great vocal parts. However the album is far more than a showcase for her abilities, it’s a rich and affecting journey with just enough dirt under its talons to ensure you don’t wriggle out of its grip.

    The overall sound is based around piano but they’re not afraid of guitars either leading to some surprisingly heavy songs. At its most straightforward ‘42’ is expressed in the form of hard rock and the metal-adjacent ‘You Like It Best When It Hurts’ is built around a chugging guitar sound. ‘Romanticise’ features such a massive breakdown that’s so crushing it threatens to split the song in two. However these statements of power sit comfortably together. Each song is a clear expression of an idea, fleshed-out but also adhering to the rule ‘Less is more’ so they sound lush and lived-in without becoming indistinct. This is further enhanced by the crisp sound mix which gives each instrument its own space and ensures none of the little details get lost.

    The album isn’t shy of slower, more atmospheric songs like ‘Arrhythmia’ and ‘Cartography’ which dwell on the beauty of Ward’s voice and use soft strings enhance her melodies. However, the album’s middle section dips its toes into keyboard-laced power ballads on songs like ‘I _ You’ and ‘Spy In The House Of Love’ allowing her to belt out some big choruses, giving it a slight change of pace and grand sense of momentum. This sets the stage for ‘You Like It Best When It Hurts’ to sweep in, a powerful, arresting apogee.

    As you expect with a debut, there is a certain explorative feel to the album, where ideas push songs like ‘The Warning’ and ‘You Like It Best When It Hurts’ slightly outside the overall shape. It’s a more streamlined version of the ideas they played with on their previous EPs and gives the album a contoured outline but with a clear vision holding it together it’s never enough to break the coherence.

    As the title suggests, ‘Every House We Built’ is a record about looking back and the melancholy found in forgotten structures. It’s an exploration of the choices that leave people as islands. It’s about romance and territory, all those things we mentioned that birds sing about. The lyrics repeatedly refence the difference between ‘houses’ and ‘homes’ and the words are chosen carefully so they capture both a feeling and have mellifluous flow. Notably the opening song  ‘Archipelago’ and closer ‘Meadowlands’ engage with the same ideas and phrasing making the album into a complete story arc.

    If you’re looking for highlights, they include the powerful single ‘You Like It Best When It Hurts’, the dance flavoured ‘Romanticise’ and the incredible ‘Footprints’ which is a slow, thoughtful piece that drifts on soft “Oooo” sounds. However, each song has its own personality and is intoxicating in its own way, be it the gentle drip-drop of the title track or the crushing stampede of ‘The Warning’ it is always making an effort to draw you in and leave you hanging on every moment. It’s the kind of record you find yourself holding your breath through each unfolding chapter, hoping that each will be as good as the last, and it is.

    ‘Every House We Built’ is as achingly beautiful as a nightingale welcoming the morning. It’s a breathtaking debut album. Highly recommended.

    IAN KENWORTHY

  • Ozzy! Geddy Lee! Hair metal! Grab this Paramount+ deal from only $0.99 per month to load up on music docs, alongside South Park, Yellowstone and more

    Juggling subscription services isn’t the most enviable of household tasks. It’s necessary one, though, when streaming libraries grow stale, or when prices rise a little too high for your liking. Then there’s the matter of picking the alternative – a matter that Amazon may have just made a little easier via a very tantalising Prime Day discount – on both sides of the Atlantic.

    Paramount+ subscription (new US members): $0.99 per month for two months
    Paramount+ is one of the younger streaming platforms, but no less intriguing for the programming it offers. It’s a hodge-podge of reality television, prestige limited series, cartoons by the cart-load and so much more – courtesy of containing MTV, SHOWTIME, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr and Smithsonian, plus CBS live programming including the NFL. The full, ad-free shebang is usually $13.99, but Prime Day means you can have two months for less than one dollar.View Deal

    Paramount+ Standard (new UK members): £4 per month for three months
    In the UK, things are a tiny bit different. The programming’s more or less the same (minus access to American sports like the NFL), but the subscription tier system works a little differently. Paramount+ Standard is the mid-weight tier, which offers full HD streaming, dual-device access and the option to download shows for an agreeable £7.99 per month; for Prime Day, you can have three Standard months for just £4 total.View Deal

    That’s right, one of the best TV and film streaming services going is getting the Prime Day treatment. Paramount+ is one of the odder streaming platforms, being that it conglomerates the likes of MTV, Showtime and Comedy Central into a single hub of unpredictable programming. That is to say, there’s something for everyone here – from pratfalls to prestige, from goofball comedy to Geddy Lee-fronted slice-of-life documentaries.

    On both sides of the Atlantic, there’s a Prime Day offer for new members to Paramount+’s Amazon Prime add-on service. You get ad-free access to (and in-app downloading of) a whole host of shows from across the Paramount roster, and in the US you get live access to sporting events like the NFL too.

    On both sides of the Atlantic, Paramount+’s streamable IPs include Star Trek, South Park, every MTV reality show under the sun and prolific showrunner Taylor Sheridan’s various exports, from Yellowstone and its countless spin-offs to Landman (aka “Yellowstone-but-with-oil-and-Billy-Bob-Thornton-instead”). There’s also a handful of engaging music docs, from Ozzy Osbourne’s swan-song Ozzy: No Escape From Now to Nothin’ But A. Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal.

    In the US, this would normally sting you for $13.99 a month. For Prime Day, the first two months are just 99 cents. In the UK, there’s a similar deal but for a slightly different form of subscription; for Paramount+ Standard in the UK, three months are just £4 (down from £7.99 per month).

    For more discounts this week, don’t forget to take a look at all the biggest and best Prime Day deals for music fans. We’re also keeping on top of the best Prime Day turntable deals and we also have piles of Prime Day vinyl deals too.

  • Maunah share “Heimaland,” announce debut album ‘Hjarta’

    The new record is due out September 18 via Prophecy Productions

    Source

  • From underground punk clubs to the world’s biggest stadiums, celebrate the rise and rebirth of emo superstars My Chemical Romance in new gift-laden MCR fan pack, on sale now

    My Chemical Romance are coming back to the UK and Europe next month as part of their acclaimedThe Black Parade 2026 world tour, and to get the MCRmy in the mood for what promises to be a spectacular return, Future Publishing is releasing a new edition of the Ultimate My Chemical Romance Fan Pack.

    Experience the rise and rebirth of My Chemical Romance from punk rock basement shows to sold-out stadiums. in an essential-for-fans bookazine that relives the glory days of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, The Black Parade and Danger Days before looking ahead towards the future for Gerard Way and co.

    ULTIMATE FAN COLLECTION: Dive into the complete My Chemical Romance biography, following their rise from underground heroes to stadium-filling legends. Relive every iconic moment across 20 years of game-changing music!

    MCR bookazine spread

    (Image credit: Future)

    ICONIC WALL ART: Showcase two stunning A2 posters and a frameable art piece that capture the raw energy of MCR’s most memorable eras, from Three Cheers… to Danger Days.

    TREASURED MERCHANDISE: This My Chemical Romance book arrives packed with exclusive photos, behind-the-scenes stories, and rare insights that’ll make any MCR fan’s heart race.

    STYLE YOUR GEAR: Personalise your shirt, hoodie, notebook, laptop, or guitar case with 16 bold stickers featuring the band’s most iconic symbols.

    COLLECTIBLE GIFTS: Share the love with four striking My Chemical Romance postcards showcasing classic MCR moments. These gifts are brilliant for trading with fellow fans.

    My Chemical Romance Fan Pack

    (Image credit: Future)

    Pick up your copy here!

    And check out MCR in the UK and Europe at the following shows.

    Jun 30: Liverpool Anfield Stadium, UK
    Jul 04: Glasgow Bellahouston Park, UK
    Jul 08: London Wembley Stadium, UK
    Jul 10: London Wembley Stadium, UK
    Jul 11: London Wembley Stadium, UK
    Jul 15: Florence Visarno Arena, Italy
    Jul 18: Madrid Iberdrola Music, Spain

  • Crying Steel – Agent Steel Review

    Crying Steel can arguably claim to be one of Italy’s first heavy metal bands, with roots running all the way back to 1982. They didn’t drop their first album until 1987, and it took them until 2007 to release a follow-up, but true steel never rusts. I became aware of them when I reviewed 2018s Stay Steel, and I was entertained by their 80s-centric metal sound. It’s taken them a lot of time to unleash the next beast, but fifth album, Agent Steel, is finally ready to rumble. Since their last outing, well-traveled vocalist Tony Mills (T.N.T., Siam) sadly passed away, and now Tiziano “Hammerhead” Sbaragli assumes mic duties. Guitarist JJ Frati is also absent, so there’s a lot of change in the air at Camp Steel. You know what hasn’t changed? Their love for the color purple and crap-tastical album art, and their commitment to creating hard-rocking 80s metal that sits somewhere between vintage Saxon and Krokus, with a splash of hair metal for bonus flair points. That should make for a spicy metal meatball, right?

    The Crying Steel formula is a simple and time-honored one. Write a few burly riffs and base an anthemic 80s-style metal/hard rock tune around them with over-the-top vocals as the exclamation point. Opener “The Arrival” sets the stage nicely via meaty riffs with Hammerhead soaring over the top like a young Biff Byford with a slight Ripper Owens infection. The man has pipes and an enormous Italian accent, and luckily, he knows how to avoid chronically oversinging and stepping on every moment. It also helps that the band peppers the lyrics with steel this, steel that in true Manowar fashion. As Agent Steel unfolds, you get variations on this theme with a big dose of hard rock undergirding the writing, along with a decent ear for hooks. “You Got the Look”1 is rowdy and pretty silly, and I love how Hammerhead makes the chorus sound like “You got the LUKE!” “Under Cover” sounds like early 80s Saxon with a glossy makeover, “To Remember” is a balls-to-the-walls rocker with relentless Grave Digger-style riffs paired with a hair metal ethos, and “Coming Home” feels heavier and just cooler with added oomph in the riffs/vocals and a memorable chorus to boot.

    The album wraps with Crying Steel trying their hand at a Primal Fear-style Euro-power burner on “No One’s Crying,” and to get the point across, they bring Ralph Scheepers himself in to do guest vocals. It’s the most aggressive song on the album, and Ralph completely steals the show. It makes you wish the band would dial things up like this more often. Not everything works so well, though. ESL mega-disaster “My Heart Steel Rocks” is a hugely awkward attempt at stadium metal that veers close to Manowar-levels of macho self-aggrandization. It’s entertaining but also awful. Another ESL faceplant hits with “Queen of Grinder,” and I don’t know what it’s really about, but it leaves lots of room for hilarious interpretations. The song itself is just okay. At a trim 41 minutes with all tracks in the 3-4 minute frame, the writing is tight, and hooks are plentiful across Agent Steel. It’s an easy listen, even if the overall style can feel very dated, and at times, corny.

    Franco Nipoti and new axe Paolo Nocchi are the lifeblood of the Crying Steel sound, pumping out an endless string of 80s-centric riffs to anchor the songs and keep your head bobbing. I appreciate that they keep enough heft in the guitar sound to give things a decent edge, and they know how to write good leads and shred when needed. They paint with every color of the 80s and induce nostalgia at every turn. Tiziano “Hammerhead” Sbaragli does a fine job rocking a high-pitched nasally delivery that could become really annoying, yet he manages not to grate on the nerves much, and his performance adds an extra jolt of energy to the material. The biggest weapon in the band’s weapon kit is the ability to write memorable retro metal tunes that get by on excess when they can’t with mere nuance. This stuff is just too fun to resist, even when things get a bit too cheese-heavy.

    Agent Steel is another successful journey into the past by a crew of metal lifers who keep going regardless of the scant recognition they receive. I hope Crying Steel are well-regarded back home, because they bring the cheddar surplus while defending the faith in all things olde and metallic. I admire that. Keep those iron tears falling like purple rain, boyos!

    Rating: 3.0/5.0
    DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
    Label: Pride & Joy
    Websites: cryingsteel.com | facebook.com/cryingsteel | instagram.com/cryingsteelband
    Releases Worldwide: June 26th, 2026

    The post Crying Steel – Agent Steel Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

  • 10 nu metal bands who should have been massive

    The nu metal explosion of the late 90s and early 00s was unlike anything heavy music had ever truly experienced before. From its wild array of colourful characters to its near-total invasion of the mainstream, you could barely move for seeing Korn waltzing down an MTV red carpet or Fred Durst hanging around major pop stars. 

    As the New Millennium dawned, nu metal’s big guns were hitting peak form and superstars-in-waiting like Linkin Park, Disturbed and Papa Roach were about to officially announce themselves to the world. And yet, nu metal’s history remains littered with one-hit-wonders, also-rans and promising breakout bands that looked set for stardom, yet never quite got there. In that spirit, here are ten bands from the nu metal era that could have achieved greatness, but either just missed out, were hit by horrendous bad luck or just disappeared altogether.

    Metal Hammer line break

    American Head Charge

    Championed by Slipknot architect Clown – who appeared in their classic Just So You Know video – signed to Rick Rubin’s star-studded American Recordings label and nabbing tour slots opening up for the likes of Rammstein, American Head Charge had the backing and the platform to reach millions of millennial metalheads. Their breakthrough sophomore album, The War Of Art, is rightly heralded as one of the most underrated gems of its era, its gritty melding of nu metal groove and industrial grind still standing up over two decades later. Sadly, lineup turmoil, drug addiction and label squabbles upended their considerable momentum, and by the time follow-up record The Feeding arrived in 2005, the world had moved on. 

    Drowning Pool

    Producing one of metal’s all-time great club night bangers in the irrepressible Bodies, Drowning Pool’s 2001 debut album Sinner marked them out as a band with all the tools to make it big. Their appearance on the 2001 Ozzfest tour – where they were eventually promoted up the bill by Sharon Osbourne – saw their popularity explode, while their patronage by WWE put them in front of millions of viewers (the Dallas mob performed at Wrestlemania in 2002 and even got to release their own version of Triple H’s Motörhead-penned entrance theme, The Game). Of course, tragically, we all know what happened next: frontman Dave Williams was found dead in the band’s tourbus while on another Ozzfest trek in August 2002, and Drowning Pool’s destiny would never be fulfilled. 

    Spineshank

    Having previously been best known for their entertaining but ultimately ill-advised cover of The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps (what was it with nu metal bands covering beloved classics in this era?!), Spineshank properly announced themselves as one of their generation’s most promising young bands with the release of the thoroughly decent The Height Of Callousness in 2000. Released on powerhouse label Roadrunner and packing two absolute worldie singles in New Disease and Synthetic, the stage was seemingly set for great things. While 2003 follow-up Self-Destructive Pattern was a step down, lead single Smothered did bag a Grammy nomination, but the departure of frontman Jonny Santos the following year would spell the end of Spineshank’s push, and they’d all but disappear for the better part of a decade.

    Chimaira

    Perfectly bridging the gap between the nu metal boom and the rise of the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal that followed in its wake, it’s a mystery as to why Chimaira didn’t go supernova. 2003 opus The Impossibility Of Reason positioned the Ohio six-piece near the very top of the mid-00s metal pile, but where the likes of Killswitch Engage and Lamb Of God would graduate into metal’s big leagues, Chimaira just never quite seemed to scale the same heights. In 2014, following a still respectable career, the band officially broke up, reuniting only for a couple of celebratory shows since.

    Static-X

    Having already put themselves on everybody’s radar with 1999’s class Wisconsin Death Trip album, Static-X polished up their nu-industrial sound and dropped the similarly brilliant Machine two years later, right into the middle of a scene utterly besieged by nu metal. The Californians had it all: killer songs, larger-than-life personalities and an instantly iconic frontman in the turbo-haired Wayne Static. Despite all this, while they’d go on to forge a very solid career from thereon in, inner-band politics meant they never quite boarded the hype train in the same way again. Wayne Static would sadly pass away at the age of just 48 in November 2014. His bandmates would pay tribute a few years later by…erm…dressing up Edsel from Dope as an undead Wayne to resume touring. Weird.

    Kittie

    Despite its qualities, nu metal certainly had its downsides, and one of its most glaring was that the scene could be something of a misogynistic wangfest. When Kittie emerged in 2000 with debut album Spit, they felt like a breath of fresh air: an all-female four-piece writing feminism-powered ragers that flew in the face of the self-pitying angst and braggadocios groin-grabbing that had begun to dominate nu metal by that point. Their initial success proved too much for the band’s young members, though, and a combination of lineup troubles and constant battles against an industry not ready for them meant Kittie never managed to scale the heights they seemed set for. 

    Mushroomhead

    In case you haven’t heard it a million times by now: Mushroomhead were doing the mask thing before Slipknot! It’s a shame that their feud with Iowa’s most successful metal export has all but defined their career, because Mushroomhead really did deserve some spotlight of their own accord. 2001’s XX collection – repackaged and reissued by Universal Records towards the end of the year – introduced the band to a whole new, much wider audience, its newly produced video for Solitaire / Unravelling blowing up on music video channels. In 2003, Universal also released the band’s next ‘proper’ album, XIII, and it looked like Mushroomhead might finally hit the big time. While the album did well, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, the eight-piece didn’t quite cross over in a major way, and this was about as big as it got for them. 

    The Union Underground

    Mixing nu metal stomp with splashes of groove and industrial metal, in the space of a couple of years The Union Underground got signed to a major label, put out a well-received debut album in An Education In Rebellion, were hand-picked by Marilyn Manson to join him on tour and even wrote the new theme song for WWE’s flagship weekly show, Monday Night Raw. For whatever reason, though, the Texans just weren’t long for this world, and disbanded before even recording a second album. Strange, given their potential wide appeal and the fact that they were packing an image and style that could have easily survived nu metal’s eventual implosion.

    Snot

    The tragic story of Snot is well-worn, but it doesn’t make it any less of a shame. In the same year that Limp Bizkit arrived on the scene as nu metal’s great young hopefuls, Snot put out a similarly promising debut album in Get Some, mixing influences that incorporated everything from Korn and Pantera to Sublime and Deftones. In Lynn Strait, they also had one of the scene’s most electrifying frontmen, and epic things looked certain for their future. Until, that is, Lynn died in a car accident just a year after the release of the album. The rollcall of special guests on Snot’s 2000 tribute album Strait Up showed just how admired he was: Fred Durst, Corey Taylor, Max Cavalera and Serj Tankian were among them. What could have been.

    Sunk Loto

    In their native Australia, Sunk Loto were signposted for stardom. They signed to Sony Music before they even released their first EP in 1999, then the following year’s debut album, Big Picture Lies, landed at number 30 in the Australian charts. Despite not selling as well, 2003 follow-up Between Birth And Death won producer Paul McKercher an ARIA Music Award (AKA an Australian Grammy) for Engineer Of The Year in 2004. It was also wildly inventive, folding nu metal, post-hardcore and prog music into what’s still an unsung masterpiece. Sadly, behind-the-scenes bullshit and a loss of momentum necessitated Sunk’s breakup in 2007, although they later reunited in 2022.