I don’t know what’s up with our dear readers around the world, but in this lion’s den, it’s hotter than an unshaven sheep in a bread bakery. It’s hotter than Steel‘s withering gaze every time Dear Hollow gives good reviews to deathcore. It’s hotter than your sexy crush telling you her parents completely approve of you, and that she wants a wholesome marriage and a family. My AC has been broken for over a month now, which means my only companions are sweat, misery, and the promo pit. Consequently, my personal enjoyment of much more wintry (or even fall) black metal has fallen by the wayside, as bands like Coldworld or Panopticon just don’t hit the same way when you spend every night praying for sleep and basting in your own juices. As if a spiritual answer to my cries, new outfit Sunscorched have arrived with a dollop of Old-West-themed, Arizona-originated atmospheric black metal. Needless to say, one glance at that name had me snatching this one up immediately, so saddle up your horses and get ready to circle the wagons as we see just how bad these bloody lands are.
The Blood of the Badlands sound is that of a slightly more straightforward Wayfarer album as produced by Nechochwen. While the compositional approaches lend themselves to comparisons with the seminal American Gothic, the chord progressions are more straightforward, and the production much more raw. The Heart of Akamon has itself all over the actual sound, with full chords which ring out in treble-heavy presentation but never lose themselves in tinny warbles, still sounding thick and full. The drumming of Rory James is well articulated, with good thunk and clang in his kit as he alternates between his fills and rolls, with a lot of fun to be had in his hi-hat and china beats which often evoke the galloping of wagons cascading down the hills. Vocalist Austin Kruger has an excellent bellowing shriek, mixed between the arpeggios and tremolos and containing enough reverb to evoke the mood of long-forgotten souls wandering the hills. Remarkably light on the expected gimmicky instrumentation—beyond the bookending instrumentals, which feature smatterings of acoustic guitars among what sounds like unplugged electric—Sunscorched wield their songwriting skills to suit the mood and atmosphere of the Badlands.
In those songs, Sunscorched manage to paint a vivid aural picture without ever doing anything out of the ordinary. “Vultures that Circle my Grave” transitions into a delightful major chord progression which sounds optimistic in the face of oppression and daily struggle without losing an ounce of its moshability. Highlight “Slaughter at Camp Grant” features a punk-infused main refrain which sounds violent while evoking the vastness of an Old West starry sky, transitioning from rapid-fire melodies to a progression which comes with brute force and necessary antagonism. “The Gallows Tree” features a depressive lead which does most of the talking before the vocals ever kick in. While repetition is a major tool in the box of Sunscorched, the majority of these riffs and melodies justify running themselves back as they emphasize the all-encompassing nature of the violence and exploration of that time period. Every single song comes decorated with a key melodic theme, from the inevitability of “Gallows…” to the full-speed-ahead onslaught of “Slaughter…”, firmly evoking a narrative to the listener which would be just as serviceable were Blood of the Badlands served as an instrumental piece.
There’s only one thing stopping Sunscorched from landing on true greatness in their first outing: Both penultimate track “Thousand Year Drought” and the instrumental title track “Blood of the Badlands” are far too repetitive and self-referential, and it’s genuinely disappointing. In the case of the former, there’s what seems to be a melodic reference1 to the Styx song “Renegade”, with a very familiar tune coded in the main lead, which is dope, but is promptly beaten right into the desert sand. Additionally, the main chugging climax features the exact same root notes as the one found in “Slaughter…”, making it smack of the earlier riff, but somehow more violent and less interesting. Closing track “Blood of the Badlands” is gorgeous, mood-setting, and eerie, but repeats itself an unneeded amount of times without genuinely evolving into anything.
Normally, an album is held down by an overall lack of quality. My saying “these last two songs don’t pass muster” only speaks to the sheer quality of all that comes before, and is by no means a major detraction in the overall experience. Sunscorched have made me ready to join their posse on my first listen, enduring the sweltering radiation and pavement-amplifying heatwaves with their soundtrack of melancholy by my side. Some course corrections on their repetitive habits will have their pistols loaded and ready to strike gold and oil, and I, for one, have gleefully hitched my wagon up to see where we will explore from here.
Rating: 3.5/5.0 DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3 Label: The Bölverk Collective Website: Album Bandcamp Releases Worldwide: August 28th, 2026
TWISTED SISTER returned to the stage Friday night (August 28) at Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, marking the first live performance of the band’s current touring lineup featuring former SKID ROW frontman Sebastian Bach on lead vocals.
The performance is part of a limited series of 2026 shows that sees Bach stepping behind the microphone following Dee Snider’s departure from TWISTED SISTER earlier this year.
Joining Bach in the current lineup are founding guitarist Jay Jay French, longtime guitarist Eddie Ojeda, bassist Russell Pzütto and drummer Joey Cassata.
The show was originally announced under the BENT BROTHER name, a longtime TWISTED SISTER alter ego, before ultimately being promoted as the first live appearance of the Bach-fronted lineup.
The band delivered a 17-song set spanning several eras of its catalog, with a particularly heavy emphasis on the material from TWISTED SISTER’s early years.
The setlist was:
What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)
You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll
We’re Gonna Make It
Shoot ‘Em Down
Tear It Loose
Destroyer
The Kids Are Back
Like A Knife In The Back
Ride To Live, Live To Ride
Under The Blade
The Beast
Burn In Hell
The Price
I Remember You (SKID ROW)
I Wanna Rock
Youth Gone Wild (SKID ROW)
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Bach also performed two SKID ROW classics, “I Remember You” and “Youth Gone Wild,” giving fans a chance to hear the singer revisit some of the material that originally made him a household name in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The pairing of Bach and TWISTED SISTER is hardly random. Bach has been an outspoken fan of the band for decades and has repeatedly talked about the influence TWISTED SISTER had on him during his formative years.
In a recent interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF, Bach explained that he considers himself an especially devoted TWISTED SISTER fan and singled out Under The Blade and You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll as particular favorites.
Bach also emphasized that he intends to bring the aggressive energy of TWISTED SISTER’s early club days to the stage.
“When they were a club band, they would come out there like a punk rock band or a total thrash metal band,” Bach said. “That’s the kind of energy that I’m gonna bring.”
He added: “I’m the lead singer of TWISTED SISTER. How much fun is that to say?”
For Bach, the opportunity is clearly something considerably more personal than simply filling a vacant microphone position. He has repeatedly described himself as a genuine fan of the band and has said that he received Snider’s blessing before taking on the role.
Snider’s departure came after TWISTED SISTER’s planned 50th-anniversary world tour was cancelled earlier this year. Snider cited health challenges, including degenerative arthritis, as a major factor in his decision to step away from performing with the band. He has subsequently made it clear that he supports Bach taking over for the scheduled shows.
That leaves one obvious question hanging over the future of TWISTED SISTER:
What happens after the Bach shows are over?
At this point, there is no indication that Bach is permanently replacing Snider or that TWISTED SISTER has officially established a new long-term lineup. The current arrangement has been presented as a series of select 2026 performances, and the band’s official website continues to promote the dates specifically as TWISTED SISTER featuring Sebastian Bach on lead vocals.
Whether Snider ever returns to the stage with TWISTED SISTER remains an open question.
For now, however, Bach has the microphone, and Friday night’s performance marked the first time audiences got to hear exactly what that combination sounds like in a full TWISTED SISTER concert.
And judging by the setlist, the band wasn’t simply trotting out the greatest hits.
Songs like “Shoot ‘Em Down,” “Tear It Loose,” “Destroyer,” “Under The Blade” and “The Beast” suggest that this version of TWISTED SISTER is leaning heavily into the band’s rawer, heavier material, something Bach has specifically expressed excitement about.
The band has additional performances scheduled throughout the remainder of 2026.
For the moment, the experiment is officially underway.
Whether Sebastian Bach is simply the voice of TWISTED SISTER for this particular chapter, or whether this turns into something more permanent, remains to be seen.
But there’s no denying that hearing the former SKID ROW frontman step onstage and scream “We’re Not Gonna Take It” with Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda is one hell of a sight for metal fans.
Last year, Miguel released his fifth album, Caos. On Friday (Aug. 28), the R&B star took to social media to call out the “racism, harassment, stalking, invasions of privacy, and false allegations” his family has been facing following the announcement of his partner Margaret Zhang’s pregnancy with their second child.
Fear Factory have released “Roboticist” via Nuclear Blast — their first new music since 2021, and the first Fear Factory song in the band’s 35-year history not sung by Burton C. Bell. It’s also the recorded debut of vocalist Milo Silvestro, who joined in February 2023 and has spent three and a half years singing the back catalogue on stage without ever setting foot in the studio. That wait was deliberate, and Dino Cazares has explained exactly why.
This is the part that separates this from every other new-singer story, and it’s the reason “Roboticist” arrives with the weight it does.
Silvestro’s addition was announced in February 2023. He played his first headline show with the band that May at the Whisky A Go Go. Since then, Fear Factory have toured constantly — and played nothing but the back catalogue.
Cazares has been candid about it. He’d said publicly that he was going to release a single with Silvestro’s vocals, then pulled back, thinking Milo needed to develop a bit more first. His reasoning: they knew he could jump in seamlessly and sing Burton’s parts live, but creatively they still needed to work that out together.
So they took their time. Three and a half years of a new vocalist just living inside the material before being asked to add to it.
That is a genuinely unusual amount of patience. The industry standard is to get the new singer into a studio within months to prove the transition worked, and it’s why so many of those transitions sound tentative. Fear Factory did the opposite — let the guy tour the catalogue until it was in his bones, then wrote with him.
Cazares’ own verdict on the result: they wanted to make sure the release would be seriously good, and it is.
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The song is older than the vocal
Here’s a detail nobody else covering this today is going to mention.
“Roboticist” already existed. An early instrumental version was released back in 2023 to promote Toneforge Disruptor, a virtual guitar rig plugin and standalone app.
So the music predates Silvestro’s recorded debut by three years — it was a demo doing marketing duty for a piece of guitar software before it was ever a Fear Factory single.
Cazares says the arrangement changed for the better on the way, and specified how: the section that was originally the ending of the song is now the middle.
For a band whose entire thematic universe is about machines, there’s something quite fitting about their comeback single starting life as a plugin demo.
What Cazares says about the “replica” criticism
The obvious charge against Silvestro is that he was hired because he sounds like Burton C. Bell. Cazares doesn’t dodge it. He agrees with it.
His account: he wasn’t instantly sure, but he was drawn to the way Silvestro sang and the fact he sounded like what Fear Factory fans expect the vocalist to sound like. People say he’s a replica — and yes, definitely, because that’s how the songs were written, that’s how they were sung, and that’s the tone.
Silvestro was already a serious fan. Fear Factory are in his top five bands. He knew which effects Bell used and understood his technique for creating those tones. When Cazares first saw his video, his reaction was that the kid sounded just like him.
Then the honest bit: some people complain he sounds too much like Bell. But if he didn’t sound like Bell, the same people would say it doesn’t sound like Fear Factory. You can’t win either way, so Cazares went with what fit the sound they were after. His line — if you close your eyes at a show, it sounds exactly the same. That’s what they were going for.
He’s also clear that the album is different. Silvestro has his own style showing on the record, and Cazares insists he’s not just a replacement for the last singer — he has his own niche.
Whether that lands is a question for the album. But as a public position it’s far more honest than the usual “he brings his own energy” boilerplate.
A band whose thesis came true
Here’s what makes Fear Factory genuinely interesting in 2026 rather than just another legacy act with a new singer.
They have been writing about artificial intelligence since 1992. Soul Of A New Machine was the birth of the concept. Demanufacture pushed it. Obsolete, in 1998, predicted humans being replaced by automatons — and Cazares points out they weren’t only talking about labour. They were talking about jobs disappearing, digital formats replacing physical ones, and radio stations getting rid of DJs in favour of digital programming.
That was twenty-eight years ago. All of it happened.
The new album continues the story: all that’s left of humanity is fragments, fighting against extinction.
And Cazares’ position on AI itself is more nuanced than most people in heavy music manage. His argument, roughly: plenty of people complain about AI, but the only way to genuinely avoid it is to get rid of every electronic device and live off the grid, because it’s in every app, every algorithm, everything we do online. There’s no escaping it, so you adapt.
He’s specific about the band’s own use, too. They used no AI whatsoever for writing or for the music. But it’s built into Logic Pro and Pro Tools — it’s in the software’s algorithms, so it’s a tool in the recording process whether you like it or not. Their remix record Recoded opened with a line that says it all: adapt or die.
That’s a considerably more useful contribution to the argument than most, and it lands the same week Spotify began labelling AI-generated artists — a debate Fear Factory have effectively been having with themselves since before most of the participants were born.
What “Roboticist” actually is
The track premiered on SiriusXM Liquid Metal and blends mechanical aggression with a melodic hook, with lyrics set in a dystopia where flesh fails and only consciousness survives.
Cazares’ description of the subject: it’s about the roboticist himself — the person who makes them. He calls him the architect of the artificial, building machines to outlast the flesh.
It was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Damien Rainaud, who has worked with the band since 2012’s The Industrialist. The video was directed by Vincente Cordero and produced by Arion Csihar.
His pitch for the record: new, brutal, heavy, melodic, with beautiful moments. Everything that makes a Fear Factory album, but going somewhere newer and more modern than Obsolete or Demanufacture — and a bit forward-thinking with it.
On whether he’s worried how the fanbase takes it, he’s blunt: as long as you believe in what you’re doing and love it completely, it doesn’t matter what anybody says.
Worth noting, because the supporting cast is strong.
Rhys Fulber — the Front Line Assembly man who produced or contributed to some of Fear Factory’s most important work — handled some of the keyboards.
Ricky Bonazza, the band’s fill-in bassist when Tony Campos is out with Static-X, contributed programming, arrangements and lyrics. Bonazza also plays bass in Butcher Babies, whose own album lands in October — a small piece of connective tissue between two records nobody’s linking.
The touring lineup is Cazares on guitar, Silvestro on vocals, Pete Webber on drums and Campos on bass when Static-X aren’t out. Webber comes from a thrash background and saw Fear Factory live at fourteen or fifteen; Cazares says stepping in was seamless.
Where they’re playing
“Roboticist” arrives the same day the Cybernetic Domination European tour opens — August 29 in Poznań, Poland, running through to October 10 in London, with Crystal Lake, Hate and The Nocturnal Affair supporting.
Crystal Lake are worth arriving early for: they’ve just named PK of Prompts as their permanent frontman after a turbulent year, and this run is his first proper outing with the band.
A US leg follows in November with Darkest Hour and Brotality, kicking off straight after a co-headline run with Mushroomhead. If you’re planning the rest of the year, our 2026 touring guide has the wider picture.
Bell announced his departure in September 2020, saying he could not align himself with someone he neither trusted nor respected. He later told Kerrang! that the split had been coming for a while, and that the lawsuits over the rights to the Fear Factory name had drained him — citing the egos and the greed, from bandmembers and attorneys alike, and saying he simply lost his love for it.
Aggression Continuum, the final album with his vocals, arrived in June 2021 via Nuclear Blast despite having been recorded primarily in 2017.
Whatever you make of how it ended, the machine is running again.
TL;DR
What’s out: “Roboticist,” released August 29, 2026 via Nuclear Blast — Fear Factory’s first new music since 2021 and the first ever without Burton C. Bell.
The debut: it’s the recorded debut of vocalist Milo Silvestro and drummer Pete Webber, both of whom joined the touring lineup in early 2023.
The wait: Dino Cazares deliberately delayed a single so Silvestro could develop, saying they knew he could sing Bell’s parts live but needed time to work out the creative side together.
The song’s history: an early instrumental version of “Roboticist” was released in 2023 to promote the Toneforge Disruptor guitar plugin. The original ending is now the middle section.
On the “replica” criticism: Cazares agrees Silvestro was chosen to sound like Bell, and argues that if he didn’t, fans would say it doesn’t sound like Fear Factory.
The album: no date announced. Produced by Damien Rainaud, with Rhys Fulber on keys and Ricky Bonazza contributing programming, arrangements and lyrics. The concept: humanity reduced to fragments, fighting extinction.
Live: the Cybernetic Domination European tour opens August 29 in Poznań with Crystal Lake, Hate and The Nocturnal Affair, followed by a US leg in November.
FAQ
Who is Fear Factory’s new singer?
Milo Silvestro, whose addition was announced in February 2023. He played his first headline show with the band in May 2023 and has toured the back catalogue with them for over three years. “Roboticist,” released August 29, 2026, is his first recorded appearance with Fear Factory.
Is “Roboticist” from a new Fear Factory album?
Yes. Dino Cazares has confirmed the track will appear on the band’s next studio album, though no title or release date has been announced. The record was produced by Damien Rainaud and features contributions from Rhys Fulber on keyboards and Ricky Bonazza on programming, arrangements and lyrics.
What is “Roboticist” about?
Dino Cazares has described it as being about the roboticist himself — the person who builds the machines, whom he calls the architect of the artificial, constructing machines to outlast the flesh. The lyrics depict a dystopia in which the body fails and only consciousness endures.
Why did Burton C. Bell leave Fear Factory?
Bell announced his departure in September 2020, stating he could not align himself with someone he did not trust or respect. He later told Kerrang! that lengthy lawsuits over the rights to the Fear Factory name had drained him, citing egos and greed among both bandmembers and attorneys, and that he had lost his love for it.
Does Fear Factory use AI in their music?
Dino Cazares has said the band used no AI whatsoever for writing or composing. He notes that AI is built into recording software such as Logic Pro and Pro Tools, so it functions as a tool during the recording process by default, but that it played no part in the songwriting.
Thirty-four years of warning us about the machines, and a singer who waited three and a half years for permission to speak. What do you make of the new era? Tell us below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
Last year, Sam Smith did a 24-show residency at Brooklyn’s small Warsaw. The singer used the opportunity to cover Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers’ 1987 song “It Will All Work Out” and discuss their copyright dispute with the classic rock icon, revealing that Petty had written them a letter at the time. Smith elaborated on the story in a recent episode of Alchemy With Anthony Mason.
Conquest Music [Release date : 03.07.26] The Ugly Guys 9rd album ‘Highway Shoes’ is everything you would want from a good country rock album, and more! It’s a perfectly balanced showcase of their own song craft, tempered by well chosen … Continue reading →
AJ Rebollo has stepped down from Bad Wolves. In a lengthy statement issued Friday evening, the guitarist said he could no longer in good faith co-sign decisions being made for the band by their label — and named the specific one that ended it: Better Noise moving ahead with the release of a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” days after her death, despite the band telling them they didn’t want it out. His words: they blatantly expressed their opposition, and the label posted that it was coming anyway.
The sequence is short and it all took place inside twelve hours.
Bad Wolves had recorded a cover of “Jolene” and were waiting on Dolly Parton herself to lay down a guest vocal. She died this week, which made that impossible.
On Friday morning, the band announced the cover was coming out anyway, with proceeds going to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library — her book-gifting foundation. Founder John Boecklin fronted that announcement in a press release.
By Friday evening, Rebollo was gone.
His account is that the decision came from the label rather than the band. He says they told Better Noise, as a group, that they had no interest in releasing the cover once Parton’s collaboration was off the table, because they felt it would understandably be read from the outside as capitalising on her death. More than one member pushed back. The label announced it regardless.
His phrasing on the outcome is the line that will travel: while donating to the Imagination Library is an incredible thing to do with the profits, he can’t help feeling there’s ill intent behind the decision to release the song.
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Why this is more complicated than it looks
Here’s the part nobody else covering this is going to lead with, and it reframes everything.
Bad Wolves’ entire career exists because of this exact scenario.
In 2018 the band recorded a cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.” It was scheduled to feature guest vocals from Dolores O’Riordan. She died before she could track her parts. The band released the cover shortly after her death, and donated roughly $250,000 in profits to her family.
It went multi-platinum. It made them. It is, without much argument, the single reason most people know who Bad Wolves are.
So when Better Noise looked at a Dolly Parton cover with an unrecorded guest vocal and a recently deceased icon, they were looking at a template that had already worked once — spectacularly.
And the band said no.
That’s what makes this genuinely interesting rather than just another lineup change. These are the people who lived through that scenario, benefited enormously from it, and have now decided they don’t want to do it again. Whatever you think of the decision, it isn’t naive. They know precisely what the upside would be.
Rebollo has walked away from his job rather than be part of it.
What Rebollo actually said
Worth reading properly, because his statement is far more measured than the headline suggests.
He opens by saying he can no longer in good faith remain a member and co-sign decisions constantly being made for the band by the label, among other issues with the inner workings of the business. He’d been at odds with too many of those decisions for some time — the Parton cover was the final nail.
Then the section that explains why this got to him. He describes the amount of hate, negativity and harassment the band receives daily, over decisions made outside their control, as having taken a massive toll on their sanity. Anyone who watched what happened to Bad Wolves this week over the Skillet tour will recognise that this isn’t hypothetical.
He draws a comparison to his previous band, Issues, where he says the label cared about them not just as musicians but as people — trusted their vision, never pushed anything on them, and behaved like team members rather than bosses. That’s the dynamic he’s been trying to establish at Bad Wolves.
And crucially, he doesn’t burn the building down on the way out. He acknowledges there are undeniably incredible people at Better Noise. He thanks the label and John Boecklin specifically for helping him sustain a living while off the road, and says that level of care is not lost on him. He states plainly that this isn’t a call to arms and that he wishes no ill will on anyone involved.
He also says he loves every member, old and new, and that the album they’ve just made together is a genuinely incredible piece of art.
The last part is the one that lands hardest. He calls stepping away absolutely terrifying, says he’s sacrificing what little stability he has left in the music world, and admits he doesn’t know what the future holds.
That’s not a man posturing. That’s a man quitting a job he needs.
Better Noise have not responded. As of publication there’s been no statement from the label addressing Rebollo’s account of how the decision was made.
The rest of Bad Wolves haven’t commented either. Boecklin’s morning press release framed the release as a tribute with charitable proceeds and made no reference to internal disagreement — which, if Rebollo’s version is accurate, is a fairly significant omission.
And former vocalist Tommy Vext, whose 2021 exit was followed by a lengthy public feud and legal battle, weighed in on social media with a short jab suggesting that maybe he wasn’t the problem after all. Make of that what you like — nothing in Rebollo’s statement addresses Vext or his departure.
Some context for how much has landed on this band inside a fortnight.
August 18: Bad Wolves are announced on Skillet’s autumn US tour with Escape The Fate. August 25: They’re removed from it. Vocalist Sara “KILLBOY” Skinner says publicly that Skillet’s fanbase investigated her background and the band came off the bill, and that only one of the two conclusions those fans reached is true — declining to say which. August 28, morning: The label announces the “Jolene” cover is coming. August 28, evening: Rebollo quits.
The current lineup was already the product of substantial turnover — Skinner is the band’s third vocalist after Vext and Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz, and Rebollo himself only joined in 2023, initially as a touring member.
They also have a new album finished. Rebollo says he loved making it and rates it highly. He just won’t be in the band when it comes out.
What happened: guitarist AJ Rebollo stepped down from Bad Wolves on August 28, 2026, in a statement posted that evening.
Why: he says Better Noise decided to release the band’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” after her death despite the members telling the label they opposed it, feeling it would be read as capitalising on her passing.
The context: Parton had been due to guest on the cover. Her death made that impossible. The release will benefit the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
The precedent: Bad Wolves’ breakout hit was a cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” which Dolores O’Riordan was set to guest on before her death in 2018. The band released it anyway and donated around $250,000 to her family.
His tone: measured. He thanks the label and founder John Boecklin, calls people at Better Noise incredible, and says he wishes no ill will on anyone.
What’s unsaid: Better Noise have not responded, and the rest of the band have not commented.
FAQ
Why did AJ Rebollo leave Bad Wolves?
He said he could no longer in good faith co-sign decisions being made for the band by their label. The specific trigger was Better Noise proceeding with the release of the band’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” following her death, which Rebollo says the members opposed because they felt it would be perceived as capitalising on her passing. He also cited ongoing harassment directed at the band over decisions made outside their control.
Is Bad Wolves releasing a Dolly Parton cover?
Yes. The band announced on August 28, 2026 that their cover of “Jolene” will be released, with proceeds benefiting the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. Parton had originally been set to guest on the track before her death this week.
Did Bad Wolves do this with The Cranberries too?
In a sense. Their 2018 cover of “Zombie” was scheduled to feature guest vocals from Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan, who died before recording her parts. The band released the cover after her death and donated approximately $250,000 in profits to her family. It became their biggest and most commercially successful song.
Has Better Noise Music responded?
No. As of publication the label has not issued any statement addressing Rebollo’s account of how the decision to release the cover was made. The remaining members of Bad Wolves have also not commented.
Who is in Bad Wolves now?
Following Rebollo’s departure, the band comprises founder and drummer John Boecklin and vocalist Sara “KILLBOY” Skinner. Rebollo joined in 2023, initially as a touring member. Skinner is the band’s third vocalist, following founding singer Tommy Vext and Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz.
A band who built a career on exactly this scenario, refusing to do it again — and a guitarist walking away rather than be part of it. Where do you land on it? Tell us below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
I don’t know what’s up with our dear readers around the world, but in this lion’s den, it’s hotter than an unshaven sheep in a bread bakery. It’s hotter than Steel‘s withering gaze every time Dear Hollow gives good reviews to deathcore. It’s hotter than your sexy crush telling you her parents completely approve of you, and that she wants a wholesome marriage and a family. My AC has been broken for over a month now, which means my only companions are sweat, misery, and the promo pit. Consequently, my personal enjoyment of much more wintry (or even fall) black metal has fallen by the wayside, as bands like Coldworld or Panopticon just don’t hit the same way when you spend every night praying for sleep and basting in your own juices. As if a spiritual answer to my cries, new outfit Sunscorched have arrived with a dollop of Old-West-themed, Arizona-originated atmospheric black metal. Needless to say, one glance at that name had me snatching this one up immediately, so saddle up your horses and get ready to circle the wagons as we see just how bad these bloody lands are. 
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