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Independent underground label We Are Horror Records has officially announced an extensive series of late-summer UK tour and festival dates. Spearheading the campaign is legendary American heavy metal-infused horror punk veterans The Order of the Fly, who will be crossing the Atlantic to embark on their highly anticipated, first-ever UK run to celebrate their landmark … Continue reading We Are Horror Records announce independent summer tour (The Order of the Fly’s first UK shows!) and festival runs across the UK

Whatever Simon Phillips may do, listening to this drummer’s work is always a pleasure, especially when he’s not merely laying down imaginative grooves but also composes and arranges arresting tunes. And this is exactly what the veteran’s been doing for … Continue reading →

The post Simon Phillips Steers His PROTOCOL Towards Rock ‘n’ Roll appeared first on DMME.net.

Nashville-based atmospheric extreme metal project Conjurist have officially released their debut full-length studio album, I Am the Earth. The expansive new record showcases a unique sonic blueprint that aggressively fuses elements of melodic death metal, post-black metal, blackgaze, doom, and hardcore punk. Masterminded and recorded by multi-instrumentalist Blake Bailey, the project explores heavy themes rooted … Continue reading Conjurist release debut full-length album ‘I Am the Earth’

Punk rock veterans Guttermouth recently wrapped up their Florida run with a stop in Stuart, delivering a high-energy set packed with fan favorites in front of a wild crowd fueled by nonstop energy and plenty of alcohol. The night also featured performances by A New Violet and Billy Doom and the Band of Serpents, who warmed up the audience and set the tone before the headliners took the stage.

Check out the full gallery of the show!

STREAM THE METAL BREAKDOWN DAILY BELOW:

A massive, deeply unsettling ethical war has officially broken out across the rock and heavy metal landscape. At the 2026 Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, tech innovators and legacy music estates pulled back the curtain on a terrifying new frontier: the commercial normalization of “Digital DNA” and interactive AI avatar technology. Tech firms like Hyperreal and Proto Hologram showcased advanced systems capable of capturing a musician’s lifetime of vocal inflections, physical mannerisms, and behavioral patterns, locking them into permanent, autonomous digital puppets.

No longer confined to simple, pre-recorded projection tricks, these AI-driven entities are being explicitly engineered to sign corporate brand partnerships, star in commercials, and hold automated, real-time conversations with fans long after the real artists have left the stage. The rapid corporate push has provoked immediate, widespread fury from a global fanbase that views the technology as a predatory, soul-stripping money grab designed to replace human artistry with corporate code.

From “Pepper’s Ghost” to Post-Mortem Profits: The Road to the Matrix

While the current push to build conversational AI clones feels like a sudden, dystopian leap, the heavy music industry has been aggressively trying to monetize the dead for a decade. The seed for this digital takeover was planted back in August 2016 at Germany’s massive Wacken Open Air festival. In front of 75,000 stunned metalheads, tech startup Eyellusion and manager Wendy Dio debuted a primitive, digitized projection of the late, legendary Ronnie James Dio performing “We Rock” alongside his former bandmates.

That early experiment relied on a centuries-old theatrical illusion known as “Pepper’s Ghost”—essentially bouncing a 2D projection off a specialized, see-through foil screen. The subsequent “Dio Returns” world tours divided the community to its core; while some treated it as a celebratory, fan-funded memorial, a massive portion of the scene blasted it as a macabre, uncanny-valley carnival trick. Yet, despite the early technical glitches and furious critical pushback, tech investors walked away with the ultimate proof-of-concept: dead rock stars could still draw a crowd and open wallets. Ten years later, corporations are no longer utilizing simple light tricks—they are building fully automated, autonomous synthetic human beings.

Check This Out – GENE SIMMONS Says KISS Are Investing 200 Million Dollars To Improve Avatars

The Death of the Roster: How Tech Firms Are “Assetizing” Rock History

The transition from the early Dio projections to modern interactive AI marks a definitive paradigm shift in how record labels and private equity firms view aging rock icons. Instead of letting legendary catalogs rest, major entertainment conglomerates are actively purchasing the “permanent likeness rights” of musicians, transforming human beings into immortal, intellectual property.

The strategy was aggressively fast-tracked following the stadium-level conclusion of the Kiss “End of the Road” campaign, where the band famously unmasked not to retire, but to hand their instruments over to permanent, stylized digital avatars engineered by George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic. Industry insiders reveal that behind closed doors, tech developers are now pitching a “drag-and-drop” template to advertising agencies, allowing corporate brands to seamlessly drop synthetic rock stars into commercials with simple text prompts.

“Technology has come such a long way to where it’s almost drag-and-drop,” tech developers explained to investors during the expo panel presentations. “An artist can exist digitally as themselves for as long as we have computers. You could shoot a template for a commercial, literally prompt what you want the digital clone to do in that advertisement, and you just drop them in. It’s that simple now.”

Also – Are MÖTLEY CRÜE Avatars A Possibility? NIKKI SIXX Thinks So

“A Horrible Slippery Slope”: Fans Fight Back Against the Algorithmic Stage

The immediate fallout across social media networks, underground rock forums, and news aggregates highlights a massive, volatile cultural divide. While corporate executives celebrate these life-sized, high-fidelity interactive touchscreen units as a revolutionary step forward in experiential entertainment, die-hard rock and metal purists are organizing massive boycotts.

The primary source of fan outrage stems from the total destruction of the raw, unpredictable, and dangerous spirit that defined the rock genre. Turning a flesh-and-blood musician into a perfectly sanitized, autonomous marketing asset that speaks via family-curated ChatGPT algorithms completely cheapens the real, often turbulent human lives these artists lived.

Furthermore, the legal and creative boundaries of these contracts remain incredibly murky. While tech CEOs insist that every piece of physical and vocal data is extracted exclusively from authenticated, estate-approved archives with full legal consent, the music community is voicing severe concern over the long-term precedent. If legacy estates can keep dead rock stars working, touring, and selling products for eternity, it systematically suffocates the budget, media visibility, and touring opportunities for the next generation of young, real human bands fighting to survive in an already broken industry.

With multiple hologram tours booked for 2027 and labels aggressively scouting aging musicians to map their digital templates before they pass, heavy music finds itself at an immutable crossroads where the line between preserving history and pure corporate exploitation has been completely erased.

We Recommend – “It’s Not F***ing Lame”: Jack Osbourne Defends A.I. Ozzy as ‘Digital DNA’ Sparks Heated Fan Backlash

FAQ: The AI Rock Avatar & Hologram Controversy

What is “Digital DNA” technology in the music industry?

Digital DNA is a patented technology used by human-computing firms to map a musician’s precise vocal tones, facial expressions, and physical movements from historical archives. This data is fed into conversational AI networks to create an autonomous digital clone capable of holding real-time conversations and performing.

When did rock music first start using posthumous hologram technology?

The trend officially began in August 2016 at the Wacken Open Air festival, where a digital projection of iconic singer Ronnie James Dio was unveiled. Developed by tech firm Eyellusion, the projection went on to front a highly controversial global tour using isolated live vocal tracks.

Why are rock and metal fans boycotting these AI clone projects?

Fans argue that interactive AI avatars exploit the memory of deceased musicians, turn human grief into a permanent corporate revenue stream, and strip away the authentic, raw human imperfections that make rock and heavy metal music meaningful in the first place.

STAY LOUD: Catch the full breakdown of the AI corporate takeover and the latest heavy metal news on the Loaded Radio Daily Podcast with Scott Penfold. Visit LoadedRadio.com or download our free app now.

TL;DR:

The music industry is facing a massive fan revolt following the revelation of advanced “Digital DNA” AI technology at the 2026 Licensing Expo. Tracing its roots back to the highly controversial Ronnie James Dio hologram debut in 2016, tech firms are now partnering with estates to turn iconic rock stars into autonomous digital clones capable of holding live conversations, sparking a fierce ethical battle over corporate greed.

As technology approaches a point where record labels can keep a synthetic rock star working, selling products, and touring for eternity, do you think this helps keep the history of the music alive, or are corporations actively killing the future of rock by replacing real humans with machines?

The post MACHINE MUSIC: Why the Music Industry’s Aggressive New Rush to Build AI “Digital Clones” of Rock Legends is Triggering a Massive Fan Revolt appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Black metal band Azaghal shared fourth and last single, “Elysium”, from their upcoming 13th full-length effort Nekrohelios which will be released this coming Friday.
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Cello metal masters Apocalyptica have announced a string of Latin American shows as part of their ‘Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol.2’ touring run.
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How famous can a musician become and still seem like he isn’t? How much musical precedent must exist — how many artists like you, coming before you — before an artist’s ascent is no longer “unlikely”? These are the questions Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide had me asking. 

The post Noah Kahan’s Not-That-Unlikely Everyman Stardom appeared first on Stereogum.

Brought to us by the excellent 2 Promoters, 1 Pod podcast, tonight’s show promises to be something special. All three bands are exemplary in their own way, and all three are unmissable in their own right. Dimscûa The meteoric rise of Dimscûa is well-deserved. Thrust into the spotlight by the passionate support of 2 Promoters, … Continue reading “We Lost the Sea/Overhead, the Albatross/Dimscûa – Academy 2, Manchester – 24/05/26 (Live Review)”

New York trio Mama Doom are perhaps most notable for their guitar-free retro doom, but as you’ll hear for yourself in the band’s new video for “Woven Linen,” there’s no lack of thunder and heaviness. Fair warning for those viewing said video at work or, I dunno, on an airplane, there is some brief female (topless) nudity and a whole lotta fake blood and gore. The video was created by Gratuitous Productions and features the trio—D.Lolli (vocals/keys), Chuckie Rumbles (bass), Anne Terror (drums)—performing while blindfolded by (presumably) woven linen. Intermingled, are all sorts of bloody, witchy, occultic scenes. Musically the track is a rumbling dollop of tasty retro doom, with Lolli’s soulful, bewitching vocals propelled by the tight punchy rhythm section and brief synth flourishes. “Woven Linen” is the latest single from the band’s upcoming Eminent Womb full-length.

Emminent Womb is set for release in 2026 via Argonauta Records. Check MD’s Bandcamp page for details here.

The band offers this about the song and video:

“’Woven Linen’ confronts the weight of religious oppression and reclaims where true power resides—with the Mother, the source of all life. Bringing this vision to life was a collaborative effort and we were proud to welcome four incredible women into the Gratuitous Productions family. Grave Dave created an amazing set with white witchy masks, a skeletal Saint Barbara, and Homer the stuffed goat, while Anne painstakingly stitched together a blood-soaked visual homage inspired by Suspiria.”

The post Video Premiere: Mama Doom – “Woven Linen” (NSFW) appeared first on Decibel Magazine.