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Is BABYMETAL Touring North America In 2026?

Yes — BABYMETAL have officially confirmed a full 2026 North American tour with Halestorm and Violent Vira, alongside a major deluxe album release arriving this summer.

TL;DR

• BABYMETAL announced a full 2026 North American tour on Fox Day
• Halestorm and Violent Vira join across most dates
• Presales begin April 6, general on-sale April 10
• “Metal Forth (Deluxe Edition)” releases June 26, 2026
• The band continues expanding its global reach at a higher level

BABYMETAL didn’t just announce a tour — they stacked timing, lineup, and momentum into one move.

This rollout is built to hit hard immediately.

And it will.

A Tour Designed To Expand Their Reach

Look at the structure and it becomes obvious.

This isn’t a tight, genre-contained run. It’s wide, strategic, and built to pull in multiple audiences at once.

Major amphitheaters across North America, key cities like Toronto, Chicago, and Dallas, and a high-profile San Diego date supporting My Chemical Romance. That crossover slot alone opens the door to a completely different crowd.

Halestorm adds serious weight to the package. They bring a proven fanbase that overlaps but doesn’t completely mirror BABYMETAL’s audience.

Violent Vira brings a newer edge, rounding out the lineup in a way that keeps it current.

That combination isn’t accidental.

Fans looking to attend can find tickets here.

Ticket Rollout Points To Strong Demand

The release plan tells you what they expect.

Artist presale begins April 6 at 10 a.m. local time, followed by additional presales before general on-sale hits April 10.

That layered rollout is typically used when demand is expected to spike quickly.

With this lineup and timing, that expectation makes sense.

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The Deluxe Album Keeps The Momentum Moving

This tour isn’t happening on its own.

BABYMETAL also confirmed “Metal Forth (Deluxe Edition)” arriving June 26, 2026 via Capitol Records.

The deluxe version includes:
• three live recordings
• two remixes of “From Me To U (Feat. Poppy)”
• a zoetrope vinyl design

The original album already delivered:
• No. 9 on the Billboard 200
• first U.S. Top 10 for an all-Japanese fronted group
• over 200 million global streams

This isn’t a minor extension. It builds directly on a release that already pushed them further into the mainstream.

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The Current Lineup Is Fully Locked In

There’s no uncertainty around the band right now.

Momometal officially joined as a full member in 2023 after years rotating in the “Avengers” system. Since then, the group has operated as a stable trio again.

That stability shows up in how confidently they’re moving now.

It’s not something casual listeners notice immediately, but it changes everything behind the scenes.

What This Tour Really Signals

This is the shift.

BABYMETAL aren’t trying to prove anything anymore.

They’ve already:
• broken into the U.S. Top 10
• built a global audience
• crossed genre boundaries successfully

Now it’s about scale and positioning.

Bigger venues, broader reach, stronger tour pairings — all signs of a band operating at a different level than even a few years ago.

Full 2026 North American Dates

August 30 – San Diego, CA (with My Chemical Romance)
September 02 – Denver, CO
September 04 – Chicago, IL
September 05 – Noblesville, IN
September 07 – Toronto, ON
September 09 – Holmdel, NJ
September 10 – Mansfield, MA
September 12 – Bristow, VA
September 13 – Raleigh, NC
September 15 – Charlotte, NC
September 16 – Alpharetta, GA
September 18 – Clarkston, MI
September 19 – Louisville, KY (Louder Than Life)
September 21 – St. Louis, MO
September 23 – Dallas, TX
September 25 – The Woodlands, TX
September 26 – Austin, TX
September 29 – Albuquerque, NM
October 01 – Phoenix, AZ
October 03 – Sacramento, CA (Aftershock Festival)

FAQ

When Do BABYMETAL 2026 Tickets Go On Sale?
Presales begin April 6, with general on-sale starting April 10.

Who Is Touring With BABYMETAL In 2026?
Halestorm and Violent Vira will support across most dates.

When Is The New BABYMETAL Album Coming Out?
“Metal Forth (Deluxe Edition)” releases June 26, 2026.

Is Momometal A Permanent Member Of BABYMETAL?
Yes — she officially became a full member in 2023.

BABYMETAL Bio

BABYMETAL formed in 2010 and built a global following by blending heavy metal with Japanese pop, creating a sound that challenged expectations from the beginning. Fronted by Su-Metal, Moametal, and Momometal, the band has performed alongside major international acts while maintaining a distinct identity rooted in theatrical live shows and genre fusion.

Their breakthrough continued with “Metal Forth,” which became their first U.S. Top 10 album and helped expand their reach beyond traditional metal audiences. More than a decade into their career, BABYMETAL remains one of the most recognizable acts in modern heavy music.

The post BABYMETAL 2026 Tour With Halestorm Announced As Fox Day Reveal Ignites Demand appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Australian progressive rock instrumentalist Plini is back with a brand new album named An Unnameable Desire and it’s coming out on April 24. That’s not a whole lot of time to wait.

Spanning 10 new tracks, his third full-length album continues to show off Plini’s impeccable guitar prowess, bringing a whole new sound to the fore.

“Something I’m very happy about, after many years of making music and the ‘career’ aspect of it becoming a whole lot more serious, is that the process hasn’t changed – still just me sitting in a room, tinkering on a guitar until I come across an interesting idea, and then following it down various rabbit holes until it starts feeling like a song.

“The intention with this album was to let that side of the process be as playful as possible, and then when it came to executing these ideas as finished songs, trying to expand the music in every direction possible: the heavier parts should be heavier, the pretty parts should be prettier, the hard-to-play stuff should be harder to play… and also in being as thoughtful and intricate as possible in relating the songs to each other through various themes and references. I hope it’s as enjoyable to listen to as it was to make!”

In addition to today’s announcement, Plini released the album’s title track as its first single. You can check it out down below, but he’s also got some insight to share about the song:

“I picked this as the first single because it sets the tone/sound of the album without really giving anything away. I’m known as a guitarist, but this song doesn’t even really contain a guitar ‘solo’. Much like the video, it’s the whimsical first chapter of an adventure, and hopefully gives a false sense of security for what’s to come.”

An Unnameable Desire will be released on April 24, but you can preorder your copy now.

Plini also has an European tour starting on April 28 in Warsaw, Poland and will come to an end on May 30 in Nijmegen, Holland. You can find the full list of tour dates below.

An Unnameable Desire Tracklist

1. Dorénavant
2. An Unnameable Desire
3. Ciel
4. Canyon
5. Now & Then
6. Manala
7. Vespertine
8. Ruin
9. After Everything
10. The Time Will Pass Anyway

Plini European Tour Dates

04/28/2026 – Warsaw, Poland @ Niebo
04/29/2026 – Vilnius, Lithuania @ Loftas
04/30/2026 – Riga, Latvia @ Melna Piektdiena
05/01/2026 – Tallinn, Estonia @ Paavli Kulturfabrik
05/02/2026 – Helsinki, Finland @ House of Culture
05/04/2026 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser Strand
05/05/2026 – Oslo, Norway @ Vulkan Arena
05/06/2026 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Pumpehuset
05/07/2026 – Hamburg, Germany @ Gruenspan
05/08/2026 – Berlin, Germany @ Columbia Theater
05/09/2026 – Prague, Czechia @ Palac Akropolis
05/10/2026 – Vienna, Austria @ Szene
05/12/2026 – Treviso, Italy @ New Age
05/13/2026 – Munich, Germany @ Technikum
05/14/2026 – Aarau, Switzerland @ KIFF Saal
05/15/2026 – Monthey, Switzerland @ Pont Rouge
05/16/2026 – Barcelona, Spain @ Salamandra
05/17/2026 – Madrid, Spain @ Mon
05/18/2026 – Toulouse, France @ La Cabane
05/19/2026 – Paris, France @ Trianon
05/21/2026 – Bristol, UK @ Electric
05/22/2026 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
05/23/2026 – Manchester, UK @ Club Academy
05/24/2026 – Birmingham, UK @ Asylum
05/26/2026 – Frankfurt, Germany @ Batschkapp
05/27/2026 – Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg @ Rockhal
05/28/2026 – Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix Club
05/29/2026 – Haarlem, Netherlands @ Patronaat GZ
05/30/2026 – Nijmegen, Netherlands @ Doornroosje

The post Plini Outlines New Album ‘An Unnameable Desire’ appeared first on MetalSucks.

Italian Fur 2026 Peering into paradise through a prism of the past, British progressors assess eternity and present it with music of the spheres. The conceptuality of art-rock must come with the stylistic territory – yet, fortunately, there are performers … Continue reading →

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In 2023, the inaugural edition of Darker Waves, a festival dedicated to new wave nostalgia, came to Huntington Beach, California. New Order and Tears For Fears headlined a single-day bill full of ’80s synthpop greats and their spiritual successors. Our buddy Ryan Leas reviewed the show for Stereogum, and he seemed to have a great time. There hasn’t been another Darker Waves since then. But three years later, the festival is coming back, and it’s got two supremely chill headliners: Morrissey and Smashing Pumpkins. What could possibly go wrong?

The post Darker Waves Festival Returns With Morrissey, Smashing Pumpkins, & More appeared first on Stereogum.

Their swan song will arrive in May.

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Sepultura collaborated with members of Brazilian rock group Titãs – specifically Sérgio Britto and Tony Bellotto.

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• After The Sin
• Cold Union
• Date at Midnight
• Days of Sorrow
• Eat My Teeth
• Kurschatten
• No More
• Soft Scent
• Soror Dolorosa
• This Eternal Decay
• Winter Severity Index

Early Bat tickets are available here.

Follow Dark Decay Festival:

• Facebook

The post Poland’s Dark Decay Festival Launches this June With Selofan, Days of Sorrow, Bragolin, Ductape, Christ Vs Warhol, and More! appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Be honest: what do you expect experimental blackened death metal steeped in Left-Hand-Path Occultism to sound like? Dissonant? Oppressively heavy? Rhythmically complex and meandering? You wouldn’t be entirely wrong—in general, or in the particular case of Ain Sof Aur. Stereotypes exist for a reason. But Theos-Vel-Samael—serves as a vessel not only for a ceremonial invocation of wisdom-bringing darkness,¹ but also the interaction between musical identity and ideology. Our assumptions about the sound and style of heavy music associated with certain fringe spiritualities are a strange mirror of the demonisation heaped upon metal overall in mainstream media from the Satanic Panic onwards, though informed at least through experience and some degree of appreciation rather than ignorance and distaste. These ideas break down when we turn to extreme metal, where Ain Sof Aur and others like them sit: a sphere defined by pushing boundaries of complexity, intensity, and heaviness—itself a natural extension of the wider genre’s core trait of subversion. Theos-Vel-Samael is an extreme metal album expressing mysticisms at least adjacent to Luciferianism, and using any preconceived notion of these ideologies obscures the music’s actuality.

Theos-Vel-Samael prompts me to wax philosophical by its very essence. Its 45-minute runtime is divided into three movements simply labelled “I,” “II,” and “III”—though Ain Sof Aur explain that each respectively embody the progressive stages of the invocation: “vision,” “force,” and “action.” This itself is a kind of stereotype, and one could speculate on whether the steady contraction of song length across the record is saying anything about the significance placed on or effort required in each of “vision,” “force,” and “action”. The way these pieces enact their theme has more in common with a wonky, progressive strain of technical death metal than it does a diabolical, vehemently evil form of black metal; in many ways, it is weirdly reminiscent of Cryptic Shift in a Veilburner kind of setting, by way of Altar of the Horned God. “I” subverted my expectations entirely with its overwhelmingly exuberant tone—albeit in an odd key and time signature for much of the time—and “II” with lengthy passages of almost mellow atmospheric strumming. This isn’t a criticism but rather the point: The literal incantations that comprise the lyrics, and the artists’ say-so, are the tethers to the occult and so the almost Hathian melodeath charges and noodling amidst croaks and roars are to be taken at face value.

The other reason Theos-Vel-Samael causes me to wax philosophical is that it leaves me with strangely little else to say. There is much to appreciate: M.H.S’ gargling roars; L.B.W’s vivacious drum performance; the aforementioned creative approach to marrying discordant malice and melodiousness in such experimental, otherwise malevolent metal; Ain Sof Aur can turn a melodic phrase (“I,” “III”) and dramatic flourish (“II,” “III”). Yet it all feels somehow unfocused, and so less impactful. Moments of sanguinity are somehow bled dry—sometimes through repetition, but largely simply because they fade into the surrounding fluctuations of dissonance and harmony, choppy technical tempos, and the equal minimalism of pared-back stalks and full-speed double-bass (“I” is the worst offender here). “III” is possibly the strongest of the three tracks, arguably because of its superlative brevity² condenses if not excises the detours from what is a solid, decisively unsettling extreme death metal composition. Indeed, taken piecemeal, Theos-Vel-Samael can captivate and swallow (just after “I”‘s midpoint, the minutes just before “II”s, “III”‘s closing act), but as a whole, it functions more as an enjoyably creepy, if hazily remembered, background soundscape.

And yet what is Ain Sof Aur’s objective with Theos-Vel-Samael other than to evoke some esoteric ceremony with their interpretive music? Should the freeform nature of this expression surprise or disappoint? Was I ever going to put one of these songs on a workout playlist? The writing could use some editing to be sure, but the musical elements themselves are stellar—everything from the eerie ambience to the most violent technicality is executed assertively. I enjoy my experience of the rite even if it doesn’t convert me.

To be brief—for the first time in this review—don’t let an intimidating subgenre label, theme, or I, Voidhanger’s reputation colour your feelings about Theos-Vel-Samael. It’s creepy and unusual, but with a firm grip on more familiar death metal stylings. It doesn’t waste (much) time meandering, but it does have room to breathe. You could do far worse when dabbling in the occult.

Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026

The post Ain Sof Aur – Theos-Vel-Samael Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.