156/Silence Talk Creative Freedom as Pennsylvania's Mathcore Underground Keeps Punching Up
There's a particular kind of confidence that comes from a band knowing exactly what it is, and Pennsylvania mathcore outfit 156/Silence is radiating it right now. Vocalist Jack Murray sat down with Metal Injection this week to talk about the band's latest record "From a Distance," and one line from the conversation is going to stick with the local scene for a while: "We can do what we want and pull it off." That's not swagger for swagger's sake — it's the kind of statement that only lands when a band has spent years building the technical chops and creative trust to back it up.
156/Silence has carved out a lane in the crowded post-hardcore and metalcore space by refusing to sit still stylistically, leaning into mathcore's jagged time signatures while still writing hooks that stick. The Metal Injection piece also touches on the band sharing stages with childhood heroes, which is the kind of full-circle moment that reminds you why Pennsylvania keeps producing bands that punch above their weight. This is a state that has always rewarded bands willing to get weird with structure and unafraid of dissonance, and 156/Silence fits squarely into that lineage. If you haven't caught them live yet, it's worth checking upcoming shows to see when they're rolling back through the region.
Metalcore's National Stage Keeps Widening — Where Does PA Fit In?
Zoom out and the metalcore and hardcore-adjacent world is having a massive week. Knocked Loose was just revealed as the mystery headliner for the Impact Stage at 2026's Louder Than Life festival, continuing the genre's steady march from basement shows to festival main stages. It's a trend that directly benefits Pennsylvania's heavier hardcore and metalcore export bands, since festival bookers chasing the Knocked Loose energy are increasingly looking at the same regional pipelines that produced acts like If Not For Me. The Berks County-rooted post-hardcore and metalcore crew has been part of that same conversation about heavier, more chaotic songwriting finding room on bigger stages, and it's not hard to imagine a version of Louder Than Life or a similarly scaled festival eventually pulling from the same well 156/Silence draws from.
Meanwhile, Belgium's Graspop Metal Meeting festival footage from Guilt Trip's June set just dropped as an official live video for "Burn," a reminder that the European festival circuit remains a proving ground American heavy bands are increasingly eager to conquer. For Pennsylvania acts building their live reputation, that's the aspirational trajectory: local stages, then regional festivals, then a Graspop or Wacken slot. It's a long climb, but the connective tissue between DIY shows in Philly, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Harrisburg and the biggest stages in Europe has never been more visible than it is right now.
Deathcore's New Guard: Gradience Signs to Metal Blade
Speaking of bands making noise on bigger labels, Gradience just dropped the music video for "Agony" off their Metal Blade Records debut "Anomaly," released last week. It's another data point in the ongoing story of technical, atmosphere-heavy death metal finding real commercial footing again. Pennsylvania's own death metal underground — a scene this site has tracked extensively — has no shortage of bands capable of that same leap given the right push. Acts working in that tech-death and atmospheric death space, from the doom-inflected death metal of Susurrant Void to the technical precision of Sublation, are proof the raw material exists here in abundance. The Gradience signing is a good reminder to labels scouting for the next wave that Pennsylvania's death metal scene isn't just deep — it's underexposed relative to its size.
Thrash Elders Still Setting the Pace
Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian gave a candid interview this week about the impossible task of setlisting a band with a four-decade catalog, ahead of "Cursum Perficio," the band's first new studio album since 2016. His blunt admission — "to make everyone happy with our setlist, it's just never going to happen" — is a sentiment every touring thrash band from the Big Four down to your local bar-show heroes understands instinctively. Pennsylvania's thrash lineage runs deep, and bands like Subdue, Hauntz, and Coffin Dust are carrying that torch at the club level, proving the genre's appetite for aggression and precision hasn't dimmed one bit since Anthrax was cutting its teeth in the early '80s.
On the subject of thrash elders, former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson — now playing with Metal Church — addressed the slightly awkward logistics of sharing a Louder Than Life bill with his old band next week, joking he doesn't mind sticking around to watch Megadeth play even with roughly five hours separating the sets. It's a small, human moment in a genre often defined by feuds and grudges, and it's the kind of story that reminds fans searching "metal concerts near me" this festival season that the scene, for all its intensity, still runs on mutual respect more often than not.
Slipknot, Neurosis, and the Weight of Legacy Acts Still Pushing Forward
Corey Taylor's comments on Slipknot's new single "Arsenal" — calling it "absolutely a pummeling experience" and predicting fans won't believe it's actually the band — signal another heavyweight refusing to coast on nostalgia. That restlessness pairs nicely with news that Neurosis has revealed new tour dates, including an appearance at Converge's Saddest Day Festival, with the Bay Area sludge institution taking over some cities for two nights running. Both stories point to the same underlying truth: the bands that built modern heavy music are still actively reshaping what it can sound like, rather than just replaying their greatest hits.
That same restlessness runs through Lustmord and Dave Lombardo's newly unveiled "The Desolate Shore Part I: Submergence," a genuinely strange and ambient pairing that finds the ex-Slayer drummer working in atmospheric, dark-ambient territory. It's a reminder that even metal's most recognizable session players are still hungry to experiment outside genre lines — something Pennsylvania's own boundary-pushing acts, from black metal outfit Barren Plains to post-metal leaning death-doom act Chasms, understand instinctively.
Forbidden Returns, Tom Morello Teams With Kneecap
Bay Area thrash legends Forbidden dropped the music video for "Burning The Lungs Of Earth," the first taste of their first new album since 2010. It's a genuinely exciting return for thrash purists, and a good moment to note that the genre's revival isn't confined to the West Coast — Pennsylvania's thrash scene, including bands like Armageddon and Deathmass, has been quietly sustaining that same energy at the club level for years without the major-label spotlight.
Elsewhere, Tom Morello teased his new single "Unconquered" with Irish rap group Kneecap, a band he's previously called "the Rage Against The Machine of now." It's a reminder that heavy music's political urgency hasn't gone anywhere, echoing Within Temptation's Sharon den Adel telling Sonic Seducer this week that "the world's gone crazy, and the unimaginable is happening right now again" — sentiments that resonate just as strongly in DIY basements across Pennsylvania as they do on European festival stages.
Where This Leaves Pennsylvania
Between 156/Silence's confident new record, the continued rise of Metal Blade signees like Gradience, and legacy acts like Anthrax and Slipknot refusing to slow down, the throughline is clear: 2026 is shaping up to be a year where boundary-pushing songwriting gets rewarded, whether you're twenty years into a career or twenty shows into one. Pennsylvania's metal scene — from mathcore basements to death metal practice spaces to thrash dive bars — has never lacked for that kind of ambition. If you're in a band trying to be part of that next wave of new metal bands in 2026, or you just want to grab an alement and catch a show, there's no shortage of ways to get plugged in. Check the upcoming shows page, and if your band belongs in this conversation, submit your band — the best metal bands in this state have always come from exactly this kind of grassroots hustle.