From Eddie Trunk to Pennsylvania's Own Trunk: Sludge, Slam, and Doom Dominate This Week's Metal Wire
Leave it to William Shatner to make metal news weird again. The 95-year-old "Star Trek" icon sat down with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation" this week to talk about his upcoming hard rock/heavy metal record, tentatively titled "What The F Is Heavy Metal?" and due sometime in 2027 via Cleopatra Records. Shatner described his approach to covering Metallica's "Enter Sandman" as a "reinterpretation," which is a very diplomatic way of saying he's going to do whatever Shatner does to a song. It's a goofy footnote in the week's metal news cycle, but it's also a reminder that metal's gravitational pull is wide enough to swallow up even a nonagenarian sci-fi legend.
But enough about Eddie Trunk's show — let's talk about Trunk, the actual band. Pennsylvania's own Trunk has been quietly building a name in the state's sludge metal underground, and this week's national headlines give us a good excuse to point the spotlight back home. Sludge has never needed a press cycle to justify its existence — it's a genre built on sheer tonnage, bad vibes, and riffs that move like wet concrete — but when the wider metal world is talking about doom, slam, and heavy underground pressure, it's worth remembering Pennsylvania has been doing that work for years without much fanfare.
Doom Supergroup Autumn Tomb Lands Right in Sludge/Doom's Wheelhouse
Speaking of pressure and atmosphere: members of The Sword and Zombi have teamed up for a new doom metal project called Autumn Tomb, with a debut effort due in November and a first single already streaming. It's exactly the kind of lineage-driven supergroup news that gets doom heads buzzing — The Sword's riff-heavy stoner pedigree meeting Zombi's synth-driven, atmospheric instincts sounds like a combination built for slow-motion devastation.
It's also worth noting that Zombi themselves have Pennsylvania roots, which makes this news a little more relevant to our coverage area than your average doom metal announcement. Pennsylvania's own doom and sludge contingent — bands like Village, Hellrad, Demiurge, Moros, and Eld Fen — have been mining similarly bleak, slow-churning territory for a while now, and Autumn Tomb's arrival is a good reminder that doom's commercial ceiling keeps rising. If a project featuring members of two respected underground institutions can generate this much chatter heading into a November release, there's no reason Pennsylvania's own doom scene shouldn't be getting the same attention. If you're building a 2026 listening list and want to know where the state's best metal bands in this lane are hiding, start digging into that cluster of names.
Slam Band Readies Full-Length Debut — A Good Moment to Talk About PA's Slam Scene
On the brutal end of the spectrum, the aptly named Slam Band — whose members have roots in Filth and other extreme acts — have announced their full-length debut, simply titled "The Album," with twelve songs locked in. There's something almost refreshing about a band this unpretentious about genre identity; when your name is literally Slam Band and your album is literally called The Album, you're not here to overthink the branding. You're here to deliver bottom-heavy breakdowns and pig-squeal vocals, full stop.
Pennsylvania's extreme underground has its own slam and brutal death contingent worth mentioning in the same breath — Epitomectomy and Microgutteral Fluctuation both traffic in the kind of crushing, groove-laden brutality that slam fans live for. Neither band has a specific connection to the Slam Band news, but the timing is a good excuse to remind readers that this corner of the Pennsylvania metal scene exists and deserves a deeper dive. If slam, brutal death, or straight-up heaviness is your thing, the state's underground has plenty to offer beyond the festival headliners.
Bruce Dickinson Teases Maiden Surprises — And PA's NWOTHM Scene Keeps the Flame Alive
Bruce Dickinson told Colombian radio station Radioacktiva this week that Iron Maiden has "a few surprises up our sleeve" for the next couple of years, on top of his own solo touring and recording plans. Dickinson stayed characteristically cagey on specifics, but any hint of movement from one of heavy metal's defining bands is enough to send ripples through the traditional metal and NWOTHM community — a community that, frankly, doesn't get nearly enough coverage relative to its size.
That's a gap worth closing here. Pennsylvania's new wave of traditional heavy metal contingent includes acts like Andrew Scott Corbett, Shadowdance, and Silverblood — bands keeping the dual-guitar-harmony, soaring-vocal tradition alive at a time when national headlines keep reminding us that the genre's forefathers aren't slowing down. If Maiden really does have surprises coming, it's as good a time as any for Pennsylvania metal fans to discover that the NWOTHM torch is burning plenty bright in their own backyard. This is exactly the kind of new metal bands 2026 conversation that deserves more oxygen — the Dickinsons of the world get the headlines, but the next generation of traditional metal songwriters is working the clubs right now.
Fear Factory's Roboticist Single and the Industrial Metal Conversation
Fear Factory's new vocalist Milo Silvestro spoke this week about the band's single "Roboticist," explaining that he deliberately tried to channel original Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell's style and tone. It's a respectful approach to stepping into a legacy band's shoes, and the single — out via Nuclear Blast — marks the first new material from the retooled lineup featuring Silvestro and drummer Pete Webber. Industrial-tinged extreme metal doesn't have a huge footprint in Pennsylvania's indexed scene right now, but it's the kind of mechanized, groove-forward sound that tends to cross-pollinate with the groove metal and progressive metal bands already active in the state, including acts like Clockwork.
Disturbin' The Peace 2027 and What It Means for PA Hardcore
Elsewhere, the 2027 edition of Disturbin' The Peace festival has already locked in a stacked hardcore and crossover bill featuring Madball, Integrity, Cold World, Combust, Division Of Mind, The S.E.T., Iron Mind, and more. It's a reminder that the hardcore-metal crossover circuit remains one of the most durable ecosystems in heavy music, and Pennsylvania has always punched above its weight in that world. Fans who gravitate toward that style locally should keep an eye on Varials, whose beatdown-leaning metalcore sits comfortably alongside bills like this one.
It's also a good moment to mention that festival season planning starts early — Disturbin' The Peace is already locked for 2027, which means Pennsylvania promoters and bands alike should be thinking ahead about their own routing and festival pitches well before next summer rolls around.
The Bigger Picture for Pennsylvania's Scene
None of this week's headlines originated in Pennsylvania, but that's often how it works — the national wire sets the tone, and the real story is how it lands locally. A sludge pun connecting back to an actual Pennsylvania sludge band, a doom supergroup reminding us how deep the state's own doom roster runs, a slam band's debut shining a light on our own brutal underground, and Bruce Dickinson's teased surprises doubling as a nudge to check out the NWOTHM bands keeping that torch lit in clubs from Scranton to Pittsburgh — it all adds up to the same conclusion. The Pennsylvania metal scene doesn't need the spotlight handed to it; it just needs people paying attention.
If your band has news, a new single, or a release that deserves coverage here, don't wait for a national headline to create the opening — submit your band directly. And if you're looking for something loud to do this weekend, check upcoming shows around the state before the calendar fills up for 2026.