Sid Wilson Out at Slipknot, Silvertomb Rises From Type O's Ashes — Florida's Underground Doesn't Blink

Big news out of the nu-metal world doesn't usually make Florida Metal Index's front page, but when a founding member of one of the genre's most influential bands gets the boot, it's worth a moment of reflection — especially for a state that's shipped its fair share of talent into the national metal conversation. Late Friday night, reports broke that Slipknot turntablist Sid Wilson had been fired from the band, with sources telling TMZ he was notified the news wasn't a rumor. Guitarist Jim Root offered a characteristically cryptic response, telling fans

"Don't believe everything you read... Just maybe even wait until there's more information."

Whatever the truth ends up being, the optics are rough: the "original nine" are now down to four, and it's a reminder that even the biggest bands in heavy music are never as stable as the merch table suggests.

Here in Florida, that instability is nothing new to bands grinding it out in VFW halls and DIY basements every weekend. Death metal outfit ASP and thrash unit Ares represent exactly the kind of scene resilience that doesn't depend on major-label drama to keep moving forward — they show up, they play, and they don't need a TMZ headline to validate the work. That's the throughline for this week: while the industry's biggest names deal with lineup chaos and legacy questions, Florida's underground keeps doing what it's always done, quietly building toward whatever new metal bands 2026 ends up looking like.

Silvertomb's Gothic Return Should Have Florida's Doom Crowd Paying Attention

Speaking of legacy — Silvertomb, the project featuring former Type O Negative guitarist/vocalist Kenny Hickey and drummer Johnny Kelly alongside members of Agnostic Front and Sheer Terror, just announced their sophomore album, The Interpretation of Nightmares, along with a music video for the crushing new single "No Way To Live." It's been six years since their 2019 debut, and the wait shows in the density of the new material — heavy, gothic, doom-soaked, and unmistakably indebted to the Brooklyn sound Hickey helped define decades ago.

Florida has never been a gothic metal hotbed the way New York or Europe has, but the state's doom and death-doom scene has quietly built its own answer to that atmosphere. Bands like Daleth and Colossus traffic in the same suffocating heaviness that made Type O Negative a cult phenomenon, while Sumptus Ignis pushes death-doom into more progressive territory. And for anyone craving the widescreen, atmospheric side of that equation, post-metal act Lybica is doing genuinely interesting work in a genre — post-metal — that's criminally under-covered here despite the state having nine active bands in that space. If Silvertomb's new record scratches that gothic-doom itch for you, do yourself a favor and dig into what Florida's doing with the same emotional palette.

Miss May I and the Metalcore Machine Keeps Turning

Ohio's Miss May I dropped the video for "Hand Me A Halo," the latest single off their upcoming album No Place For Me, due October 2 via Solid State Records. It's a gritty, guitar-forward cut that leans harder into the band's aggressive side, and it's a solid reminder that metalcore — despite endless obituaries written for the genre over the last decade — remains commercially and creatively viable heading into 2026.

Florida's metalcore and deathcore scene has never needed convincing on that front. Emporos and Sworn to Decay both blend death metal weight with melodic and deathcore sensibilities in ways that feel current rather than nostalgic, while Contention and Dark Divine keep the post-hardcore-adjacent side of the genre alive locally. Heavier still, Heavy//Hitter and Traitors represent the beatdown and slam-adjacent end of the spectrum that's found a genuine national audience over the past few years. If Solid State's roster is any indication of where the genre's headed, Florida's own crop of bands is arguably already there.

Five Finger Death Punch's Legacy Play

Five Finger Death Punch released the music video for "Nails In The Coffin" from their tenth studio album, Legacy, which dropped digitally on July 31 ahead of physical formats landing September 18. Say what you want about the band's staying power in critical circles — a tenth album from a band this far into a career is a statement in itself, and it's a reminder that mainstream heavy metal, the kind that still fills amphitheaters, isn't going anywhere.

That commercial-facing, riff-first sensibility has real cousins in Florida's own heavy metal and NWOTHM scene, a corner of the state's Florida metal scene that deserves more attention than it typically gets. Alexis Machine channels classic NWOTHM energy with genuine songwriting chops, Hocus Pocus and Thunder both lean into traditional heavy metal and power metal structures, and Dungeon Wolf and Juggernaut round out a scene that's building real momentum without chasing trends. With seven active bands in the NWOTHM/heavy metal category on our index and exactly zero blog posts dedicated to them until now, it's a gap worth closing — consider this the start.

Warped Tour Nostalgia and Florida's Punk-Adjacent Roots

Thrice released professionally-filmed footage from their 2026 Long Beach Vans Warped Tour set, running through ten songs for a crowd clearly still hungry for that early-2000s Warped energy. It's a strange kind of full-circle moment for a festival that shaped an entire generation of hybrid punk/metal/emo acts — plenty of which trace roots back to Florida stages and green rooms.

The state's punk-adjacent lineage runs deep, from Gainesville hardcore royalty like Poison the Well to the pop-punk-and-metalcore crossover of Mayday Parade and Sleeping With Sirens. Laura Jane Grace's folk-punk songwriting still carries that same restless energy decades later, and newer acts like Not Enough Space prove the alt-metal/post-hardcore lane is still producing fresh voices. It's also worth flagging that crust punk — a genre with six active Florida bands in our index and zero coverage so far — shares plenty of DNA with the raw, DIY spirit that made Warped Tour what it was in the first place. If you're one of those bands, this is your sign to reach out.

The Reality Behind the Headlines

MetalSucks' recurring "Net Worthless" column took aim this week at the absurd financial gymnastics touring musicians resort to just to keep gear running — including, in one bit, wrecking a van to upgrade a backline through insurance money. It's satire, obviously, but it's satire that lands because every touring band in Florida's underground has lived some version of it. Broken transmissions, borrowed cabinets, GoFundMes for tour vans — it's the unglamorous engine room behind every one of the bands mentioned above.

That's really the throughline connecting Slipknot's lineup drama, Silvertomb's gothic comeback, and Miss May I's new metalcore single to what's happening on the ground in Florida: the business of metal is chaotic at every level, from arena headliners to unsigned local bands. What doesn't change is the music itself, and the people showing up to make it and hear it live. If you're one of those bands, don't wait for a national headline to validate your work — submit your band to get on our radar, and check upcoming shows to see who's playing near you this month. The scene's not slowing down, no matter what's happening in Slipknot's group chat right now.