Wes Borland Says Limp Bizkit Is Having Fun Again — And Florida's Underground Should Take Notes
There's a particular kind of vindication that comes when the band your hometown spent two decades either loudly defending or quietly disowning suddenly becomes cool again. That's the moment Limp Bizkit finds itself in right now, and guitarist Wes Borland isn't shy about naming what's changed. Talking to Metal Injection this week, Borland pointed to something simple as the reason behind the Jacksonville band's late-career renaissance: they're actually enjoying themselves. "I think people can tell we're maybe finally having fun with it," he said, adding that the same couldn't be said for the band's early, career-defining years. It's a small quote, but it says a lot about where nu metal sits culturally in 2026 — no longer a punchline, but a genre being reclaimed by the same generation that once mocked it, and Florida gets to claim originators.
Limp Bizkit's second act matters for the Florida metal scene beyond nostalgia. When a band from this state headlines festivals again on the strength of songs written thirty years ago, it reframes how younger heavy bands here think about longevity. Nu metal was never just a commercial moment — it was Florida musicians translating the same aggression that built the state's death metal reputation into something that could fill arenas. Borland's comments about "having fun" also land differently for a scene that's currently full of bands grinding through DIY tours, self-releasing records, and playing to forty people on a Tuesday. Fun isn't guaranteed. It's earned, and apparently it took Limp Bizkit two and a half decades to get there.
Accept's 50-Year Victory Lap and What It Means for Florida's Thrash Lifers
Meanwhile, on the other end of the heavy metal timeline, German/American legends Accept are celebrating their own half-century with "Teutonic Titans 1976–2026," a career-spanning release that includes a re-recorded version of "Save Us" featuring Ghost's Tobias Forge, Anthrax's Frank Bello, and Korn drummer Ray Luzier. It's the kind of all-star cross-generational metal moment that reminds you how small and interconnected this genre actually is — a Swedish theatrical frontman, an American thrash bassist, and a nu-metal-adjacent drummer all showing up for a band that's been riffing since disco was still charting.
That kind of legacy-building is worth thinking about locally, too. Florida has its own lineage of riff-first, no-frills metal that doesn't always get the historical due it deserves outside of the death metal conversation. Tampa's Ares and Entropy are still out there carrying the thrash torch in a scene that's often more associated with tremolo-picked death metal than the crossover thrash that fed into it. Accept's 50th anniversary is a reminder that thrash bands with staying power get to have these moments — the all-star tributes, the documentary treatments, the festival headlining slots — decades after their first records. Florida's thrash underground is still writing that first chapter, and it's worth paying attention to who's still standing when act two arrives.
Sigh, Kai Hansen, and Malmsteen: The Old Guard Isn't Slowing Down
It's been a heavy week for veteran metal songwriters proving they've still got the goods. Japanese avant-garde metal institution Sigh returned with "Unputenpu," a track featuring none other than Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt, continuing a 35-year run of a band that treats genre boundaries as suggestions rather than rules. Helloween co-founder and Gamma Ray architect Kai Hansen dropped "Welcome to Life," the second single from his upcoming solo record "Born With a Hammer," following the earlier cut "Feeding the Beast." And Swedish neoclassical shred icon Yngwie Malmsteen announced a new album, "Hell or High Water," out November 13, along with a first single called "Now or Never."
None of these are Florida stories directly, but they're relevant to a state that has its own deep well of technically ambitious, genre-blending metal. Orlando's Kamelot has spent decades proving that power metal and progressive songwriting can coexist with real commercial reach, in much the same lineage as Hansen's power metal pedigree. When a guy like Hansen — who helped invent the speed metal template Helloween ran with in the mid-80s — is still releasing vital solo material, it's a good excuse to remember that Florida's own power and progressive metal bands aren't chasing a trend. They're part of a genre that rewards patience and craft over hype cycles, which is exactly the kind of story this scene needs told more often.
Health, Retirement, and the Human Cost Behind the Riffs
Not all the week's news was celebratory. Glenn Hughes, the Deep Purple bassist/vocalist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, announced his retirement from touring and live performances ahead of heart surgery, on his doctor's advice, as he approaches his 75th birthday. Joan Jett, similarly, has canceled a run of September shows after undergoing orthopedic surgery on a fractured vertebra. Both stories are sobering reminders that the musicians who built the foundation this entire genre stands on are human, aging, and dealing with the same physical toll that decades of touring exacts on anyone.
It's easy to take for granted that the bands who taught us how to headbang will always be there. They won't be. That's exactly why local scenes matter — someone has to carry it forward.
Florida's own scene has had its share of these moments, and it's a good reminder for anyone booking shows or building a following right now: support the bands that are still healthy enough to play. Check upcoming shows in your area and actually go. The next generation of Florida metal legends is playing dive bars and VFW halls tonight, not arenas, and they need the same support the legacy acts got decades ago.
Florida's Content Gap: Where's the NWOTHM Love?
Accept's anniversary release is a good jumping-off point to talk about a genre that doesn't get nearly enough ink in Florida metal coverage: the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal. This state has a legitimate NWOTHM contingent, and bands like Antagonizör are out there writing the kind of straightforward, riff-forward heavy metal that Accept themselves helped codify fifty years ago. It's a genre built on reverence for the source material without being retro-tribute nostalgia acts, and Florida's scene has real depth here that national outlets consistently overlook in favor of the state's death metal reputation.
Death metal will always be Florida's calling card — and rightfully so, given the genre-defining legacy of bands like Morbid Angel and the technical death metal pedigree carried forward today by acts like Abiotic. But one of the more interesting developments heading into 2026 is how many new metal bands 2026 rosters are drawing from adjacent genres — traditional heavy metal, post-metal, crust punk — that don't get the same critical attention despite strong local rosters. If you're building a list of the best metal bands in this state right now, it shouldn't stop at blast beats and pig squeals.
The Takeaway
This week's national headlines — a nu metal band from Jacksonville having the time of its life decades into its career, a German thrash institution calling in favors from three generations of metal royalty, and a handful of legacy artists confronting the physical realities of touring into their seventies — all point to the same lesson for Florida's scene. Longevity isn't an accident. It's built show by show, record by record, by bands willing to stick around long enough to have their "having fun again" moment, whenever it arrives. If you're in a Florida band grinding it out right now, that moment might be further away than you'd like, but Wes Borland just proved it eventually comes. In the meantime, get your band listed and submit your band so the next chapter of this state's metal history actually gets documented while it's happening, not thirty years later.