Yearly Album Cycles, Ritual Black Metal, and a New Darkthrone Side Project: What Florida's Underground Can Learn This Week
Some weeks in metal news feel like a mirror held up to Florida's own underground — even when the datelines are Stockholm, Oslo, or the Bay Area. This week's crop of headlines, from Possessed frontman Jeff Becerra's ambitious new release schedule to Dark Funeral's ritualistic live document and a surprise Darkthrone-adjacent project, all touch on themes the Sunshine State's scene has been wrestling with for decades: work ethic, ceremony, and the stubborn refusal to let a genre calcify. Here's how it all connects back home.
Jeff Becerra's One-Album-A-Year Pledge Is a Challenge Florida Death Metal Knows Well
Possessed's Jeff Becerra recently told Laughing Monkey With Shawn Ratches that all 10 songs for the follow-up to 2019's "Revelations Of Oblivion" are already recorded, and that going forward he wants to "pump one" new album out every single year. For a genre pioneer whose 1985 debut "Seven Churches" is credited by many historians as the first true death metal record, that kind of urgency is notable. Becerra isn't chasing trends — he's trying to outrun mortality and make up for lost time after his 2016 health scares slowed him down.
It's a mentality that resonates hard here. Florida didn't just adopt death metal — it built the genre's foundation, and that DNA runs through Tampa death metal titans Morbid Angel and every band that's followed in their wake. The current crop of Florida death and black metal acts, including Florida black/death metal band Gnosis, operate under the same relentless-output philosophy Becerra is preaching: write, record, release, repeat, because the scene rewards bands that stay visible and hungry. If a 68-year-old genre originator can commit to a yearly cadence, it's a fair benchmark for the state's newer death metal acts to measure themselves against as they build catalogs in 2026.
Dark Funeral's Live Ritual and What It Means for Florida's Raw Black Metal Underground
Century Media dropped Dark Funeral's "Beast Of Praise" live album this week, capturing a Stockholm performance from April 2022 that closes the book on the "We Are The Apocalypse" cycle. Alongside it came a live video for "Nail Them To The Cross" — a track that, like most of the Swedish outfit's catalog, treats the stage as an altar rather than a platform. Dark Funeral has always leaned into black metal's theatrical, almost liturgical side, and that live document is as much about atmosphere and ceremony as it is about songcraft.
Florida's black metal underground doesn't get talked about nearly as much as its death metal lineage, but it's quietly one of the most interesting corners of the regional scene right now — and it's a genuine content gap worth spotlighting. Acts like Florida black metal project Tsathogg, raw black metal act Dritt Skit, and depressive black metal outfit Starless Night are working in a rawer, more lo-fi tradition than Dark Funeral's arena-scaled bombast, but the underlying commitment to ritual and atmosphere is identical. Gnosis, too, straddles that black-and-death divide in a way that feels distinctly Floridian — humid, feral, and unpolished in the best sense. If you've never dug into the state's raw black metal underground because the death metal legacy dominates the conversation, this is the week to start. These bands aren't chasing Scandinavian polish, and that's precisely the point.
Nocturno Culto's New Band AVRAK Signals a Heavy Metal Revival Worth Watching Locally
Perhaps the most intriguing headline of the week for traditionalists: Darkthrone's Ted "Nocturno Culto" Skjellum is stepping outside the black metal institution he helped define to front a straight-up heavy metal band. AVRAK, formed in November 2023 with guitarist Anders Hegna (Nød, El Kayenne, Svidd Grevling), will release its debut album in October, and early word paints it as a proper NWOTHM-flavored heavy metal record rather than another chapter in the Darkthrone playbook. When one of black metal's most recognizable voices decides to chase riffs, leather, and gallop tempos instead of tremolo-picked misanthropy, it says something about where metal's cultural gravity is shifting.
That shift has already been happening in Florida, even if the national press hasn't caught up. The new wave of traditional heavy metal has real footholds in this state, and it's another one of those under-covered corners of the Florida metal scene that deserves more ink. Heavy metal band Juggernaut is flying that flag for the classic, riff-first approach, while heavy metal and metalcore act Revelations shows how flexible the traditional metal framework can be when blended with heavier modern elements. Throw in heavy metal outfit Dungeon Wolf, and you've got the makings of a genuine NWOTHM pocket brewing in the Sunshine State — one that could use exactly the kind of spotlight AVRAK is about to get on the strength of a famous name alone. Florida bands don't have a Darkthrone member to lean on, but they've got the songs, and that should count for more in the long run.
Health Battles Remind the Scene What Actually Matters
Two sobering headlines this week deserve acknowledgment rather than clickbait framing. Def Leppard's guitarist revealed his cancer has returned following a failed donor transplant, and former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes gave a brutally honest update on his prostate cancer treatment in France, describing the last two weeks as among the sickest stretches of his life. Both men are metal lifers who built the sonic vocabulary that shaped everything downstream, including the Florida scene's own guitar-forward traditions.
Holmes has been candid that his GoFundMe campaign exists purely to keep treatment funded — a reminder that even musicians with decades-long legacies aren't insulated from the realities of aging and illness without a safety net.
It's worth using moments like this to check in on the health and wellbeing of Florida's own scene veterans, many of whom have been grinding through clubs and DIY circuits for just as long without major-label cushioning. Supporting touring bands at merch tables, showing up to upcoming shows, and buying music directly from artists isn't just scene etiquette — it's the difference between a band surviving a health crisis or not.
Quick Hits: Genre-Blurring, Slam, and the Sounds Bleeding Into Florida's Underground
A few smaller stories this week point toward broader trends worth watching as we head into new metal bands 2026 territory. Turnstile's upcoming "Never Enough: Versions" is stacking an absurdly eclectic guest list — Dying Fetus, Elton John, and Hayley Williams sharing a tracklist — which underscores just how thoroughly genre walls have crumbled in modern heavy music. Florida's own scene has plenty of bands built on that same blending instinct; alternative and power/thrash metal act Tock is a solid local example of refusing to sit still inside one genre tag, which is exactly the spirit Turnstile is bottling on a much bigger stage.
Elsewhere, the slam and deathcore underground keeps finding new outlets for extremity — this week it was Korpse's brutal slam cover of Lamb Of God's "Now You've Got Something To Die For," and Signs Of The Swarm's star-studded "Dragula" cover video featuring Bam Margera and members of Lorna Shore and August Burns Red. Florida's own heavy hitters in that lane, like Florida beatdown hardcore and deathcore act Bodysnatcher, exist in exactly this ecosystem of crushing, collaborative, internet-native extreme metal. Meanwhile, Worm's new KEXP in-studio session is a good excuse to revisit the doom/death crossover space, a lane Florida bands like Cultellarii and Ancient Albatross also mine effectively when they're not busy building out their own live sets.
The Takeaway for Florida's Scene
None of this week's headlines originated in Florida, but every single one has a direct analog in the state's clubs, practice spaces, and bedroom studios. Death metal's originators are still setting the production pace. Black metal's biggest names are still treating the stage like sacred ground. A Darkthrone legend just proved that traditional heavy metal has enough gravitational pull to lure black metal royalty away from the genre that made them famous. And two guitar heroes are fighting for their lives in ways that should make every touring band appreciate the fans who show up.
If you're in a Florida act working any corner of this — thrash acts like speed and thrash metal band Prostitute included — and you don't see your band listed on the index yet, now's the time to fix that. Among the best metal bands quietly building Florida's next chapter, plenty are still waiting to be discovered. Submit your band and get on the radar before 2026's wave of new metal really starts cresting.
