CATERWAUL 2026

CATERWAUL: Minneapolis festival confirms Dazzling Killmen, Point Line Plane, for 2026 lineup; 3-day passes on sale now

With news outlets reporting this week on the Trump administration's decision to end the surge of immigration agents in Minnesota, the organizers of annual Minneapolis music festival Caterwaul reveal the first details of their upcoming 2026 fest.

3-day passes are one sale now: https://ticketstripe.com/caterwaul2026

In a city still reeling from tragedies connected to the federal government's heavy-handed immigration actions, Caterwaul stands as a beacon of "independent-minded, iconoclastic" art, aiming to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit in the face of all forms of tyranny. 

Now in its fifth year, the fest has hosted a stellar list of artists in years past, representing the noisy, countercultural fringes of rock – Brainiac, Chat Pile, Couch Slut, Flipper, Oxbow, Pissed Jeans, and Uniform, to name a handful. BrooklynVegan has hailed Caterwaul as "a unique mix of noise rock, punk, metal, post-punk and beyond," while New Noise Magazine has named it "a gathering of some of the best underground bands existing today."

Scheduled for the weekend of June 5-7, Caterwaul 2026 promises to continue its mission of championing the underground, while making some logistical adjustments to improve the experience for all. Where past years saw the fest spread across numerous Minneapolis stages, the organizers – Rainer Fronz (Learning Curve Records), Conan Neutron (Seismic Wave Entertainment), and Melanie Thomas – have chosen this year to focus the event in one location, Northeast Minneapolis venue Zhora Darling, and to streamline the lineup to a leaner, meaner list of artists.

With a full lineup announcement coming soon, Fronz, Neutron, and Thomas kick things off by revealing just two of this year's artists: both recently reunited, and both with Skin Graft Records affiliations, post-hardcore game-changers Dazzling Killmen and synth-rockers Point Line Plane will descend upon Caterwaul 2026 as part of their spring US tour.

Founded in 1990, Dazzling Killmen melded hardcore venom and prog chops into new and challenging configurations that would inspire hordes of younger bands in the decades to come – The Dillinger Escape Plan, notably among them. Bred in the early-2000s electro-punk freak scene populated by the likes of Trans Am and Lightning Bolt, Point Line Plane has been described by SF Weekly as "aggro keyboard-core of the highest and most demented order."

ICE out, Caterwaul in. Stand by for more Caterwaul 2026 announcements.

Caterwaul logo, by Whitney Does

Photo of Dazzling Killmen, by Adam Bubolz

Photo of Point Line Plane, by Lucy Fur

Out today: PILGRIMS - Gemini

Gemini, the new album by South American post-punks PILGRIMS, is out today. PILGRIMS' sound mixes the cold and stark with the ethereal and wistful, bringing to mind elements of early Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure, or newer artists such as Kælan Mikla. Chilean vocalist Juls Garat and Colombian multi-instrumentalist Claudio Marcio, based now in Boston, Massachusetts, explore their immigrant experience through passionate, bilingual songs.

Stream the album, here: https://pilgrimsbandofficial.bandcamp.com/album/gemini

Stream the "Blissing Hour" music video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVKmFEW55I

Stream the "Alien" music video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocyq2W4JC5Q

Stream the "Glow" music video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TWqD46F44Q

"An ode to old school death rock... that hearkens to gothic roots and post punk present. It’s eerily romantic, but in a heartbreaking and remorseful way."
–CVLT Nation

"Cold urgency and emotional weight collide as the band sharpens its sound into something intimate and confrontational, shaped by survival, and the tension of existing between worlds."
–Destroy//Exist

"Comprised of South American immigrants (hence their nom de plume), Pilgrims have only leaned farther into their identity on the simmering, moving Gemini. Bi-lingual, bi-continental, and clearly bi-genre-curious, their synthpop/post-punk/shoegaze feels effervescent in its desire to inspire."
–New Noise

"Gemini... tempers post-punk severity with a swell of euphoria, letting tension breathe as the rhythm nudges bodies out of paralysis and into movement."
–Post-Punk

"A fog-drenched landscape of sound... All too often, darkwave-leaning bands like this don’t quite feel organic enough, but this group has a perfect balance of electronic elements and instruments plugged into amps."
– Treble

Photo by Rachael Shorr

PILGRIMS - "Blissing Hour"

PILGRIMS: South American post-punks use joy as rebellion on new single "Blissing Hour"

South American post-punks PILGRIMS have released "Blissing Hour," the third single from upcoming new album Gemini.

Stream the video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVKmFEW55I

Pre-order the new album, here: https://pilgrimsofyearning.bandcamp.com/album/gemini

Operating out of Boston, Massachusetts, PILGRIMS were initially known as Pilgrims of Yearning. The band was founded in 2018 by Chilean vocalist Juls Garat and Colombian musician Claudio Marcio, who met in Chile and emigrated together to the US.

Garat and Marcio put Pilgrims of Yearning on the map by way of a series of releases, most notably 2022's Hadal EP and its dreamy lead single, "La Mar." With rigid beats and stark basslines interlacing with ethereal guitars and synths, the songs paid homage to the early works of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure, yet throbbed with their own heartbeat, unique to their makers.

Returning now with their first new music since Hadal, Garat, Marcio, and bassist Sean Woodbury have rechristened themselves, simply, PILGRIMS. Upcoming new album Gemini is the first release under the new name. Marcio gives this statement about the new, concise moniker: "With the name PILGRIMS, we reflect not only our spiritual journey, but our living experience as immigrants, our pilgrimage. The new album is touched by our experience as immigrants existing in this moment and place in history. We feel a lot of people can relate to the archetype of the traveler, the wanderer."

On new single "Blissing Hour," icy post-punk sounds are softened by euphoric overtones. Vocalist Juls Garat states: "Joy can be a form of resistance. This is true for everyone, but especially for marginalized groups. If we’re not hustling, we’re supposed to be doom scrolling and getting depressed and enraged by watching the news and fighting with strangers on social media. But we can always choose stepping into the real world. We can choose community and hope and joy and art and fun. And sometimes that’s the rebellion we need."

Gemini will be released February 13th.

Photo by Rachael Shorr

CHAIN X

THE CHAIN: Swing Kids, Fatboi Sharif to play "CHAIN X" 10th anniversary show in NYC

With the 10th anniversary of PR collective The Chain coming up in April 2026, co-founders Curran Reynolds, Justin Pearson, and Brandon Gallagher will celebrate the milestone with an official 10th anniversary party.

Scheduled for April 19th at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, New York, and co-presented by Saint Vitus Bar, "CHAIN X" will feature live sets by Reynolds's, Pearson's, and Gallagher's own musical projects, along with other Chain-affiliated artists, adding up to an eclectic and electric lineup that serves as a small display of what The Chain represents.

Headlining the show is the legendary Swing Kids, making its first-ever NYC appearance. Founded in San Diego in the mid-1990s by The Chain's Justin Pearson, the short-lived Swing Kids made a huge impact within a few years, lacing urgent hardcore punk anthems with influences taken from jazz, post-punk, and more. Fitting in loosely amongst other envelope-pushing bands of the '90s, such as Unbroken, Drive Like Jehu, and The Nation of Ulysses, Swing Kids can be understood, in hindsight, as a precursor to Pearson's projects that followed, including The Locust and Deaf Club. Recently reunited, with original members Pearson, John Brady, Jose Palafox, and Jimmy LaValle, as well as additional guitarist Nathan Joyner, Swing Kids' sound feels as fresh and crucial as ever, and the band will venture to the East Coast for the first time in its career, to play "CHAIN X."

Completing the "CHAIN X" bill on April 19th are: avant-rapper Fatboi Sharif; industrial-noise juggernaut Trace Amount (featuring The Chain's Brandon Gallagher) accompanied by live drummer Ignabu; noise punks Venus Twins; and hard rockers Body Stuff (featuring The Chain's Curran Reynolds).

Following the show at Elsewhere, the festivities will continue at the official afterparty at Selva, with DJ Nikki Sneakers selecting the tunes.

Buy tickets, here: https://swing-kids.eventbrite.com/

Launched in April 2016 by Reynolds, Pearson, and Gallagher – friends and music industry veterans whose roles within the industry have included musician, publicist, label owner, live music promoter, graphic designer, and more – The Chain has established itself over the past decade as a frontrunner in music PR, handling publicity for a curated roster of artists spanning metal, hardcore, punk, post-punk, industrial, and beyond. With offices in NYC and San Diego, The Chain has recently represented such artists as Car Bomb, Cloud Rat, HIRS Collective, Kælan Mikla, KEN mode, King Yosef, Kontravoid, N8NOFACE, and SpiritWorld.

https://thechainworld.com/

PILGRIMS - "Alien"

PILGRIMS: South American post-punks navigate immigrant experience on new single "Alien"; music video streaming now

Post-punk trio PILGRIMS have released "Alien," the second single from upcoming new album, Gemini.

Stream the official "Alien" music video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocyq2W4JC5Q

Pre-order the new album, here: https://pilgrimsofyearning.bandcamp.com/album/gemini

Operating out of Boston, Massachusetts, PILGRIMS were initially known as Pilgrims of Yearning. The band was founded in 2018 by Chilean vocalist Juls Garat and Colombian musician Claudio Marcio, who met in Chile and emigrated together to the US.

Garat and Marcio put Pilgrims of Yearning on the map by way of a series of releases, most notably 2022's Hadal EP and its dreamy lead single, "La Mar." With rigid beats and stark basslines interlacing with ethereal guitars and synths, the songs paid homage to the early works of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure, yet throbbed with their own heartbeat, unique to their makers.

Returning now with their first new music since Hadal, Garat, Marcio, and bassist Sean Woodbury have rechristened themselves, simply, PILGRIMS. Upcoming new album Gemini is the first release under the new name. Marcio gives this statement about the new, concise moniker: "With the name PILGRIMS, we reflect not only our spiritual journey, but our living experience as immigrants, our pilgrimage. The new album is touched by our experience as immigrants existing in this moment and place in history. We feel a lot of people can relate to the archetype of the traveler, the wanderer."

Gemini's second single, "Alien," sees Garat deliver her commanding vocals in both Spanish and English. She states: “'Alien' is the legal term used in this country to refer to non-citizens. The song talks about our experience after 10 years in the US and it only made sense to write a good portion of it in Spanish. It’s probably one of our most political songs."

The song's official music video consists of footage shot live at The Middle East in the band's hometown of Boston in 2025 on a bill with Turkish post-punks She Past Away.

In an age of division, PILGRIMS' music transcends nations and borders. Part of a global network of like-minded artists, from Turkey's She Past Away to Iceland's Kælan Mikla, PILGRIMS' impassioned sound taps into the humanity connecting all people. 

Photo by Rachael Shorr

Curran's Top 10 of 2025

My 10 favorite albums of 2025 (excluding artists I worked with this year):

1. Pixel Grip – Percepticide: The Death of Reality

Album of the year. Banger after banger. Perfect pop songs with industrial bones. Rita Lukea is the baddest singer there is. She dominates, she captivates.

2. Today Is the Day – Never Give In

Each one of Today Is The Day’s albums sounds different from the last. Together they add up to one beautiful portrait of their maker, Steve Austin, a man brave enough to show you his weakness, his strength, his love, his hate, and everything in between. A true artist. Forever out on a limb, forever hanging by a thread.

3. Escape-ism – Charge of the Love Brigade

I put Ian Svenonius on the same pedestal as Steve Austin. A true artist, doing his thing, decade after decade. No compromise. Wildly entertaining.

4. Ramleh – Hyper Vigilance

A totally engrossing sonic journey, likely to excite Swans fans.

5. Dax Riggs – 7 Songs for Spiders

Dax’s voice is devastating. This is the blues, transmitting from a coffin at the bottom of the swamp.

6. Årabrot – Rite of Dionysus

Dark and haunted like Dax Riggs, but instead of the blues in the swamp, it’s a theatrical, Scandinavian rock n’ roll thing.

7. Kontusion – Insatiable Lust for Death

Kontusion stands out from the old school death metal pack. For me, it’s the excessively cavernous production and the supremely satisfying mid-tempo parts.

8. Barren Path – Grieving

Pure exhilaration. It’s not just the blazing fast tempos and laser precision, it’s the sweet, sweet riffs. A new standard in grindcore.

9. Gagbags – Hypnotic Desire

Some of you know Chuck as the owner of the best store in NYC, The Cast. In Gagbags he sings muscular punk rock anthems that cruise along in a late ‘70s kinda way.

10. Broncho – Natural Pleasure

Cryptic and blissful. Ryan Lindsey sings in a language all his own. Broncho’s album Double Vanity was my AOTY a few years back. This one is altogether mellower and that’s OK.

Honorable mention: 1-800-BAND – 20th Century Masters

A posthumous EP from a wonderful band.

Check out this list and many other good ones, here: https://thebadpennyblog.com/2025/12/15/friends-of-the-bad-penny-share-their-top-10-lists-of-2025-best-albums/

HEAVY HALO x My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

HEAVY HALO announces spring US tour with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

NYC alt-industrial dream team Heavy Halo will join the legendary My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult for the band's "Delicate Terror Tour, Part Two," tearing across the western half of the US in Spring 2026.

Also featured on the tour is darkwave powerhouse Light Asylum (with whom Heavy Halo toured this summer and collaborated on the track, "Die Cast Down"), Die Sexual, and Devora.

Founded in Chicago in the 1980s, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult began amidst the Wax Trax! Records industrial scene, alongside labelmates Ministry and KMFDM, then evolved toward its own signature sound incorporating house, funk, psych, and B-movie obsessions. Always provocative, always fun, the band has toured with the likes of Marilyn Manson and Siousxie and the Banshees and its songs have been featured in iconic films such as The Crow and Showgirls.

Operating out of Spellsound Studios in Brooklyn, NY, located inside a historic 19th-century building that formerly housed a hospital, Heavy Halo members McKeever and Gosteffects are purveyors of their own unique vision of industrialized alt-rock, a mix of human vulnerability and electronic power, hailed by CVLT Nation as "thundering, soaring industrial metal" and by Revolver Magazine as "chunky riffs and EBM-panicked beatwork... nihilistic yet melodic vocals." Heavy Halo's latest album Damaged Dream is out now on Silent Pendulum Records, and their official remix of Erasure frontman Andy Bell's song "Godspell" was released last week as part of Bell's new album The Crown Jewels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP7g8Y6eHQY

Heavy Halo's McKeever states: "We are beyond ecstatic to join the upcoming leg of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult’s Delicate Terror Tour. The legendary band has been a source of endless inspiration for us and seeing them was one of the first shows Gosteffects ever attended so this will be a full circle moment. The rest of the lineup features the unreal Light Asylum, Die Sexual, and Devora who are keeping the dark energy of the underground alive. It will also be our first time playing on the West Coast, Southwest, and Midwest and we are grateful for the opportunity to take this impractical art experiment we started in our bedrooms, further out into the world. See you on the road."

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
"Delicate Terror Tour, Part Two"
w/ Light Asylum, Die Sexual, Devora, Heavy Halo

3/25 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
3/27 Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
3/28 Tacoma, WA @ Spanish Ballroom
3/31 Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club
4/01 Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall
4/03 Denver, CO @ Oriental Theatre
4/04 Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep
4/07 Oklahoma City, OK @ Beer City Music Hall
4/09 Austin, TX @ Mohawk
4/10 Dallas, TX @ Echo Lounge & Music Hall
4/11 Houston, TX @ Numbers
4/12 San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
4/14 El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
4/17 San Diego, CA @ The Music Box
4/18 Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom

Tickets are available here: https://mylifewiththethrillkillkult.com/

Photo by Michelle Lobianco