📅 Release Date: 23 October 2026
💿 Record Company: Frontiers Label Group
🏷️ Record Label: BLKIIBLK
Bay Area thrash metal veterans Forbidden are properly back in business, and they’re bringing more than three decades of experience, aggression and razor-sharp riffing with them.
The legendary Californian outfit will release their long-awaited new self-titled album, Forbidden, on 23 October 2026 through BLKIIBLK, the heavy music imprint of Frontiers Label Group.
And when we say long-awaited, we’re not messing about.
Forbidden will be the band’s first studio album since Omega Wave landed all the way back in 2010. Sixteen years later, the thrash veterans are ready to open another chapter — and they’ve got absolutely no intention of quietly easing themselves back into proceedings.
This is Forbidden coming back swinging. 🤘🔥
💀 Forbidden Are Back – And They’ve Got Something To Prove
Formed in California during the mid-’80s, Forbidden emerged from the ridiculously fertile San Francisco Bay Area thrash scene, the same musical pressure cooker that helped unleash the likes of Metallica, Exodus, Testament and Death Angel.
Originally operating under the name Forbidden Evil, the band established themselves as one of the technically accomplished and ambitious acts of the movement.
Their 1988 debut, Forbidden Evil, remains a beloved slice of classic American thrash, while 1990 follow-up Twisted Into Form pushed their sound into more technical and progressive territory.
Distortion followed in 1994, with Green arriving in 1997 before the band eventually called it a day.
Forbidden returned in 2008 and released comeback album Omega Wave in 2010 before another lengthy period of inactivity followed.
Then came 2023.
Founding guitarist Craig Locicero returned alongside longtime bassist Matt Camacho, and Forbidden began rebuilding themselves once again.
Now that resurrection has resulted in something fans have been waiting years to hear:
A completely new Forbidden album.
🎸 Meet The Forbidden Of 2026
The current Forbidden line-up features:
- Norman Skinner – Vocals
- Craig Locicero – Guitar
- Jeremy Von Epp – Guitar
- Matt Camacho – Bass
- Chris Kontos – Drums
It’s a combination of Forbidden history and fresh blood, giving the band the opportunity to honour their classic sound without simply attempting to recreate 1988.
This isn’t supposed to be a nostalgia record.
It’s Forbidden in 2026.
🔥 An Hour-Plus Of Thrash Metal
The new album was recorded at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, California, with engineer and co-producer Zack Ohren.
Production duties were handled by Craig Locicero, Chris Kontos and Ohren.
Musically, the album promises to take Forbidden’s classic thrash foundations and stretch them into something considerably bigger.
There’s aggression.
There’s melody.
There’s technicality.
There’s progressive ambition.
And, crucially, there’s that raw heavy metal spirit sitting underneath the whole bloody thing.
The record opens with “Single Point Failure” before tearing into “Burning The Lungs Of Earth”, while the album eventually closes with the sprawling “Flower Of Life (Chaos By Design)”.
🔥 “Burning The Lungs Of Earth” Unleashed
Alongside the build-up to the album, Forbidden have unleashed another taste of what’s coming with “Burning The Lungs Of Earth.”
The track arrives accompanied by an official music video directed by drummer Chris Kontos, with editing handled by Mike Sloat.
It’s another hefty reminder that Forbidden haven’t returned merely to dust off the classics and disappear back into the shadows.
There’s unfinished business here.
🤘 Five Lifetimes Of Heavy Metal Experience
Guitarist Craig Locicero has described making Forbidden as more of an odyssey than a conventional recording process.
The goal was to capture the ingredients that made people fall in love with thrash and heavy metal in the first place — energy, melody, character and those little imperfections that stop heavy music becoming sterile.
This isn’t five musicians trying to sound like teenagers again.
It’s five musicians bringing decades of experience into the room and asking what Forbidden should sound like now.
🥁 Mastodon’s Brann Dailor Joins The Chaos
There’s another tasty surprise buried in the album too.
Brann Dailor of Mastodon makes a guest appearance on “Sycophantasy.”
Forbidden have always possessed a more adventurous streak than your average straight-ahead thrash outfit, and bringing Dailor into the equation certainly fits that mentality.
💿 Forbidden – Full Tracklist
- Single Point Failure
- Burning The Lungs Of Earth
- Divided By Zero
- DCLXVI
- Psyclops
- Jisei
- Mutually Assured Dysfunction
- Sycophantasy
- The Burden
- Sol Grave
- Flower Of Life (Chaos By Design)
Vinyl editions also include a bonus cover of Savatage’s “Sirens.”
⚡ Sixteen Years Later…
Sixteen years between albums is one hell of a gap.
But perhaps that’s exactly why Forbidden feels like such an important release for the band.
Forbidden have survived break-ups, reunions, hiatuses and numerous line-up changes while their early albums have continued to earn respect among generations of thrash fans.
Now they’re finally putting a new chapter alongside them.
Forbidden aren’t interested in becoming their own tribute act.
They’re moving forward.
🎸 The Riff Report Says…
There are certain names in thrash metal that immediately get the battle jackets twitching, and Forbidden are absolutely one of them.
A sixteen-year wait between studio albums means expectations are naturally going to be through the roof, particularly when you’re dealing with a band responsible for records as revered as Forbidden Evil and Twisted Into Form.
But that’s exactly what makes this comeback exciting.
Forbidden aren’t pretending the last few decades didn’t happen. They’re taking everything they’ve learned, throwing it into the furnace and seeing what comes screaming back out.
If the material released so far is anything to go by, Forbidden could be one of the most interesting old-school thrash releases of 2026.
The Bay Area veterans are back.
The amps are turned up.
And on 23 October 2026, Forbidden are opening the gates again.
Welcome back, lads. We’ve been waiting. 🤘🔥
💿 Album Details
Artist: Forbidden
Album: Forbidden
Release Date: 23 October 2026
Record Company: Frontiers Label Group
Record Label: BLKIIBLK
Genre: Thrash Metal
Recorded At: Sharkbite Studios, Oakland, California
🎸 The Riff Report – Supporting rock, metal and the glorious racket in between.
