The band that dragged heaviness toward dream-pop — Chino Moreno's croon-to-scream over guitars tuned for atmosphere as much as impact.
Sick New World Texas 2026 Lineup
One Saturday, one speedway, and the whole nu-metal and industrial canon in a row, with a current hardcore undercard and a darkwave strand running through the day.
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About Sick New World Texas 2026
Sick New World's Texas edition is a single Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, and it is unusually well-designed for one day: fifty acts covering essentially the entire late-90s and 2000s heavy canon, plus a genuinely modern hardcore undercard. System of a Down and Deftones headline. Slayer play a 40 Years of Reign in Blood set. Evanescence, Ministry, Marilyn Manson, Mastodon and Melvins fill the tier beneath.
What separates it from a straightforward nostalgia bill is the bottom half. Sunami, Scowl, Speed, Knocked Loose, Pain of Truth and Dying Wish are the current hardcore mainstream, and Boy Harsher, Twin Tribes and She Wants Revenge give the day a genuine darkwave strand. No day splits to worry about. It's all one Saturday, so the only real planning problem is stage clashes.
Expect alt-metal, metalcore, hardcore and nu-metal across 50 acts.
Sick New World Texas 2026 lineup & schedule: all 50 acts
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Armenian-American art-metal that never stopped sounding unhinged — lurching time signatures, Serj Tankian's operatic yelp, and hooks that shouldn't work but do.
Hardcore kids who became goths and then a genuinely huge rock band — Davey Havok's full-commitment melodrama riding a catalog that runs from East Bay punk to 'Miss Murder'-era anthems.
Best known for turning 'Smooth Criminal' into an alt-metal hit — which undersells a Riverside band with a real ear for a chorus and more melodic instinct than their era usually rewarded.
Every Time I Die and Dillinger Escape Plan alumni reconvened — frantic, technical, and unusually fun for music this dense, with the swagger of veterans who have nothing to prove.
Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller making darkwave that feels like a film score for something you shouldn't watch — throbbing synths, whispered menace, fog everywhere.
Riff-and-groove lifers — Neil Fallon hollering tall tales over the most reliably heavy live band in American rock, three decades without phoning one in.
Spooky-kid nu-metal with detuned bounce and a goth streak the genre mostly abandoned — 'Loco'-era heaviness back from the grave.
Black metal's tremolo blur pointed at shoegaze bliss — screamed vocals over passages that keep resolving into something radiant, 'Sunbather' still the genre-argument that never ends.
NOLA sludge supergroup — Phil Anselmo fronting molasses-slow riffs built for a room with no air conditioning, swamp-heavy doom from scene royalty.
Amy Lee's piano-and-orchestra gothic metal, the sound of a whole 2000s radio format built around one voice — 'Bring Me to Life' still an event live.
'90s space-rock that everyone else spent decades catching up to — heavy in texture rather than tempo, 'Fantastic Planet' the cult document.
'Hey Man Nice Shot' — Richard Patrick's industrial-rock sneer intact, machine-tooled riffs from NIN's family tree.
Post-hardcore's great withholders — Daryl Palumbo's serrated delivery over grooves that lurch sideways, and records doled out a decade apart.
Teenage Ontario nu-metal that hardened into a genuinely heavy career — Morgan Lander's growl was never a novelty, and the comeback proved it.
German industrial-rock built on sloganeering, disco-stomp drums, and Aidan Hughes's woodcut sleeve art — self-described 'ultra-heavy beat', four decades strong.
Kentucky hardcore built on the meanest two-step riffs going, with Bryan Garris's shriek cutting clean over the top — heaviness that crossed over without softening.
Belgian acid-house provocateurs — filthy, funny, and built entirely for a room past midnight, '90s industrial-dance sleaze still fully operational.
The 1990s' designated national panic — glam-industrial theatre staged with genuine pop instincts underneath, 'The Beautiful People' still a siren.
Atlanta's prog-sludge institution — concept records about doom and grief, played with genuinely uncommon musicianship and harmonized howls.
Forty years of deliberately difficult, punishingly slow riffs — and the band Nirvana learned from, still outweirding everyone downstream.
Al Jourgensen's industrial-metal war machine — sampled sermons, mechanised riffing, and four decades of pure spite, still grinding forward.
Chaotic Southern metalcore — dissonant, lurching, and famously punishing to watch from the front, two decades of controlled collapse.
Synth-forward nu-metal in vinyl trousers — the New Order cover was the hit, but the originals leaned genuinely cold and chrome-plated.
'Alive' and 'Youth of the Nation' — San Diego's nu-metal survivors, positivity intact through every scene cycle.
Florida metalcore that kept mutating — each record noticeably stranger and more textured than the last, a blueprint for the genre's art wing.
Crossover thrash that hardcore kids and metalheads agreed on — riffs with a pit already built into them, Riley Gale's legacy carried loud.
Kat Moss fronting hardcore that keeps widening toward melody without losing the bite — Santa Cruz's fastest-rising export.
Deadpan Valley post-punk that wore its Joy Division debt openly and got a genuinely great single out of it — 'Tear You Apart' endures.
Thrash's most pitiless institution — tritones, air-raid solos, and a rhythm section that never once let up, 'Raining Blood' as closing rite.
Late-'90s funk-metal cut short by tragedy — hyperactive, punk-fast, and still fondly guarded by everyone who caught them the first time.
Sydney hardcore that went global fast — brotherhood-forward lyrics and riffs built entirely for the pile-on, community as the whole point.
Bay Area beatdown that turned meme-level swagger into a genuinely feared live act — the joke stopped being a joke fast.
Thick, downtuned '90s worship that a whole generation found late and adopted wholesale — 'Youngest Daughter' the unlikely viral hymn.
Two decades of straight-ahead hardcore with no ornament whatsoever — pure mosh utility, 'Keepers of the Faith' as literal job description.
Firestarters, still — the UK's rave-punk institution hits harder than bands half their age, three decades of menace intact.
Border-town darkwave — reverbed baritone, chorused bass, and an unusually devoted following, Brownsville goth gone international.
'They're Only Chasing Safety' to now — metalcore's restless innovators, reinventing loudly in every era, and the reinventions keep landing.
Clean-chorus metalcore engineered for the big room, with breakdowns placed exactly where you want them — Ocala precision, radio ambition.
Solo alt-metal built from bedroom production upward — nu-metal bounce with a genuinely modern pop ear, at the front of the scene's internet-native new wave.
Emma Boster fronting metalcore that leans hard into late-'90s heaviness with none of the nostalgia — Portland fury built for the modern pit.
Brazilian alt-rock with a rotating-instrument gimmick that turns out to be a real band underneath — everyone plays everything, arena-sized either way.
Newer West Coast hardcore working the same fast, mean seam as its Bay Area peers — no-frills aggression built for short, violent sets.
Long Island heavy hardcore with a lineage running straight back to the NYHC canon — new-school stomp, old-school allegiance.
Slam played with a hip-hop swagger — gurgles, gore, and breakdowns tuned to the floor, the internet's favorite new heaviness.
New-generation alt-metal built on a soulful clean vocal and a very modern low end — the format's next arena act in waiting.
Speed of Light
The Dark
TSS
Nu-metal revivalism from a newer solo act, leaning on the genre's bounce rather than its irony — self-made and rising.
The headliners
System of a Down — Armenian-American art-metal that never stopped sounding unhinged — lurching time signatures, Serj Tankian's operatic yelp, and hooks that shouldn't work but do. One of very few festival appearances they play in any given year.
Deftones — The band that dragged heaviness toward dream-pop — Chino Moreno's croon-to-scream over guitars tuned for atmosphere as much as impact. Co-headlining, and the band whose influence is audible across half this bill.
Up-and-comers to catch early
Sunami — Bay Area beatdown that has become one of hardcore's biggest live draws.
Speed — Sydney hardcore that went global in about eighteen months.
Amira Elfeky — Solo nu-metal revivalism with a real pop ear underneath.
Sleep Theory — Memphis alt-metal rising fast on the modern rock format.
PeelingFlesh — Slam with a hip-hop swagger: the most extreme thing on the bill.
Violent Vira — Newer nu-metal solo act leaning into the genre's bounce.
Other acts worth planning around
Slayer — Performing a 40 Years of Reign in Blood set.
The Prodigy — The outlier booking, and likely the most physical set of the day.
Glassjaw — Rare live outing from post-hardcore's great withholders.
Knocked Loose — The heaviest band on the bill with genuine crossover pull.
Boy Harsher — Anchors the darkwave strand running quietly through the day.
The lineup by day
Saturday lineup (October 24)
System of a Down, Deftones, Slayer, Evanescence, Ministry, AFI + 44 more
Sick New World Texas 2026 lineup FAQ
When is Sick New World Texas 2026?
Saturday, October 24, 2026, a single day.
Where is it held?
Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas.
Who is headlining?
System of a Down and Deftones, with Slayer and Evanescence beneath them.
How many acts are playing?
50 acts across one day.
Is this the same as Sick New World in Las Vegas?
No. This is the Texas edition, with its own separate lineup.
How do I work out which acts I'd like?
Type a few bands you already love into the search at the top of this page and you'll get ranked matches from this lineup, with reasons.
Are Sick New World Texas 2026 set times out yet?
Not yet. The lineup is split by day below, and set times are still to come. The alert on this page emails you the day they drop.
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