Just like 2025 and 2024 before it, we are eschewing a "classic", big ol' list of albums we liked from 2026 so far. Lists are fun, but they make no sense ("this album is number 12 and this album is number 9" are words uttered by the insane). Instead, we will be using the next few weeks to highlight our favorite trends, releases, shows, cover art, experiences, and more from the first half of this (musically) excellent year.
According to the all-knowing overlords of the internet (aka a few vague articles I read via social media), our much maligned friends in Gen Z don’t dance anymore. Or really do much in public at all. While my Instagram often tells a very different story, there was a particular aspect of these “think pieces” that caught my attention and resonated with my lived experience with several (of my many) siblings of this particular generation: The fear of having our awkward moments made permanent through technology and being labeled as cringe. There seems to be, in my estimation, an increased fear among those born in a world where the internet and social media have always existed of having the spontaneous moments of their lives plastered across the web for potentially countless millions to see against their will, and that others’ interpretations of their behavior could irreparably tarnish their social status by their being labeled as corny or stupid. Forever. That… fucking sucks.
I’m fully aware that my following statement will undoubtedly give off some “get off my lawn” vibes, but being born in the 1980s and enjoying most of my childhood in the internet-free 90s feels at this point like an absolute gift. Playing outside unsupervised until the streetlights came on wasn’t a pastoral, idealized fantasy conjured by boomers to bemoan the state of the current day, but a lived reality that myself, my close friends, and neighborhood pals all experienced. Sure, social hierarchies were a thing and being perceived as “cool” carried a significant amount of social currency as much as it does today, but the contained bubbles we lived in allowed a sense of freedom that I’m afraid many of those in the generation born after me have not been able to experience. Of course, this is just my own experience being spoken of and is not intended to invalidate others whose childhoods do not reflect the above, but I can’t help but sit and contemplate the horrors my youngest siblings must have gone through with their friends running around with their smartphones recording their every move non-stop.
Because here’s the thing: We’re all a bit cringe. Now we just get caught being goofy goobers a lot faster, and with potentially more dire social consequences. This year, I’ve had to reckon with being a firmly entrenched millennial with my own fears of outward perception. Divorce, a complete reconstruction of my own life, and a reckoning with my many flaws have wreaked havoc on my self-confidence, especially regarding how I perceive myself to be viewed in the eyes of others. It’s humiliating to write, but it’s true. Through therapy and a lot of introspection it’s become clear to me that in my current state of being my fears of being labeled negatively for being my dumbass self aren’t that far off from those who came after me in the internet generation. I have, at many key points in my life, been as afraid of the cringe in my own life being exposed as anyone else.
Enter Saidan. If cringe had a musical accompaniment in the black metal community over the past few years, all four of Saidan’s fantastic punk-infused, power metal-coded, J-horror inspired albums would certainly fit the bill. At least according to the internet. Derided and lambasted for their aesthetic, troll-bashing lyrical interludes, previous genre affiliations and influences, and the *ahem* slightly controversial social media presence of the band’s founding vocalist and axe wielder Splatterpvnk (Tyler Sellers), Saidan has been at the center of a cultural hurricane within the black metal community since their inception. In more ways than one, this label isn’t entirely inaccurate. On the surface, theirs is an artistic aesthetic tailor made for the TikTok generation, with anime/j-horror inspired album artwork blending with the band’s obvious rejection of singularly trve black metal tropes creating a vibe absolutely ripe for peanut gallery shots across the bow from the keepers of the gate. As a black metal fan somewhat plugged into its (often heinous) opinion wheel, the early consensus on Saidan was that your enjoyment of this band should be accompanied by deep shame at your untrve nature and lack of ball knowledge when it comes to the ins and outs of the genre. But that’s only if you view the above on its face without actually, you know… listening to the music. Which is pretty god damn incredible.
I was introduced to Saidan through 2024’s Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity. While I’m an anime nerd and personally find their Japanese-inspired style appealing, I have to admit at the time it was a little odd to see a black metal album adorned in this manner. Especially when burdened with the knowledge that this band hails not from the Land of the Rising Sun, but the countrified halls of Nashville. Then one fateful day sitting bored in an airport waiting for a delayed flight I hit play, and my brain exploded. A very swift discography not-that-deep dive into their punk-laden debut Jigoku: Spiraling Chasms of the Blackest Hell and their epically melodic sophomore outing Onryō II: Her Spirit Eternal and I was enraptured, enthralled, and completely hooked. The band flat-out ripped, and from that point I began impatiently waiting for their next release, which we received in June with Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memory’s Wrist. At least 10 spins in I can confidently state that it’s my favorite of their releases and in my estimation hands down the best black metal record of 2026. A more thorough review will be forthcoming in our mid-year edition of Kvlt Kolvmn, but trust me when I say this thing is an absolute mountain of awesome.
There’s a deep sense of fun, campiness, and melodrama in each of Saidan’s records, and it struck me while listening to their latest that the factors that make this band patently cringe to many are the parts that have endeared me to them the most. There’s an unabashed, fundamentally unashamed sense of earnestness and corniness to Saidan that actually makes them stick out quite profoundly from many of their self-serious peers, and that, rather than being a detractor from my overall experience with their music, has become one of the benchmarks of what makes them special to me. This shit actually IS cringe. Unapologetically so. And I love it with my whole heart because of rather than in spite of that fact.
Recently I feel that I’ve reached a personal epiphany of sorts… the fear of cringe has too often kept me from enjoying not only my own life to the fullest, but some profoundly kickass art as well. Underground communities in my view are rife with an overwhelming sense of correctness, placing a premium on expectation and self-seriousness (especially in the extreme music world), not only in content but also in presentation. While even the most elitist prick when pressed can admit that this adherence to purity can be foundationally reductive for a genre’s larger influence and growth, the bandwagon of labeling what feels external to the scene’s historic aesthetic as cringe rolls on with fury, with Saidan being one of the prime targets for its vitriol. In some circles, your enjoyment of this band immediately relegates you to the realm of unserious chud, a TikTok-addled poser unable to differentiate between quality metal and textbook cringe. To that I say, with fire in my belly, who the fuck cares?
While I work diligently to uncouple my own psyche from the mental pedestal I’ve placed others’ perceptions of me upon, Saidan has proven a worthy soundtrack to the endeavor. Because like Saidan I’m absolutely at my core cringe af. I mean, this piece itself is kinda cringe. Also let’s be real here, metal as a whole is cringe. We actively listen to grown adults scream about murder, cannibals, vampires, and Satan over some of the most obnoxiously loud and atrociously atonal music ever put to tape, and it’s absolutely beautiful. Because it’s real, in whatever way that makes sense to each of us. So rather than trying to constantly justify the hipness of our tastes or adherence to the expected and acceptable order of things, why not embrace the fact that this whole enterprise is corny as shit and that’s in large part what makes it awesome? It’s okay to love things that the purity police find insufferable. It’s okay to not give a shit what anyone thinks about you. It’s okay to dance like an idiot in a public place and genuinely not care who’s watching/recording. It’s okay to be an enthusiast of black metal’s artistic roots (minus, you know… Nazism) and love Saidan, Deafheaven, or Alcest. It’s okay to be corny, cringey, and untrve. Cuz fuck ‘em. So, in the spirit of full acceptance and lack of care regarding any and all perception: Hail Saidan. Hail cringe.