Hatebreed to Headline Summer Slaughter 2026 Tour

Lineup and Full Tour Schedule Announced

The Summer Slaughter 2026 lineup has been officially revealed, featuring Hatebreed as the headlining act. The tour features a diverse bill of extreme music, including slam legends Devourment, San Francisco-based brutal Death Metal and hardcore unit Snuffed on Sight, and Connecticut straight-edge metalcore group Balmora. The transcontinental deathcore act Face Yourself is scheduled to open each night of the run.

Old-school death metal veterans Incantation will join the tour for the final five dates. While Source 1 and Source 3 note the addition of Incantation for the end of the trek, Source 2 specifies that Devourment will not appear on the dates where Incantation is present. Tickets are being made available through several stages:

• An artist presale began March 24 at 12:00 p.m. ET using the password SSLAUGHTER.

• A Blabbermouth.net presale begins Wednesday, March 25 at 2:00 p.m. EST and ends Thursday, March 26 at 10:00 p.m. local time with the code HBSLAUGHTER26.

• General on-sale starts Friday, March 27 at 10:00 a.m. local time.

The confirmed 2026 tour dates are as follows:

• July 02 — Reading, Penn. @ Reverb

• July 03 — Virginia Beach, Va. @ Elevation 27

• July 05 — Worcester, Mass. @ The Palladium

• July 07 — Cincinnati, Ohio @ Bogart’s

• July 08 — Nashville, Tenn. @ Brooklyn Bowl

• July 09 — New Orleans, La. @ Tipitina’s

• July 10 — Houston, Texas @ House of Blues

• July 11 — Austin, Texas @ Emo’s

• July 12 — Tulsa, Okla. @ Cain’s Ballroom

• July 14 — Denver, Colo. @ Summit Music Hall

• July 15 — Omaha, Neb. @ The Admiral

• July 19 — Saginaw, Mich. @ The Vault (with Incantation)

• July 21 — St. Louis, Mo. @ Pop’s Nightclub (with Incantation)

• July 22 — Fort Wayne, Ind. @ Piere’s Entertainment Center (with Incantation)

• July 23 — Toronto, Ontario @ Phoenix Concert Theatre (with Incantation)

• July 24 — Buffalo, N.Y. @ Town Ballroom (with Incantation)

New Music and "Thrashier" Direction for Hatebreed

Alongside the tour announcement, Hatebreed has confirmed that a new studio album is on the way. The upcoming record follows 2020's Weight of the False Self. Last July, the band released the single "Make The Demons Obey," their first new material in nearly five years. Guitarist Frank Novinec discussed the album's status in a recent interview.

"[It's] coming out this year, yeah. Most, of it's pretty much — I mean, it's done."

— Frank Novinec

Novinec also addressed the modern rollout of music, explaining the benefit of releasing singles before the full album is finalized:

"The nice thing about in this era — I was telling somebody the other day that's not in the music business like we are — the nice thing about the way things are rolled out now, I think, is you can drop a single even if you have the whole record done, and be, like, 'All right, now there's all this time', where you can really review what you've done and you could really change something that you didn't like or even make another song and all that. It's not, like, 'Okay, there's the record, there's the two videos. Here's what are supposed to be the singles. And that's it.' So it's nice to be able to drop the single, which we had a great response for. We love the song. As far as the band's concerned, we're real happy with 'Make The Demons Obey'. And we'll probably leak another one here soon. And there'll probably be proper videos coming after that."

— Frank Novinec

Drummer Matt Byrne described the new material as a shift toward a more aggressive style compared to previous releases.

"I think this new material is way thrashier. There's always a tinge of metal to HATEBREED. I think a lot of people try to kind of pigeonhole us as a hardcore band, but I think over the years we've just gone way more metal. There is still the hardcore punk vibe to us, but I think the new stuff is way more metal, thrashy, fast, SLAYER-esque, if I may use that term. That's kind of the direction we're going in right now, but there's still a lot of groove to it. It's definitely the heaviest stuff that we've written to date."

— Matt Byrne

Vocalist Jamey Jasta echoed these sentiments regarding the band's progression:

"Lots of bands say that their newest release will be their heaviest and I guess we are no different. We've managed to push the envelope and surpass our expectations. We've become tighter, harder and more vicious than ever. This is the most excited I've been for any HATEBREED release."

— Jamey Jasta

Lineup Changes and Health Updates

The band has undergone recent changes and challenges, including the departure of founding bassist Chris Beattie. During recent tours, Matt Bachand stepped in on guitar while Carl Schwartz of First Blood and Terror handled bass duties. Novinec noted that despite these changes, the core songwriting dynamic remains focused on the foundations established by Jasta and Beattie.

Guitarist Wayne Lozinak returned to the stage in October 2025 at the Aftershock festival following a significant health scare. Lozinak was diagnosed with a benign meningioma in the brain while touring Europe and underwent a craniotomy on August 4, 2025. Drummer Matt Byrne commented on the band's resilience heading into the new year:

"New record, new music. It's a new era of the band. We've had some lineup changes. We dealt with some curve balls this summer, some health stuff. So we're coming out on top, we're grinding through, we're coming out on top. And, yeah — new production. We're just stepping up the show 100% and just forging onward."

— Matt Byrne

To date, Hatebreed has sold more than 1.5 million albums in North America. The band currently remains independent and is self-funding the upcoming album while considering future record label options.