5 Artists We Want to See at Louder Than Life 2026

Louder Than Life‘s 2026 edition is this weekend: September 17-20 at Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville, KY. As always, we’re figuring out who we most don’t want to miss. We’ll of course be sticking around for big headliners Tool, Iron Maiden, and My Chemical Romance, but the variety of acts we’re excited about across punk and metal genres this year is vast. Here are five artists that we’re especially looking forward to:

Circa Survive

As Andrew Sacher wrote when the band first announced their return:

Circa Survive went on “indefinite hiatus” in 2022, which came as bummer news considering they had just released some of the best music of their career, and the prospect of a reunion didn’t look very good after singer Anthony Green said on HardLore in December that what happened in 2022 was more of a “breakup” than a “hiatus” and added, “I don’t know if the band is ever going to do anything ever again… And even if it did, it wouldn’t be the same. It just wouldn’t.” So, it comes as a nice surprise that Circa Survive just announced their first show in nearly five years! They’ll be playing Louisville’s Louder Than Life festival in September, and Anthony Green will be pulling double duty at that fest, as L.S. Dunes are playing too. (Everyone in L.S. Dunes will be pulling double duty at that fest, as My Chemical Romance, Coheed & Cambria, and Thursday are playing too.

We can’t wait!

Haywire

Boston punks Haywire are one of the most exciting, most fun, and fastest rising hardcore bands of recent times, with banger after banger, and with more on the way soon, as they recently announced their second full-length album, I Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye, due October 2 via their new label home, Roadrunner Records. Their raucous live shows continue to be unmissable, whether in a basement, a boxing ring, a club, or at a fest. See you in the pit.

Missing Link

Staying on the fest’s Friday hardcore stage for a second: playing before Haywire and the recently-announed, no-longer secret guest Knocked Loose, we want to highlight NY heavy hardcore band Missing Link whose intesity blows us away every time we get the chance to catch them (including sometimes with Haywire). Great live show. Don’t mess up and miss them in Louisville.

Hot Mulligan

Louder than Life also brings the pop punk, and the post-hardcore and emo-leaning Lansing, Michigan band Hot Mulligan are doing it better than most right now. Now four full lengths into their career, the band has become a festival staple, somtimes a rare mosh pit-inducing band on a lineup (like when we saw them at Gov Ball and Lolla), and sometimes right where they belong like in between Alkaline Trio and Jimmy Eat World in Louisville in Thursday. Always a super fun time, we can’t get enough of their energy, their humor, and their infectious hooks.

Danzig

The man, the myth, the legend. Danzig on this year’s fest officially brings it over the top for this Danzig-obsesed writer.

Check out the entire lineup HERE, and have fun this weekend.