Any metal band would be rightfully proud of a 25 date tour in the United States, a huge Halloween show in Mexico City, and an extensive headlining tour of Europe. When all that is just a prelude to supporting Metallica alongside Pantera, it’s a whole new level of impressive. The new Avatar single Death and Glitz shows why they’re doing so well.
New Avatar single Death and Glitz
We’ve noticed that the metallers are often the most coherent and comprehensive in their analysis of their music, and particularly perceptive and cutting in their analysis of society. Avatar are no exception.
Vocalist Johannes Eckerström explains: “Death and Glitz is a song about perversion and detachment. A homeless, young runaway collapses and dies on a dancefloor…Now she’s perfect. Obedient. Anything you want.
The true crime genre is as sick as the sickest goregrind band you’ve ever heard. Its popularity and the form in which it’s being consumed, as a choice between Mickey Mouse and hospital dramas, reveals a darkness. The best ones are when it’s someone young and attractive. A couple goes hiking. Only the man returns. What do we project on this very real person’s very real tragedy? Do we see ourselves, with a strange envy for being so desired? Do we see a canvas on which we can paint the perfect future, if we were there to make it right? Do we completely dehumanize the victim and those who lost her, obsessed with the puzzle?
No matter the reason, it is clear that no one is more obedient than the dead. People simply like it when death has a nice rack.”
This voyeurism is baked into the new Avatar single Death and Glitz, a melodic metal banger with the lyric “they like you more like this/a tragedy with tits.”
There’s also a subtle easter egg reference to the band’s first name, Lost Soul, and a heavy glam beat that practically forces you to nod along.
The visualiser by Johan Carlén is clever, blurring the lines between caked-on make-up and dried-on blood, blusher and bruises, and police searchlights and mirror ball refraction. There’s a twist to look out for too.
Who are Avatar?
Avatar are vocalist Johannes Eckerström, guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin, and drummer John Alfredsson.
Alfredsson and Jarlsby formed a band in Sweden in 2001 as teenagers, soon rounded out by the other members to explore, expand and celebrate ‘the misfit arts’ and to represent the underdog.
Avatar have seen particular success on U.S. rock radio with The Dirt I’m Buried In. Over the years, they’ve developed their sound to incorporate choirs, brass, Moogs, piano, cellos and violas.
Tantalisingly, Avatar have even had a fossil named after them. It was discovered by Dr. Ben Thuy, a paleontologist at the Luxembourg Natural History Museum in Sweden.
As explained in a 2023 press release, “some 80 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed our planet, southern Sweden was located at the shores of a subtropical sea.” In particular, the rocky shore of the old quarries at Ivö Klack have mud that accumulated between oyster-encrusted boulders millions of years ago, containing the fossils of animals called brittle stars. “Ophiocoma avatar is by far the oldest known representative of this exciting group.”
“The name Ophiocoma avatar, is valid for eternity. Avatar is now a part of the Earth’s history, of the palaeontological heritage of Sweden, and has gained a small piece of immortality.”
Avatar’s headline 2026 tour dates
Avatar are determined to earn the sobriquet ‘MUST SEE’ so they bring theatrics and energy to the stage every time.
You’ll get your own chance to check that out. After a winter 2025 tour in Mexico and the United States, they will return to Europe in the new year. Avatar’s European tour in February and March 2026 includes five UK dates:
- 14 February, 2026: Exhibition, London
- 15 February, 2026: Academy, Manchester
- 16 February, 2026: Barrowland, Glasgow
- 17 February, 2026: Rock City, Nottingham
- 18 February, 2026: O2 Academy, Bristol
Avatar will be supported by Alien Weaponry. They’ll also be supported by Witch Club Satan in the UK and some European dates, with AGABAS for the first five and last five European dates instead.
Avatar supporting Metallica in 2026!
That’s not all! Avatar fans can get a double dose in 2026. There is a second chance to see them live, supporting metal juggernauts Metallica at four summer 2026 dates in Europe, along with Pantera!
- 24 May, 2026: Deutsche Bank Park, Frankfurt, Germany
- 11 June, 2026: Puskas Arena, Budapest, Hungary
- 19 June, 2026: Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Ireland
- 5 July, 2026: London Stadium, London, United Kingdom
What to expect from the new Avatar album Don’t Go In The Forest
Eckerström explains: “Don’t Go In The Forest is an album filled to the brim with stuff we’ve never done before…The mind is wild and we have lost ourselves in the darkest woods, filled with memories, and fantasies. Forbidden thoughts that must be spoken.
It would have been impossible to make this album at any other time than now. That’s all we ever wanted, and I think you’ll find it’s all you ever wanted too.”
Avatar’s press release describes the album even more evocatively: “It is a collection of strange tunes emerging from a circus tent in a meadow in a faraway valley. You can only ever get there by accident, walking a path impossible to remember and map out.”
Fittingly, Don’t Go In The Forest is out on Halloween – October 31, 2026 – on Avatar’s independent label, Black Waltz Records
Avatar – Don’t Go In The Forest album tracklist
- Tonight We Must Be Warriors
- In The Airwaves
- Captain Goat
- Don’t Go In The Forest
- Death and Glitz
- Abduction Song
- Howling At The Waves
- Dead and Gone and Back Again
- Take This Heart and Burn
- Magic Lantern
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