Blitzkid do not ease into a set. The horror punk duo from Bluefield, West Virginia started in 1997 playing to rural Appalachian crowds — performing from a hearse, pulling from Nosferatu and The Evil Dead as much as any punk record, building a visual language of all-black clothing, fake blood, and white-out contacts before anyone outside the region was paying attention. They turned that into fifteen years of hard road: Wave Gotik Treffen, Wacken Open Air, 260 live dates in a single year at their peak. “Once we started touring outside our native area,” Argyle Goolsby said, “it gave us inspiration to keep going.” They retired in 2012. They reformed in 2020. This fall, behind their first studio album in sixteen years, they are playing Photo City Music Hall.
About the Show
Modern Hel drops September 25, 2026 — the sixth Blitzkid studio album, landing across a sixteen-year gap. After the 2012 retirement, Goolsby worked as a full-time tattoo artist in Bluefield. The reformation in 2020 produced something harder: the new material pushes “into more aggressive territory, incorporating a blistering fusion of thrash and hardcore to a degree the band has never explored before,” while holding on to the “signature haunting melodies and anthemic choruses” that earned them a reputation as one of horror punk’s defining acts, spoken of in the same breath as the Misfits. Their catalog includes “The Bat Whispers,” “Making a Monster,” and “Salem’s Ghost” across five studio albums on indie and major labels, built on fifteen years of touring across the U.S. and Europe. The Modern Hel Tour runs October through December 2026 across the United States. Grease Creepers open.
Venue & Logistics
Photo City Music Hall sits on Atlantic Avenue in Rochester, in the western New York region. At 400 capacity, it is a close room for a band that has played festival stages across Europe. The sound has nowhere to go except through you. Doors at 7 p.m. Ages 16 and up; ID required.
Tickets
Tickets run $30–$68. VIP meet-and-greet packages are available in limited quantity; they include early entry, exclusive merchandise, and a pre-show acoustic performance. For a band returning with new material after sixteen years away from the studio, that acoustic set is worth the price of admission on its own. Buy tickets