Kurdt Vanderhoof almost walked away. Not from music. From this band. After the wheels came off following Metal Church’s 2023 Australian run, the founding guitarist wasn’t sure there was a version of the band worth continuing. Then something clicked. He started making calls.
According to tracking from Blabbermouth and concert attendees, the powerhouse 12-song setlist leaned heavily into mid-80s staples alongside their blistering new material:
- Ton Of Bricks
- Start The Fire
- Fake Healer
- Gods Of Wrath
- F.A.F.O. (The aggressive lead single from the new record)
- Badlands
- Date With Poverty
- Watch The Children Pray (Their most iconic 1986 power ballad)
- Dead To Rights (The live debut of the new album’s title track)
- The Human Factor (Featuring extended guitar and bass solo jams)
Encores
11. Beyond The Black (From their 1984 self-titled debut)
12. Metal Church
What came back is not a reunion. It’s closer to a draft pick. David Ellefson, the co-founding bassist of Megadeth, took the low end. Ken Mary, a drummer who’s already played for Alice Cooper, Flotsam and Jetsam, and Fifth Angel, took the kit. Brian Allen, formerly of Vicious Rumors, grabbed the mic. Vanderhoof stayed put on guitar, joined by longtime six stringer Rick Van Zandt. Five names, four different résumés, one very loud result.
The new lineup didn’t ease into this. Their first show together happened in May at San Luis Metal Fest in Mexico, a genuine baptism by fire in front of a crowd that had no idea what to expect. The U.S. leg followed on July 17 at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, New Hampshire, a small room that turned into the official American coming out party for this version of the band. Heathen and All Sinners opened. The room was packed. Nobody left disappointed.
Here’s the thing about supergroups: they usually sound like a business decision. This one doesn’t. Ellefson has said in interviews that he’d been a fan of Vanderhoof’s songwriting long before anyone dialed his number, and that chemistry shows up on stage. The band isn’t just cashing checks on nostalgia. They wrote a new record together first.
That record is Dead to Rights, the band’s fourteenth studio album, released in April through Rat Pak Records. It marks the first Metal Church album built entirely around this lineup, and the band has leaned into that fact rather than hiding from it. The lead single, “F.A.F.O.,” came out of an early studio session that Vanderhoof has described as an unexpected spark, the moment he knew this incarnation of the band actually had something to say.
The tour built around that album has been a genuine cross country grind. After Derry, the band pushed through Montreal, Quebec City, Newton, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Rochester before landing at Reverb in Reading, Pennsylvania on July 25. Fan filmed footage from that Reading show has been circulating since, and it captures a band that sounds locked in, not just competent. The set ran twelve songs deep, opening with “Ton Of Bricks” and “Start The Fire” before diving into “Fake Healer” and “Gods Of Wrath,” both fan favorites that predate every member currently playing them except Vanderhoof.
The middle of the set is where things get interesting. “F.A.F.O.” lands as the aggressive centerpiece of the new material, followed by “Badlands” and “Date With Poverty,” a run that keeps the energy from ever sagging. Then comes “Watch The Children Pray,” the band’s most iconic power ballad and a genuine highlight from their 1986 record The Dark, still capable of quieting a room three decades later. From there the set turns toward the new album directly, with “Dead To Rights” getting its live debut alongside “The Human Factor,” a song that gave both Ellefson and Van Zandt room to stretch out with extended solos.
The encore doesn’t waste time. “Beyond The Black,” pulled straight from the band’s self titled 1984 debut, leads into the closer everyone in the room came for: “Metal Church” itself, the title track that started this whole thing more than four decades ago.
None of this is a victory lap dressed up as a tour. It’s a band proving, night after night, that the new pieces fit. And they’re not done. Metal Church has confirmed a run of European festival dates for August, including a stop at Brutal Assault in the Czech Republic and an appearance at Germany’s Keep It True Festival, both stacked lineups where this lineup will get its first real test in front of Europe’s notoriously demanding metal crowds.
Vanderhoof once said he wasn’t sure the band would survive. Now there’s a fourteenth album, a fresh rhythm section, and a tour calendar stretching into the fall. Sometimes falling apart is exactly what it takes to build something better.