Forbidden: Bay Area Thrash’s Second Wave, Back With a New Album and Two Texas Dates

Forbidden is a Bay Area thrash metal band formed in early 1985 as Forbidden Evil. It made two records that still define the scene’s second wave, Forbidden Evil (1988) and Twisted into Form (1990). After splits in 1997 and 2012, the Forbidden band returned in 2023. Its first album in 16 years came out on October 23, 2026, and the tour behind it reaches Austin on November 17 and Dallas on November 18.

Who Are Forbidden?

Drummer Jim Pittman and guitarist Robb Flynn started Forbidden Evil in early 1985. Flynn soon left for Vio-lence and later led Machine Head. In 1987 the band cut its name to Forbidden, according to Wikipedia, so it wouldn’t be taken for a black metal band. Our Bay Area thrash guide covers those early club years in full.

Wikipedia’s Testament entry counts Forbidden in the so-called “Big Six of Bay Area thrash metal,” with Testament, Exodus, Death Angel, Lȧȧz Rockit and Vio-lence. Exodus had its debut, Bonded by Blood, out in 1985. Forbidden and Vio-lence came later, with debuts in 1988, and belong to the scene’s second wave. Forbidden’s official Bandcamp still bills it as “Legendary SF Bay Area Thrashers.”

Forbidden Evil (1988): The Debut

Forbidden Evil came out on September 30, 1988, through Combat and Relativity. The lineup was Russ Anderson on vocals, Craig Locicero and Glen Alvelais on guitars, Matt Camacho on bass and Paul Bostaph on drums. It runs eight songs, from “Chalice of Blood” to the seven-minute “Follow Me.”

It’s a young band’s record, built for speed. “Through Eyes of Glass” and the title track show what came next, with longer sections and sharper twin-guitar work. The current Bandcamp edition adds four live tracks. A live EP, Raw Evil: Live at the Dynamo, followed in 1989.

Twisted into Form (1990): The Record to Start With

Start here. Twisted into Form came out on March 30, 1990, on Combat, and Relativity reissued it in 1992. Michael Rosen produced and engineered it at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley across 1989 and 1990. Howie Weinberg mastered it at Masterdisk, and Kent Mathieu painted the cover.

The lineup changed in one spot. Tim Calvert, who joined in 1989 and died in 2018, took the second guitar chair beside Locicero, with Anderson, Camacho and Bostaph returning. Death Angel sang backing vocals on “Out of Body (Out of Mind)” and “R.I.P.,” a small sign of how close that scene was.

Nine tracks run 41 minutes and 9 seconds. Two short instrumentals, “Parting of the Ways” and “Spiral Depression,” frame longer songs like “Infinite” and the 7:37 “R.I.P.” Kerrang! gave it four out of five in May 1990. AllMusic was cooler, at 2.5 out of 5. Next to the debut it’s more melodic and progressive, and the production is clearer.

We side with the four-star score. It’s the record where the second wave stopped chasing the first and found its own shape, and it holds up better than most 1990 thrash. Bostaph left in 1992 and later joined Slayer. Hear it on Bandcamp.

Distortion, Green and Omega Wave

Forbidden signed to GUN in 1994 for its next two albums. Steve Jacobs took over the drums from Bostaph, and the rest of the Twisted into Form lineup stayed: Anderson, Locicero, Calvert and Camacho. Both records were produced by Patrick Coughlin with the band.

Distortion came out on November 30, 1994, after a four-year gap. It was cut at Music Annex in Menlo Park, California, and runs 59 minutes over ten tracks, from the title song to an 11-minute cover of King Crimson‘s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” and the tempos sit slower than on the Combat records.

Green followed on March 21, 1997. Wikipedia describes darker, angrier songs written across 1996, mixing groove and alternative metal into ten tracks that run under 41 minutes. “Blank” and “Turns to Rage,” both near six minutes, are the longest. It was the last studio album with Calvert and Jacobs.

The band split in 1997, during the stretch our piece on thrash’s decline and revival covers. In August 2001, Anderson, Bostaph, Alvelais and Camacho played a six-song set as Forbidden Evil at Thrash of the Titans, a benefit for Testament’s Chuck Billy. Steve Smyth stood in for Locicero, Tim Calvert joined for the last three songs, and Jeremy Colson drummed on two. A full reunion was announced in 2007, with Locicero back, for shows in the U.S. and Europe in 2008.

That reunion produced Omega Wave, released by Nuclear Blast on October 22, 2010. Locicero, Camacho and guitarist Steve Smyth were in that lineup, and Kent Mathieu’s cover brings back a blue skull and a red skull, as on Forbidden Evil. In 2012 the band went quiet again.

The 2023 Return and the New Album

Forbidden announced its return on April 19, 2023, with Norman Skinner on vocals and Chris Kontos, formerly of Machine Head, on drums. Locicero’s statement to Blabbermouth ended plainly: “This is not a reunion, it’s a rebirth.” The first show came on July 16, 2023, at Baltic Kiss in Richmond, California, billed as Twisted into Evil.

New music arrived on June 26, 2025, when “Divided by Zero” became the band’s first new song in 15 years. A video for a second song, “Mutually Assured Dysfunction,” followed in October 2025. On January 14, 2026, Blabbermouth reported that Forbidden had signed with BlkIIBlk, the heavy metal imprint of Frontiers Label Group. Jeremy Von Epp had joined on guitar the previous November.

The self-titled Forbidden came out on October 23, 2026. It was tracked at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland and produced by Locicero, Kontos and engineer Zack Ohren. Its 11 tracks run from “Single Point Failure” to the 9:24 “Flower of Life (Chaos by Design),” and Mastodon‘s Brann Dailor guests on “Sycophantasy.” The band announced the album on July 22, 2026, with the single “Psyclops,” which Locicero called “a hypnotizing stomper.”

“If you’re expecting just thrash metal, you might be disappointed because we over-delivered.”

Locicero said that in an October 2026 interview on The Adventures of Pipeman, transcribed by Blabbermouth. He described an hour and four minutes of music in four sections, the last “a space opera.” He also said many songs were written in E, “the old tuning that we used back in the first two albums.” That tuning is the direct line back to Twisted into Form. The album is on Bandcamp.

Forbidden Band Members, Then and Now

The current lineup, as credited on the 2026 album, is:

• Norman Skinner, vocals (2023 to now)
• Craig Locicero, guitar (1987 to 1997, 2007 to 2012, 2023 to now)
• Jeremy Von Epp, guitar (2025 to now)
• Matt Camacho, bass (1987 to 1997, 2007 to 2012, 2023 to now)
• Chris Kontos, drums (2023 to now)

Former members, with years from Wikipedia:

• Russ Anderson, vocals (1987 to 1997, 2007 to 2012)
• Glen Alvelais, guitar (1987 to 1989, 2007 to 2009)
• Tim Calvert, guitar (1989 to 1997)
• Steve Smyth, guitar (2009 to 2012, 2023 to 2024)
• Daniel Mongrain, guitar (2024 to 2025)
• Paul Bostaph, drums (1987 to 1992)
• Steve Jacobs, drums (1992 to 1997)
• Mark Hernandez, drums (2007 to 2011)
• Sasha Horn, drums (2011 to 2012)

Founders Jim Pittman and Robb Flynn left before the first album. Camacho and Kontos are sitting out the fall 2026 tour, per Blabbermouth, so Avery Thurman of Blind Illusion plays bass and Eli Lucas plays drums on those dates.

Forbidden in Texas

The clearest Texas link is a drummer. Dallas-born Gene Hoglan played the first few reunion shows in 2008 and filled in for a few more in 2011, including the Alcatraz festival in Belgium, according to Wikipedia.

The reunited band played Houston in March 2024. Blabbermouth’s lineup announcement for Hell’s Heroes at White Oak Music Hall, March 21 to 23, billed Forbidden as a “newly reunited Bay Area thrash metal band.” The same bill carried Austin’s Watchtower with Jason McMaster, a reunited Solitude Aeturnus and Houston’s Helstar.

We found no shared bill between Forbidden and Rotting Corpse. Both started in 1985 and came up in the same underground of demos and traded tapes, Forbidden in the Bay Area and Rotting Corpse in North Texas. The timeline has the Texas side of those years.

Forbidden Tour 2026: Where to Hear It Live

As of November 2026, Forbidden’s Chaos By Design tour with Heathen and Void has two Texas dates. The run started in Las Vegas on October 23 and ends at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles on November 22.

• Tuesday, November 17, 2026: Come and Take It Live, Austin. Forbidden, Heathen, Void and San Marcos’s Cerebral Desecration. Show at 6 p.m., all ages. Advance tickets were $32.55 to $35.64, as listed on the venue page in November 2026, through etix, or $40.28 on the day.
• Wednesday, November 18, 2026: Trees, Dallas. Forbidden with Heathen and Void. Doors at 6 p.m., show at 7, per the Trees event page. Our Dallas metal venues guide covers the room.

Void is a thrash band from Lafayette, Louisiana; hear it on Bandcamp. Heathen says this is its last tour of 2026, ahead of a new album, Lifetime in Hell, due February 19, 2027, on Napalm.

Rotting Corpse plays the Haltom Theater in Haltom City on November 14, 2026, with Iron Jaw, and Spam’s Bar and Lounge in San Angelo on December 5. Both are on our shows page.

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Forbidden (band)
2. Wikipedia: Twisted into Form
3. Blabbermouth: San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Pioneers Forbidden Announce Comeback (April 19, 2023)
4. Blabbermouth: Resurrected Forbidden Plays Secret Concert in Northern California (July 17, 2023)
5. Blabbermouth: Sodom, Queensrÿche, Candlemass, Forbidden and Watchtower Among Confirmed Bands for 2024 Hell’s Heroes Festival (2023)
6. Blabbermouth: Forbidden Signs With BlkIIBlk (January 14, 2026)
7. Blabbermouth: Forbidden Announces Self-Titled Album, Shares New Single ‘Psyclops’ (July 22, 2026)
8. Blabbermouth: Craig Locicero on Forbidden’s New Self-Titled Album (October 18, 2026)
9. Blabbermouth: Heathen Announces New Album ‘Lifetime in Hell’ (October 13, 2026)
10. Metal Odyssey: Forbidden Announces Chaos By Design US Tour 2026 With Heathen and Void
11. Come and Take It Productions: Forbidden, Chaos By Design US Tour 2026
12. Trees Dallas: Forbidden Tour
13. Forbidden: Official Bandcamp
14. Wikipedia: Distortion (Forbidden album)
15. Wikipedia: Green (Forbidden album)
16. Blabbermouth: Forbidden Bassist Matt Camacho and Drummer Chris Kontos to Sit Out Fall 2026 U.S. Tour (September 19, 2026)
17. Chaoszine: Louisiana Thrash Band Void Joins Metal Blade Records Roster

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