The Barbarians of California
MEGATONS
Release Date: August 21, 2026
Review by Adam Tibbott
There’s a difference between wearing your influences proudly and simply recreating them. On MEGATONS, The Barbarians of California land firmly on the right side of that divide. The sophomore album from the project founded by AWOLNATION’s Aaron Bruno and longtime engineer and guitarist Eric Stenman is deeply indebted to the bands and scenes that shaped them, but there’s very little about MEGATONS that feels like an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, The Barbarians of California take those influences, tear them apart, and rebuild the pieces into their own increasingly recognizable version of hardcore punk.
That distinction becomes increasingly important as MEGATONS unfolds. Stenman came out of the Sacramento music community responsible for an unusually diverse collection of artists, including Deftones, Far, Will Haven, Team Sleep, Hella, Dance Gavin Dance, Death Grips and Trash Talk. That lineage can certainly be felt throughout The Barbarians of California’s music. There are flashes of metallic hardcore, punk, noise, alternative rock and the wonderfully abrasive experimentation associated with that corner of California’s underground.
But MEGATONS doesn’t sound like a band desperately trying to convince listeners that they own a particular collection of records. It sounds like two musicians who have spent decades absorbing them. And they’re clearly having a ridiculous amount of fun with what they’ve learned.
The album opens with “Back to the Valley,” immediately reestablishing the chaotic personality The Barbarians introduced on their 2024 debut, And Now I’m Just Gnashing My Teeth. Rather than dramatically reinventing themselves for album number two, Bruno and Stenman have expanded the vocabulary they were already developing. Everything feels a little bigger, a little more confident and considerably less concerned with behaving itself.
That attitude carries directly into “The Gnarlycore Class” and “Vanilla Latte,” titles that should tell you almost everything you need to know about the band’s sense of humor. Hardcore has never exactly been famous for taking itself lightly, but The Barbarians of California understand that aggression and humor don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The riffs can still cave your chest in. You can also laugh while they’re doing it. That balance is one of MEGATONS’ greatest strengths. The record is undeniably heavy, but rarely oppressive. There’s an almost mischievous quality underneath the distortion and screaming, as though Bruno and Stenman are constantly seeing just how far they can push a song before grinning and moving on to the next idea.
“Bomb To A Knife Fight” is a perfect example. There’s an absurd swagger behind its heaviness that makes the track feel enormous without becoming cumbersome. The title itself sounds like something scribbled onto a hardcore show flyer after midnight, and the music carries the same wonderfully reckless mentality. Then there’s the title track, “Megatons,” which sits near the center of the album and feels appropriately massive. By the time “Earthquake” arrives immediately afterward, MEGATONS has settled into a particularly satisfying rhythm: hit hard, move quickly and don’t waste time explaining yourself.
The wonderfully titled “This Is Shredical” pushes the band’s playful personality even further. It’s another reminder that The Barbarians aren’t afraid to acknowledge the inherent ridiculousness that sometimes accompanies extremely heavy music. They’re fans of this stuff. They know the history. They know the clichés, and rather than pretending those things don’t exist, they’re willing to wink at them while simultaneously delivering the goods.
That’s ultimately what keeps MEGATONS from becoming another hardcore record built entirely around borrowed aesthetics. The influences are everywhere, but imitation isn’t the point. You can hear musicians who grew up loving punk, hardcore, metal and alternative music exploring what those sounds mean to them decades later. There’s the aggression and urgency of old-school hardcore, the metallic weight that became increasingly intertwined with the genre, and traces of the adventurous California underground that surrounded Stenman during his formative years. At various moments, a riff, rhythm or burst of noise may remind you of another band but the songs rarely stay there long enough to become impersonations.
Instead, those musical reference points have become ingredients in something increasingly specific to The Barbarians of California. Tracks like “Hide All Your Records” almost seem to acknowledge that relationship with musical history directly. The band’s influences aren’t something to hide from. They’re part of the fun. Punk itself has always evolved through musicians hearing something they love, stealing a little piece of its DNA and then making it faster, stranger, louder or angrier.
The Barbarians are simply continuing that tradition. By “Modern Fashion” and “Shark Out of Water,” another characteristic of MEGATONS becomes obvious: the album doesn’t overstay its welcome. These songs are built around impact rather than excess. Ideas arrive, detonate and disappear before there’s time for them to become tedious.
Closing track “I Am the Submarine” provides one final wonderfully bizarre title before the record signs off, leaving behind the impression that The Barbarians of California know exactly what kind of band they want to be, even if defining exactly what that is remains intentionally difficult. Stenman has described making the album as surprisingly effortless, calling it a “seamless continuation” of what the band started on its debut, only “bigger and better.” That’s an accurate description of MEGATONS.
There isn’t an awkward sophomore identity crisis here. The Barbarians haven’t abandoned the personality of And Now I’m Just Gnashing My Teeth in search of something more accessible, nor have they simply made the same record twice. They’ve taken the foundation of their debut and become more comfortable manipulating it. And perhaps that’s the most interesting thing about The Barbarians of California. Bruno and Stenman aren’t approaching hardcore as musicians trying to discover the genre. They’re approaching it as lifelong fans who already know exactly what they love about it. They’re pulling inspiration from favorite bands, old scenes, decades of records and their own musical histories, then filtering all of it through who they are now.
The result is hardcore punk that simultaneously feels familiar and distinctly theirs. MEGATONS is loud, abrasive, funny, occasionally ridiculous and unapologetically enthusiastic about the music that inspired its creators. The Barbarians of California aren’t trying to erase their influences. They’re showing us what happens when you spend a lifetime collecting them, and finally decide to make something of your own.
