Kingdom of Giants

Sacramento, 2010: the slow build

Kingdom of Giants formed in Sacramento, California, in 2010, and started life as a six-piece: Dana Willax on lead vocals, Max Bremer on lead guitar, Julian Perez on rhythm guitar, Levi Norris on bass and clean vocals, Red Martin on guitar and Stephen Rezza on clean vocals and keyboards. Three of those names, Willax, Bremer and Perez, are still in the band today. For an American metalcore act that has spent most of its existence in vans and 300-capacity rooms, that kind of continuity at the core is unusual, and it explains why the band's sound has bent over the years rather than snapped.

The first releases were self-funded. The Abominable EP came out in 2011 and a debut album, Every Wave of Sound, followed in 2013. InVogue Records signed the band in 2014 and released Ground Culture that year, then All the Hell You've Got to Spare in 2017. Those two records moved Kingdom of Giants out of the self-release bracket and onto a label roster, and set the template that still holds: riff-heavy verses, Willax's harsh lead against a second, cleaner voice on the choruses, and an increasing willingness to let electronics into the arrangement.

Passenger and the SharpTone move

By 2020 the band had signed to SharpTone Records. Speaking to Hysteria magazine that October, Willax said the label was home to his favourite bands and had a habit of backing emerging acts over established names. Passenger, the fourth album and the first for SharpTone, was released the same year. Willax framed its subject as control, or the lack of it: "Sometimes we're not in control, and we're not in the driver's seat of our own lives." The idea was to let the listener ride along as a passenger while the record worked through how you take the wheel back.

Around twenty songs were written and twelve survived. The album was recorded with Matt Thomas at AshTone Audio, and the pandemic hit during the final stretch. Most of the writing had been finished before lockdown, and bassist and clean vocalist Jonny Reeves, who worked at a studio, was able to keep tracking guitar and bass parts while everything else stalled. Guest vocals came from Michael Barr, formerly of Volumes, and Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox. Passenger remains the record that defined the band's second decade, and its songs still anchor the live set.

Two EPs and a promise

Then came a four-year gap. The Bleeding Star EP finally arrived in September 2024, and the band did not wait long to follow it. On 1 July 2025 they announced Burning Chrome alongside a video for the lead single, Collide, and a statement that read as a mea culpa: "You waited four years for our last release and we vow to never do you like that again." The six-track EP, made up of Tune Me Out, Collide, Lead Me Back, Cold Burn, Taste of Poison and Digital Hell, was released through SharpTone on 29 August 2025.

Reviews treated it as a correction after a wobble. Writing for Boolin Tunes two days before release, Jonathan Tan scored it 8 out of 10, arguing that Bleeding Star had gone stale by rehashing the band's earlier moves and that Burning Chrome developed the sound instead. He heard Tune Me Out pairing djent-leaning riffs with synthwave, Collide getting its hook from Reeves' chorus set against Willax's harsh vocals, and Lead Me Back pushing the synth ambience somewhere darker before a breakdown that drew rare gutturals from the frontman. Cold Burn opens as a synth-only soundscape before the band crashes in, Taste of Poison throws blast beats and pick scrapes into a breakdown, and Digital Hell, the closer, was singled out for tying the EP's electronic atmosphere and heavy instrumentation together with one of its catchiest choruses.

The bassist problem, and Respawn

The Reeves situation ran alongside all of this. As theprp.com reported on 8 May 2026, Reeves had rejoined Kingdom of Giants in January 2024, then during 2025 took the bass job in The Amity Affliction, replacing Ahren Stringer. He left Kingdom of Giants in December 2025. Asked about the split on The Downbeat Podcast, he admitted the band were "disappointed" but insisted there was "no bad beef" from his side: "I don't wanna hold them back from achieving their goals, but this aligns with the goals that I'm after." He has since played on The Amity Affliction's ninth album, House of Cards.

The replacement is JT Gutierrez on bass and clean vocals, alongside drummer Truman Berlin, Bremer, Perez and Willax. The first recording from that line-up, Respawn, was released in June 2026 with a video. Covering it on 6 June, Respect My Region described a heavier track than the EP material, built on thick grooves and riffs with vocals swinging between aggression and melody, and reported that Willax called it his favourite Kingdom of Giants song in years. The lyric is about a cycle of broken trust and the pull to offer one more second chance, whether the relationship is romantic, a friendship or family. The band have said more new music is on the way, though no album has been announced.

Where they stand in September 2026

The past two and a half years have been the busiest touring stretch of the band's career. They toured the UK in January 2024 with We Came As Romans and Bury Tomorrow, joined Dayseeker's Dark Sun Protocol tour later that year, and played the Summer of Loud festival dates in July 2025. In August 2026 they went further than ever before: Australia at The Princess Theatre in Brisbane on 14 August, Liberty Hall in Sydney on the 15th, 170 Russell in Melbourne on the 16th, Lion Arts Factory in Adelaide on the 19th and Amplifier in Perth on the 20th, then Japan at Akabane ReNY alpha in Tokyo on 26 and 30 August and Yogibo META VALLEY in Osaka on the 28th.

The biggest rooms come next. On 18 May 2026 Beartooth announced a 15-date European and UK tour with Silverstein and Kingdom of Giants as support, tickets going on sale on 22 May. It opens on 17 September in Frankfurt and runs through the Rudolf Weber-Arena in Oberhausen on the 18th, Berlin's Uber Eats Music Hall on the 25th, the Zenith in Munich on the 26th, Fabrique in Milan on the 29th, Halle 622 in Zurich on the 30th and the Elysée Montmartre in Paris on 1 October, before three UK shows: O2 Academy Brixton on 3 October, O2 Academy Leeds on the 5th and the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow on the 6th.

Then the band go home to headline. Announced on 4 August 2026, the North American tour begins on 14 November at The Vera Project in Seattle and ends on 18 December at Goldfield Trading Post in Sacramento, 26 shows in all, with support from Deadlands, Holy Wars and Night Rider in rotating combinations. The route takes in Subterranean in Chicago on 22 November, Lee's Palace in Toronto on the 28th, the Gramercy Theatre in New York on 1 December, Exit/In in Nashville on the 8th, The Masquerade in Atlanta on the 9th and the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles on 17 December. Finishing in Sacramento is not an accident.

What the show is like now

On the current run the set is nine songs and tight. Every setlist logged from the August 2026 Australian and Japanese shows was the same: Asphalt, Wasted Space, Bleach, Respawn, Collide, Burner, Smoke, Night Shift and Wayfinder, with Wayfinder as the closer. Stage times put the set at 35 to 40 minutes: 7.00pm to 7.35pm in Tokyo on 26 August, 8.05pm to 8.45pm in Sydney on the 15th, 8.20pm to 9.00pm in Brisbane on the 14th. Respawn has slotted in as the fourth song, so the new line-up's first single is being road-tested every night rather than saved for a headline reveal.

That is the shape to expect as the middle act on the Beartooth dates, where a support slot of similar length is standard. The November and December headline shows are the first chance for something longer, and the first proper look at the Willax, Bremer, Perez, Gutierrez and Berlin line-up on their own terms. No setlists exist yet for those dates. What the band have already shown, from Burning Chrome through Respawn, is that the electronics are staying and the breakdowns are getting heavier, and the Boolin Tunes verdict that they had stopped rehashing themselves is the most useful frame for what follows.