Fan-shot footage of Armored Saint‘s entire August 2 performance at Mejeriet in Lund, Sweden has made its way online, capturing the band’s support slot on Testament‘s European run.
The band had 40 minutes and eight songs to work with. What they picked says something about how they are handling a new album cycle.
Per Setlist.fm, the Lund running order was:
- “Close To The Bone”
- “March Of The Saint”
- “End Of The Attention Span”
- “Creepy Feelings”
- “Win Hands Down”
- “Can U Deliver”
- “Reign Of Fire”
- “Mad House”
Only one track came from Emotion Factory Reset, the record they are out promoting. The rest reached back across the catalogue, the 1984 title track from March Of The Saint, two cuts from 1985’s Delirious Nomad, Symbol Of Salvation‘s “Reign Of Fire” from 1991, the title song from 2015’s Win Hands Down, and a pair from 2020’s Punching The Sky.
Opening with the new song and then leaning on four decades of back catalogue is a support-slot calculation. In front of a Testament crowd, the older material does the heavy lifting.
Emotion Factory Reset arrived May 22 through Metal Blade Records, the band’s ninth studio album since March Of The Saint in 1984. Eleven tracks, wide-ranging musically and lyrically, described by the label as a tearing down and rebuilding.
Bassist Joey Vera produced, as he has the last four Armored Saint records, with Jay Ruston, known for work with Anthrax and Stone Sour, mixing. Alongside “Close To The Bone“, the album includes “Hit A Moonshot” and “Every Man-Any Man“.
John Bush described the opening track when it was released as the first single: “The first track on the record sounds like vintage Armored Saint. Yet vintage that comes out in 2026! How did we do that? The title of the record, Emotion Factory Reset appears as the first line of the bridge. Killer riffs, awesome rhythms and attacking vocals gets this train rolling. The title implies the human response to withdraw and keep things to yourself instead of being confrontational; Something I believe we all struggle with as humans. Do you just say, ‘aww, whatever man,’ or do you say, ‘hey, f**k you!’ Depends on the moment I guess.”
Recording spanned several rooms, 606 Studios, Secret Hand Studios, Skullseven Studios, Constantine Studios and Bridge Recording, with engineering handled by Oliver Roman, Bill Metoyer, Vera and Jason Constantine. DDKing supplied the cover art.
The European CD digipak carries an extra song: “One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison)“, previously available only as a digital release.
The song was written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and first recorded by People in 1970. It has since been covered by The Four Tops in 1974, Santana in 1978 and The Doobie Brothers in 1989.
Armored Saint still have dates left on the continent before heading home:
- Aug 5 – Brutal Assault, Jaroměř, Czech Republic
- Aug 7 – Alcatraz Festival, Dessel, Belgium
- Aug 8 – Poppodium Boerderij, Zoetermeer, Netherlands (headline)
- Aug 9 – Keep It True Legions, Geiselwind, Germany
- Aug 11 – Progresja, Warsaw, Poland (with Savatage, Nevermore)
- Aug 12 – Collosseum, Košice, Slovakia (with Vio-Lence)
- Aug 13 – Klub Studio, Kraków, Poland (with Testament, Metal Church)
- Aug 29 – Stonedead Festival, Newark, United Kingdom
The Metal Saint Tour
The fall brings a North American co-headlining run with Metal Church. “The Metal Saint Tour 2026” opens November 2 in San Juan Capistrano, California and wraps November 21 in Agoura Hills, California, with LiveKill in support.
Metal Church are touring their own new record, Dead To Rights, released in April, with Brian Allen back on vocals and former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson in the lineup.
Bush put it bluntly when the dates were announced: “Two classic metal bands from the ‘80s on tour together doing headline sets and both with brand new awesome records out [Armored Saint with Emotion Factory Reset and Metal Church with Dead To Rights]. If you call yourself a metalhead and you don’t come to this show when we roll into your town, you better have a damn good excuse. AS and MC. Let’s do this!”
Armored Saint have run with the same five men since 1989, Bush on vocals, Phil Sandoval and Jeff Duncan on guitars, Gonzo Sandoval on drums and Vera on bass, interrupted only by the stretches when Bush was fronting Anthrax.
The band was inducted into the Metal Hall of Fame in July 2023 at a ceremony held at the Whisky A Go Go.
