MADBALL — Not Your Kingdom as reviewed by Mark J. "an aggressive raging record that works superbly"

 MADBALL — Not Your Kingdom

(Nuclear Blast, July 24 2026)

Seven years since For The Cause. The follow-up was done, then remixed because they didn't like the first one. Then the artwork held up. Then the label system moved at the speed of label systems. Freddy Cricien has been candid about all of it, which is itself a Madball move — no mystique, no marketing spin, just a guy telling you what happened and why. None of that delay made them less relevant; if anything it made the anticipation weightier, because this is one of the few bands in this space whose absence actually gets felt.

Not Your Kingdom is Madball's tenth studio album, and it delivers their trademark tales of survival — but with a deeper, more introspective edge. The lyrics offer a raw look at Cricien's perspective on the current state of the world and the human condition, making this their most personal release to date. The lead single "Rebel Kids" was the first track written for the album, completed roughly two years before release, and Cricien has said its sentiment and message shaped everything that followed. It's anthemic in the way Madball anthems always are: uncomplicated in structure, loaded in context, built to be shouted by a hundred people simultaneously in a room that's probably violating fire code. And I have to admit I thought it was too rock when I first heard the track. But in the scope of the whole release, it is all part of an aggressive raging record that works superbly.

The full 14-track run opens with the road-tested and vitriol-filled "Tethered" — already embedded in live sets since late 2025 — and closes on "Chase a Dream," with "Stab Wounds," "Family First," and "Flammable" doing serious damage in between. The production was handled at The Boneyard Studios in Nashville, with additional interludes recorded by Jeff "Stress" Davis and Chuck Treece at Chop Shop Studios; Andrew Baylis, Aiden Thompson, and Grady Saxman produced and engineered, with Lee Rouse on final mixing and mastering. The result has room and body — the kind of mix that suggests people in the same space actually playing together, which is rarer than it should be.

The cover art uses photography by Cornell Capa via Magnum Photos. A Capa photograph on a Madball record. That's a band thinking about legacy with full self-awareness and no apology.

This tenth record works so, so much more than For the Cause; a very mediocre record that has a few bangers, but the variety on that record ultimately killed that tedious album for me. But Not Your Kingdom mixes it up with capitivating variety in tempo and breaks it up with some clever interludes like "Sunrise" and also rocket-fueled short skullcrushers like "Flammable", "Don't MisStep"and "IWI" Everything fits in as you have classic stompers like "Life's a Mural" "What Say You" (did anyone else pick the riffage very similar to the classic Sick Of it All Track "Friends like You"...eh it's all NYHC ok), the pummelling (and also one of the best modern era Madball tracks by these legends) "Stab Wounds", "Family First" and "Clockwork" has that NYHC bounce we adore.

(killer pic by https://www.instagram.com/poziom_og/ )

"The Ride" has that anthematic melodic choir magic that drills in your head with each listen, and the album closer "Chase a Dream" is a gritty showcase of the later-day Madball paired with solid groove and great song structure.

Not Your Kingdom isn't a comeback record because they never left. It's a statement of continuity from a band that has always known exactly what they're doing and why.

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