BLUE MEDUSA exist on stage now. The band Alissa White-Gluz built after leaving ARCH ENEMY played its first ever concert on Friday, September 4, as one of the headliners of the Corrupted Blood Club Show at Huxleys Neue Welt in Berlin.
Nobody in the room knew in advance. Maximilian "HandOfBlood" Knabe, who organises the event, kept both the lineup and the concept sealed until the doors opened — the show had sold out back in November, in a single day, on the strength of the name alone. What the crowd got was three secret headliners: BLUE MEDUSA, HEAVEN SHALL BURN and KREATOR, plus a run of announcements about Corrupted Blood Records.
White-Gluz worked both sides of it, hosting the Twitch livestream that carried the night and then playing it. The stream pulled 295,000 unique viewers, most of them in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and at one point the show was sitting on Twitch's front page in all three countries.
The live lineup around her is a considerable one. Alyssa Day (MINDSCAR, ABSENTIA) and Dani Sophia (ex-Till Lindemann) play guitar, Alicia Vigil (DRAGONFORCE, VIGIL OF WAR) is on bass and Delaney Jaster (STITCHED UP HEART) is behind the kit. BLUE MEDUSA have three singles out — "Checkmate", "Flying Monkey" and last week's "Crocodile" — and no album announced.
The festival slots are already stacking up. BLUE MEDUSA play Louder Than Life in Louisville on September 18 and Aftershock in Sacramento on October 2, then, in 2027, Wacken Open Air, Leyendas Del Rock in Villena and Summer Breeze in Dinkelsbühl.
That is a lot of booked stage time for a band that had not played a note in public until Friday, and it fits a year in which White-Gluz has been more or less everywhere. At Wacken she spent her birthday weekend across three stages, including a performance of "Our Kingdom" with Bear McCreary, the official Wacken anthem the two wrote together. She fronted DRAGONFORCE at Sonic Temple and Welcome To Rockville, turned up unannounced with ICE NINE KILLS at Rock Am Ring, Rock Im Park and Inkcarceration among others, played an acoustic set with SAVAGE LANDS at Hellfest and then walked back out with SEPULTURA for "Kaiowas". She fronts DRAGONFORCE again this autumn on their "Inhuman Rampage" anniversary tour in North America.
White-Gluz joined ARCH ENEMY in 2014 as Angela Gossow's replacement and made four albums with them: "War Eternal", "Will To Power", "Deceivers" and 2025's "Blood Dynasty". Her last show with the band was in Düsseldorf on November 15, 2025, closing the European "Blood Dynasty" tour with AMORPHIS, ELUVEITIE and GATECREEPER. Before ARCH ENEMY she fronted Canadian extreme metal band THE AGONIST.