Pop Evil are marking the first anniversary of What Remains with a new expanded version, What Remains Midnight Edition, set to arrive March 27, 2026. Along with the announcement, the band has released a new single, “The Decay,” which premiered on SiriusXM Octane yesterday and is now available widely.
The band frames “The Decay” as a blunt statement about choice and accountability, and they spell out exactly where they want the song to land.
“In a world full of pain, lies, distractions, and half-truths, how easy is it to swallow venom dressed up as medicine without recognizing the damage being done? The choice to help or to hurt is ours. This song is raw, uncomfortable, and honest, an invitation to face the darkness, accept responsibility, and choose to make a difference while you still have time.”
They also made a point about how the visual side of this release was handled. Pop Evil says they avoided using A.I. when creating the official visualizer, which was directed by Sam Shapiro and produced by the CGI team at VSRL Company. The idea, as presented here, is to keep the visuals aligned with the song’s message about what people choose to create and support.
What Remains Midnight Edition adds new material to the original record, including “The Decay” and a studio-polished reworking of the ’80s anthem “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” filtered through Pop Evil’s modern-rock approach.
The original What Remains was described as the band’s most uncompromising and emotionally exposed release to date, heavier and darker than their previous work, while still built for big stages. The album’s narrative angle centers on frontman Leigh Kakaty, with the material focused on personal scars and hard-earned perspective. In the framing around Midnight Edition, the band positions it as a full-circle moment: confronting the past, standing in the present, and locking What Remains in as a defining statement for this era of Pop Evil.
Before this, the band released the four-song EP Unleaded last year, a live, acoustic set that intentionally stepped away from their usual distortion-heavy approach. It showed a different side of Pop Evil, trading aggression for a quieter, moodier presentation.
In terms of the bigger picture, Pop Evil first broke through with Lipstick On The Mirror, which included the RIAA-certified gold single “100 In A 55”. After Kakaty publicly tore up the band’s major label contract onstage, Pop Evil signed with MNRK Heavy (formerly eOne Music). War Of Angels (2011) landed in the Top 10 of the Rock Albums chart and generated three Top 10 singles.
From there, Onyx (2013) pushed them into the Billboard 200 Top 40 for the first time and delivered three straight No. 1 rock songs, plus RIAA gold and platinum certifications, including “Torn To Pieces”. The next release, Up, went to No. 1 on the Independent Albums chart in the U.S. and hit No. 25 on the Billboard 200, featuring multiple Top 5 rock tracks and the gold-certified “Footsteps”. The 2018 self-titled Pop Evil included the No. 1 hit “Waking Lions” (gold) along with two more Top 10 singles.
More recently, Versatile (2020) produced two No. 1 rock songs: “Breathe Again” and “Survivor”. In 2023, the band released Skeletons, which spawned No. 1 singles “Eye Of The Storm” and “Skeletons”. Now, with What Remains Midnight Edition on the way, “The Decay” sets the tone: direct riffs, a darker message, and a band leaning into what it wants to say without dressing it up.
