Alissa White-Gluz isn’t one to stand idle. Joining Hammer on a video call, she immediately asks if it’s okay if she walks on a treadmill while we talk. It’s a perfect representation of who she is: driven, constantly active, always eyeing up the next horizon. In October 2025, news broke that she’d parted ways with Arch Enemy, the band she’d fronted for over a decade. That same day she released The Room Where She Died, the first single from a solo album she’d signed a deal with Napalm Records for back in 2016.
To say Alissa’s departure from Arch Enemy was a shock is an understatement. Just a week before, the band had been on a characteristically massive trek of Europe, headlining venues like the 5,000-plus capacity Eventim Apollo (formerly Hammersmith) – venues they’d comfortably graduated to playing under her 13-year tenure as frontwoman. It’s a subject Alissa is reluctant to talk about right now, admitting she “doesn’t know how to answer” when we ask about the details of her departure. Instead, she admits it was a simple case of “now or never” when it came to doing her own thing.
You keep kicking the can down the road so it’s like, ‘When do I step on the gas?’
Alissa White-Gluz
“It’s been 13 years since I joined Arch Enemy. That’s almost half the existence of the band, and more than half of my musical career,” she considers. “We had the most success the band ever had, so I learned a lot. But you keep kicking the can down the road so it’s like, ‘When do I step on the gas?’”
To even casual observers, it’s appeared Alissa has run on rocket fuel from day one. First emerging with melodeath group The Agonist in the mid-2000s, she quickly started picking up guest appearances with other bands (“I’ve done something like 50 features now,” she muses), stepped in to do duties for power metallers Kamelot and, for one memorable gig in September 2012, even fronted Nightwish when then-vocalist Anette Olzen was taken ill.
She’s going doubly hard now. Post-Arch Enemy, she’s confirmed the release of her upcoming solo album Alissa and in a surprise twist, joined DragonForce as their first ever frontwoman. But even with all of that, she’s got something else cooking too: a brand new, all-woman group called Blue Medusa.
Alissa on stage with Arch Enemy (Image credit: Gary Wolstenholme/Redferns via Getty Images)
“I’ve always wanted to have an all-woman band,” she says. “I grew up watching Jem and the Holograms, which I think is something I’ve carried forward in some ways. Growing up, me and my sister Jasamine, who is in the band No Joy, would make music together. We had guitars and drums – stuff we got from thrift stores, but it was very cool. So this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
Alissa announced the formation of Blue Medusa in March with debut single Checkmate. Although there’s an obvious sonic similarity to her work in The Agonist and Arch Enemy, Alissa enthuses about the more progressive elements she hopes to explore in Blue Medusa. She cites influences for the project ranging from criminally underrated prog group 3, former Delain singer Charlotte Wessels – with whom she’s collaborated in the past – and Euphoria Morning, the solo debut by Chris Cornell. She’s also quick to point out how this project will differ from her solo record.
“Blue Medusa is more focused on my top preferences,” she explains. “I love high energy, fast, heavy music, but also the dark devil’s notes you find in black metal. The scales you find in progressive metal… song arrangements that aren’t just the radio structure you’d normally find.”
To that end, she’s recruited guitarists Alyssa Day and Dani Sophia for the new group, and stresses how important it is that Blue Medusa is an all-female band. The name isn’t a coincidence, either. Medusa might be best known as the monster who turns men to stone in Greek myth, but in some interpretations, she was a victim of Poseidon and cursed by the Gods, becoming a powerful monster as a result.
“I think her story is really interesting. I relate to it, in some ways,” she muses. “But I love the imagery that comes with Medusa, that she is a symbol of feminine strength.”
“Anytime I run into a peer who is a woman on tour or at a festival, we just click and tend to stick together because, speaking for myself, I know how lonely it is when there aren’t any other women around and you’re ‘othered’. You’re automatically in a different category – its tough,” Alissa continues. “With Blue Medusa, I really wanted to be able to showcase awesome women who are super talented and fun to write with, but also have the same sort of music taste as I do.”
It’s still early days for the project right now though. They’ve got gigs lined up later this year at US Festivals Louder Than Life and Aftershock, and Alissa teases that more material is coming – though admits she doesn’t know when a full album will arrive. For now, she’s just happy with where things are at with the band.
“Checkmate felt like coming home,” she says. “I like having a sprinkling of unexpected elements in there, but also giving you something to latch onto. It was the first song I finished for Blue Medusa and that’s always going to hold a special place in your heart. We do have more on the way very soon which I’m very excited about, but the feeling I got working on Checkmate was empowering, healing and thriving. Coming home!”
Blue Medusa play Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky in September and Aftershock in Sacramento, California in October
