Rachel Aspe appears on screen between interviews, composed and focused, the kind of presence that makes immediate sense once she begins talking about Exuvia, the new album from Cage Fight and the most personal work of her career.
The record arrives on 1 May 2026 as a moment of rebirth for the band, a sign of how much they have grown together and how deeply they now understand one another. Their Hardcore foundation is still intact, but Exuvia pushes further, shaped by experiences Rachel has never shared publicly before.
Her Chihuahua rests in the background as she settles into the conversation. “One day I hope I can take him on tour,” she says. “But for now, the van is too small. It would be stressful.” There is a softness in the way she says it, a small window into the person behind the voice.
Exuvia is built on trauma, grief and the slow process of rebuilding, but it also reflects a band that has matured, tightened and found a new level of connection. That contrast between ferocity and tenderness sits at the heart of who Rachel is. On stage, she can level a field with a single growl. Off stage, she talks about her family with a quiet warmth that never feels far away.
For someone who has spent two decades in music, Exuvia marks the first time she has allowed herself to be fully seen. “I really needed to expose myself this time,” she says. “I have been doing music for 20 years, and this is the only time I have talked about personal subjects.”
Writing lyrics had always felt impossible. The idea of strangers reading her thoughts felt unbearable. But then life happened. Traumatic experiences cracked something open, and she began writing words down without thinking about where they might lead.
Months later, she realised something had shifted. “I told the guys, I want to write now, but only about my own stories. I cannot invent stories. It has to come from me.”
That decision shaped the entire album. The emotional core of Exuvia is heavy. Anxiety, assault, grief, resilience. But the hardest moment came from a place of love. Rachel wrote the title track with her grandmother, a collaboration as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.
“It was hard not to be too harsh, but I had to be true,” she says. “It is quite sad. When we read it again, we were like, oh… horrible, but it needed to be said.” Her grandmother had never written lyrics before. She simply told her story, and Rachel wrote it down. “She was very excited to hear it,” she smiles.
There is also a song for her grandfather, steeped in loss. Did turning grief into music help? “Not really,” she says quietly. “I am still as sad as before. It does not change anything. But it was good to make music.” It is the kind of honesty other artists might avoid, but Rachel does not flinch.
Musically, Exuvia shows a band that has grown into itself. There is more melody than on Cage Fight’s debut, and Rachel lights up when she talks about it. She had always wanted a song that felt like a journey. When guitarist James sent her the instrumental, something clicked instantly.
“I heard everything in my head already. I am impatient. I hate doing things twice. So I put the song on my laptop and recorded the melody as it played. I kept it. It just came from nowhere.” It is a moment that speaks to the trust within the band. They know each other better now. They write with a shared instinct.
Not everything on the album is heavy. Pick Your Fighter is pure fun, a burst of energy inspired, unexpectedly, by a French Pop song. Julien Truchan of Benighted was the obvious choice for a guest spot.
“He has been my friend for maybe 15 years,” Rachel says. “I have always been impressed by his vocals. I always wanted to sing with him.” The video runs like a ’90s arcade fighter, each band member turned into a different game character battling through levels, closing with a knockout punch and the band walking off together, that lands with the same playful spirit as the track itself. “It is good to have fun,” she says. “Even live, you can feel this song is more fun.”
But fun is only one side of the record. Pig is a furious call out of creepy behaviour and unsolicited messages, a track born from years of accumulated experiences rather than one defining moment. Some men reacted badly.
“We had comments from men defending themselves, feeling offended,” she says. “Some people just do not get it.” Others messaged her saying they had not realised how bad things were. That is why Cage Fight released a reel full of real screenshots, a stark reminder.
“You have to remind people constantly,” she says. “Even with our song Respect Ends, people still DM me cute, cute, cute. They do not listen.”
At Bloodstock last year, Rachel’s growl was powerful enough to make the ground vibrate. Playing new songs there felt different, more alive. “I feel more energy doing the new songs because they are my lyrics,” she says. “We are more of a band when we play these songs. We wrote them together.”
The crowd felt it too. It is another sign of the band’s evolution, a group moving in the same direction with the same purpose.
Metal likes to call itself inclusive, but Rachel has lived the other side of it. Her early TV appearance brought a wave of cruelty, including the comments that inspired Pig. In a previous French band, she was compared to the former vocalist, judged on looks rather than talent.
Now she is constantly compared to other women in Metal. “They never compare men,” she says. “They just say Spiritbox, Jinjer, like we are items. I am Rachel.” She has learned to protect herself. “My band is my circle. I am careful now. I am tired of meeting people and realising they are bad.”
Cage Fight’s ‘Male Backed Metal’ shirt, designed by a friend, pokes fun at the absurdity of the term ‘female fronted.’ “There are so many genres of Metal,” she says. “Lacuna Coil and Cage Fight cannot both be female fronted. It makes no sense. We are just Metal.”
Will from the band once joked that Rachel warms up by creeping behind bandmates and growling at them. She laughs, raises a cup to the camera and blows a stream of bubbles through the straw. “No. This is my prep, bubbles.”
Cage Fight album launch at Blondies on 1 May is already sold out. “We are going to play more new songs. We are really excited.”
And what does she hope people carry away from Exuvia? “We gave everything we could. I hope people enjoy it, and I hope it helps. I have had messages saying the lyrics helped them, and that makes me really happy.”
We end by talking about her tattooing, not just the abstract work she is known for, but the way the one-to-one conversations she has with someone in the chair feel a lot like this, two people sitting together, talking, sharing something personal.
So before she leaves, I ask whether she has ever tattooed the interviewer. She thinks for a second, eyebrows lifting as she processes it, then laughs. “Not yet… but let us do it, you can be the first!”
Talking to Rachel, you realise quickly that the ferocity onstage and the softness off it are not contradictions. They are the whole point. Exuvia is the sound of someone finally giving herself permission to speak, to feel, to confront, to heal. It is raw, it is honest, and it is hers.
And if the album is about transformation, then Rachel Aspe is already living it, one scream, one story, one shed skin at a time.
Cage Fight release Exuvia on 1 May 2026 via Spinefarm. Pre-orders are available from cagefight.lnk.to/exuvia.
