Madi Diaz has released a duet version of “Heavy Metal” featuring Lucy Dacus, days after the two performed it together at the Newport Folk Festival. The song, originally a solo highlight from Diaz’s 2025 album Fatal Optimist, now expands into a two-voice arrangement that pulls its tension inward rather than letting it break open.
Dacus joined Diaz onstage during a guest-heavy set that also included appearances by Hayley Williams and Brandon Flowers. Diaz returned the gesture the same weekend, appearing during Williams’s own set for “Find Me Here,” while Dacus joined for “Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris.” In the studio version of “Heavy Metal,” Dacus’s verse slots into the song with a low, measured composure that Diaz describes as “Frank Sinatra with a velvet cape and gloves on.”
“I know we somehow made a longish track even longer but every tone, every note, every little break and shimmer is just so felt and tender,” Diaz adds. “It goes so hard, but oh so sweetly.” The recording will appear on Fatal Optimist (UN-unplugged), the deluxe edition of the album due September 4 via Anti-.
