Review by Sheri Bicheno for MPM
Heading over for the final day of Bloodstock, Birmingham’s Alternative favourites Straight for the Sun were in full swing over on the New Blood Stage, waking Bloodstock up with energetic melodics and upbeat fusions.
Connecting with the crowd, vocalist Callum Green gets the audience to repeat “I need it more than ever” in harmonies to the chorus of Walk – an expression of shifts in moods and pace that reflect a narrative about struggles with alcohol.
Sirens serves as my favourite track by Straight For The Sun and is the final offering that injects a surge of jawdropping energy and stunning moods.
The last single to be released two years before brand new track Pulling Teeth, this embodies so much of what makes Straight For The Sun so diverse and immersive.
Callum has a truly beautiful voice that engulfs the overall feel of the track with tech infused melodics from the riffs and intricate blasts of the kit.
Pauly Barter and Tom Haywood craft the riffs through this track with beautiful harmonies that entwine with with the heavier prog notes which work with the killer styles of Oz Freeman’s frequencies on bass.
The strings create a dream-like melody in sections of the track that lead up unveil some of the harder energies of Jamie Human’s technical skills of the drums.
Here is a beautiful track that captivates me every time with it’s energy and is a great track to end their set to.
Heading to the Dio stage, “British Meme Metal” title owners Raised By Owls, dressed as vicars, were deep into the start and has drawn a huge crowd – which was killer to see on a Sunday morning at Bloodstock.
Strictly Come Danzig see’s Sam prove to the crowd that he has the real Danzig by having a guy step on stage shouting MOTHER and the crowd erupts into laughter.
This is going to be one of the best Sunday Bloodstock kickstarters going…
Dance Like Barney Greenway see’s the crowd and pit area do the Macarena dance amongst hard hitting beats and Sam Strachan’s blasting range.
Next, he introduces his mum on the stage (If you don’t understand this, you need to follow their IG or TikTok – she’s the real star of their content!).And she strolls on stage dressed in a nuns outfit with the roar of the crowd welcoming her to the Sunday Service.
“Oh wait, it’s just a bloke in a wig…” Sam passes the mic to her.
“F*ck off, you cheeky twat!” Sams mum then addresses the crowd with some good hearted banter.”Have you had plenty of alcohol? Good cuz you’ll have to be p*ssed to watch this pile of cr*p!”
“I want the most British Wall of Death” – Sam divides the crowd according to how they pronounce the word “scones” – and with the crowd chanting at either side, Sam leads them into a huge wall of death for Satanist on T’Yorkshire Moors which serves as a fast paced, grindcore tirade that has furious riffing and screeching vocals.
Pummeling blast beats of Lee Duane shake the core out of you whilst Sams Mum dances around the stage throwing absolute horns.
I’m Sorry I Wore A Dying Fetus Tshirt To Your Gender Reveal Party see’s a conga line in the moh pit with a heavy and rather immersive version of Limp Bizkit’s Break Stuff see’s that Mr Blobby arrives on stage headbanging and dancing around and a tonne of beach balls top the mosh pit.
These guys have got an incredible formula to their delivery and being killer artists, Raised by Owls are a fantastic change – all about fun, frolics, dark humour and feeding back to their audience.
Killer set and raised the bar for the rest of main stage to meet.
Back over to the New Blood Stage for Bristol M2TM winners, the place is overflowing with people spilling out of the tent adorned in hats and make up for green amphibian lovers Froglord – foretelling the coming of an ancient frog spirit with great power.
Of course, this is befitting for their sound – approaching the stage as hooded figures and placing a frog bust at centre stage for worship, we’re taken through a pretty breathtaking display of prog meets stoner doom meets groove influences.
Energetic outbursts of drums, cult style darkened blues, guttural singing, killer guitar licks and riffs, and doomy notes spin a psychedelic experience with these intoxicating guys.
New single Frogman layers out some harsher and faster paced tones that build in some bluesy vocals and upbeat drums.
Die By The Slime is one of my favourite tracks with it’s stunning doom frequency absorbing guitars and blast beats that pummel through the track to unveil guttural, almost blackened vocals.
The soundscape is one of forest dwelling psychedelic colours and creatures dragging your visions through swamps and tree trunks.
Brachial Sludge, Stoner Metal, and Doom Metal surround the swampy dynamics in which the Froglord resides.
The delivery of the live setting is absolutely outstanding with stunning energy and encapsulating moods. Froglord are dynamic and varied in their storytelling. Sabbath style doom themes are intertwined with further harmonic input.
. Strange things are afoot.
The Sophie Stage sees a huge crowd for Bristol outfit Moon Reaper gathered.
Astrohypnosis rang out a beautiful melodic synth underneath a blackened style riff that twists into a tech infused harmony along with some deep and hefty djent style drumbeats.
Vocals from Sirin and Morgan are absolutely outstanding both in their dual setting and respectively. The gutturals tremble your core and melt into high end screeches that give a very black metal range amongst the thundering growls, transpiring with some of the filthiest breakdowns from James’ skill of the kit.
Something I absolutely adore about Moon Reaper is that they are so dynamic and are very genre bending.
Forming most extreme genres within their styles, they make it work beautifully with an intense energy and huge soundscape. About halfway through the track amongst the heaviness, Morgan and Jared work the strings into an utterly breathtaking melancholic melody and use the heaviness to contrast to this injection of catharsis to balance down the track before we’re dropped straight into a face melting, blast beating frenzy again.
Beyond Obscurity is one of the heaviest and most lethal offerings from Moon Reaper – entwining blackened death and almost hardcore djent notes to output a force of energy into the crowd that smashes into them like a bludgeoning wrecking ball.
This is the first time i’ve seen this band and after absorbing their energy and taking note of new release Black Sun Sorcery, I will be following these guys very closely.
Some of the best blackened metal I’ve heard from a new band born within the last 5 years.
Heading back to the New Blood Stage, Plymouth’s answer to Death/Thrash metal, Atom Smasher were bestowing their groove infused concepts into the crowd.
Left To Burn is a new track offered from the newest album Blindsided with groove infused, raw riffs straight from the offset. There are super subtle elements of nu metal under the thrashing riffs and blast beats of the drums.
The pace delivers a brutal onslaught, with the drums battering through the crowd that melts into a dreamy harmony about halfway through the track which follows a groove infused riff to build back into a dark mood.
The vocals are gnarly in places with a thumping range amongst the strong thrashy elements and strong backbone of bassnotes. A super raw track in its live setting.
Dead Inside brings forward a more sludgy feel to the deathier elements and has the bands energy pulled into the crowd with a headbanging momentum and huge amount of blast beats that fade into splintering breakdowns and crushing dual roars.
Some insanely complex but groove-infused notes that complement the raw vocals, dropping to an almost djent feel pace, the heaviness of this track in it’s live setting is on seriously impressive levels. Some cosmic elements added to the heaviness gives the moods of the other-wordly Thunberg and Lightning concepts, there are some beautiful tones underlying all the rawness.
GO check these guys out!
Heading back to the Sophie Stage, what better than to witness heavyweights Osiah bring utter destruction to their crowd with an intricate mix of deathcore and brutal death metal.
With a core of downtempo breakdowns and technical elements lacing through these guys, pushed by atmospheric undertones, Osiah have been paving their way through the UK deathcore scene for a number of years and are armed at Bloodstock with a monumental array of energies.
Vocalist Ricky Lee Roper explodes his range of ground shaking gutturals and shrieks into the atmosphere and there’s a sudden shift of mood across the crowd.
Temporal Punishment is fast as f*ck track with blast beats that catapult the crowd straight into the rafters.
Danny Yates is one of the best metal drummers in modern underground UK music of today. I’ve said it before with his other bands but the guy SLAPS.
His intricate and on point tempos range through death induced speeds into flirtations of djent and give Osiah a brutal round off with the energies he controls on the drums.
The breakdowns he induces are twinned with the energy behind the sheer skill and ferocity of strings by Chris Keepin and Andy Mallaby.
Inviting Beyond Extinction’s Jasper Harmer onto the stage for A Great Nothing, both Jasper and Ricky inject dual vocals that gave an intense surge of energy into an already face-melting track. This has the mosh pit absolutely storming and had a different kind of energy. Guttural lovers would love to see these two create a song together..
“We’ll be working on something to bring out again soon” Ricky addresses the crowd “And we’ll be canny rich if you buy it so please go buy it!”
Ending on The Eye of the Swarm from 2021’s album Loss, injected some brutal slam elements into the set that raised the pace and tempo changes from brutal breakdowns into a super charged tech absorbing core element of the guys.
Their energy is insane on stage and I’m looking forward to their second return to Bloodstock at some point in the hopefully not too distant future,
Heading back over to the New Blood Stage, I couldn’t miss the next guys who I’ve been following near their beginning. Blending genres with mixes of tech, groove and prog, the guys in Akkadian offer up a unique take on their styles and have grafted hard, they earned their place at Bloodstock and I was so happy when they were announced.
Let me tell you, that stage was RAMMED and rightly so.
Kicking off with Second Sight, the stunning guitar work of Harry Newberry and Max Sylvestre entwine together to output a heavy, groove infusion of culture induced melodies amongst Aaron Wright’s intricate blast beats.
The energy that these guys emit has always been incredible and Sundays Bloodstock was no exception. Chris Kontos works with the bludgeoning, speed bullet pace of bass frequencies to deliver the range of depth alongside Aaron’s drums and no one on stage is standing still.
Vocalist Danny Thurston delivers exceptional vocals that range between raw screams and blistering gutturals amongst the totally tight musicianship on stage between all members.
This track particularly reminds me of Gojira in places and that is as the styles all members have merge and deliver a djent element track with vocals that harmonize with the pace, be it melodic or during their brutal sections amidst breakdowns.
The Devil Has Evolved captures an intro of cymbal work and shooting riffs from the dual guitars before Chris chimes in with some bludgeoning bassnotes.
“Bloodstock, bang your f*cking heads!” Danny includes the crowd in the energy Akkadian show during the chugging of strings and thumping of drums, everyone on stage headbangs in unison.
The Devil Has Evolved has the crowd headbanging with them and absorbing some of those groove fuelled notes coming from the stage before launching into brand new track Mirror Soul.
Emitting bass frequencies and a short sharp drop into some absolutely stunning atmospherics, Danny’s voice is at first clean and shining that flows with the melodics of the track into a cathartic mood before launching into a huge plethora of hypnotic energies that reveal an extremely raw emotion in this track.
One of the things that I adore most about Akkadian (apart from how lovely they are) is that they are so in touch with the connection of their music to the meanings of their messages about life, love, history and space and time.
Addressing things that sometimes have no words to describe but the feeling and knowing is there somehow. Their music reflects those vibrations and not only in the lyrical sense. The soundscapes that they have always created is to be understood by having a sense of deep connection to atmospherics, visions and the nature in which they paint their message across. They are skilled musicians and use their blended genres to capture the meaning of Akkadian.
Please make sure you go and absorb them sometime. They are by far one of my favourite bands to come out of the underground scene within the last several years to create a meaningful existence to their sound.
Heading to the Dio stage and Greek Symphonic Death giants Septic Flesh had the crowd immersed in beautiful melodics and ground shaking heaviness.
The Vampire From Nazareth saw the familiar eerie intro of choral voices echoing amongst the beastly technical drumming of Kerim “Krimh” Lechner that erupts with the evil, ground-shaking death roar of Spiros Antonious.
Bludgeoning sections and frenzied strings from Sotiris Vayenas and Christos Antoniou take the lead of the track and take it through nightmarish scapes into orchestral lulls that edge around striking guitar solos.
“Are you ready to destroy with us!?” Spiros roars into the crowd. “Let the games begin!”
Martyr see’s a huge surge of pit action amongst a mix of power and majesty of an orchestral sound. Crushing riffs during this track, there is colossal meeting of genres and fits beautifully.
The guitars are sharp and the drums reach huge depth. Amid all this heaviness, the orchestra and folk instruments cut through beautifully.
“The next song talks about a God from Ancient Egypt.”
Septic Flesh are often described as cinematic, and arguably, no song displays that better than Anubis, one of their most established tracks.
The intro swirls through the crowd and the familiarity creates a huge stir.
The orchestral side of Septic Flesh with the heaviness of this track is fully utilised here, bringing the chthonic scene to life and seamlessly builds from the melodic intro into the heaviest parts of the sections.
A crowd pleaser, this was a track with strong energy and one that is killer to witness in it’s live setting.
With interviews afoot, I headed to the Serpents Lair to catch ritual folk souls, Seidrblot who I had seen just a couple of weeks previously at Valhalla Viking Festival too.
I got absolutely lost in these guys. As someone who comes from the Pagan side of life and has a deep connection to most music styles amongst Scandinavian/Gaelic and folklore roots, this was breathtaking.
Smudging the stage before their performance, this is not only part of their ritual pre-show but also gives their audience a reminder that these things are still very much practiced and is also an element that adds to the experience of watching a set from artists that are deep rooted to their beliefs and traditions.
Using traditional instruments and the skills of throat singing, we’re taken through soundscapes to magic you away into ancient, deep forests and given a tool to paint the feelings that these guys carve into your core.
The music is immersive and something you really have to behold to be able to understand the spiritual aspect of the set.
Stunning and one that speaks loudly to me.
Over to the main stage for UK Old school Grindcore/Death Metal legends Carcass donning shades and banter take the support slot for the final day of Bloodstock.
It’s been over 10 years since Carcass where back at Bloodstock – this year they came fully stocked with killer tracks and an intensity of back catalogue worthy of the crowd they bring with them.
Buried Dreams serves as the first bludgeon of grinding riffs and acidic vocals.
Bill Steer’s rhythm playing and multi-layered melodies creates sinister moods amongst the blast beats and tempo changes of Daniel Wildlings’ frenzied drums.
Kelly’s Meat Emporium follows, with duo guitars of Bill and James Blackford building threatening riffs alongside eachother with a raw power and absolutely death defying raps and growls of Jeff Walker.
“Are you having a good time? Yes? No? You’re not having a good time… we’re gonna make it even worse for you now…” Jeff banters with the crowd before pummeling through Death Certificate and Black Star combining with Keep On Rotting in the Free World.
There are some seriously heavy breakdowns in the make up these guys and sound like they don’t even try for it, they just fit in beautifully amongst the chaos and nightmarish visions painted. Exhume to Consume blends the technical riffs and beats of Carcass with an even more savage form of slamming death metal of downtuned riffs, writhing rhythms and bloodcurdling vocals. Its heaviness is raw with energetic leads but retains its sheer brutality. I spot two little kids getting in on the bodysurfing action and were safely carried to the barriers.
Tools of the Trade and Reek of Putrefaction end the set in monstrous notes, leaving the crowd chewed up and spat out for Amon Amarth.
A black curtain conceals the Dio stage with a synth melodic intro echoing into the sunset lit crowd.
Beach balls are sill adrift amongst the front and the odd Dinosaur can be spotted amongst the masses.
The stage lights up to border the curtain and as the winding riffs fade through for Ravens Flight, an almighty explosion sounds from the stage and the curtain is dropped to reveal shots of pyrotechnics reaching to the skies and Johan Hegg gives an almighty roar.
The stage is alight with blue clouds and stunning light work that reveals a horned platform near the back that Jocke Wallgren and his spectacular drum kit is raised upon.
For the second time headlining Bloodstock, Swedish Melo-Death Viking metal leviathan Amon Amarth are back and what a show they put on.
Guardians of Asgaard comes next and is one of the tracks that got me into Amon Amarth many moons ago.
Johan’s vocals are some of the most striking that i’ve ever seen in a headlining band. His ranges are huger and louder than you’d expect with trembling depths of gutturals and roaring barks that can be heard for miles.
“You guys gave a good weekend? Ooooh… DID YOU ENJOY THE FESTIVAL? Ah man, nothing like a summer festival right? Drinking beer and listening to awesome music all day right? Im gonna bore you more with a bit more mythology ok?” Johan has an equally massive personality on stage. He is upbeat and full of positivity and beams across the crowd for all to see.
He gives us a quick low down on some Norse Mythology before we’re hurled into Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags.
This is a battle song with marching riffs from Olavi Mikkon and Johan Söderberg entwining under eachother to deliver a fast paced but melodic immersive track that brings its atmospherics to the forefront. The energy is incredible and so immersive.
To me, this is a perfect show. The musicianship is completely tight, with good ethos on stage and with crowd interaction – the lighting was stunning which really helps the visuals of the music for what makes Amon Amarth so absorbing. Their roots of Viking mythology and belief match the moods that keep on building in your core and you can feel the stories that reside within the songs.
“You guys are loud, we love it!!!”
The stage darkens with blue hues of light edging around the outsides and plunges the crowd into darkness.
With an ambience like waves crashing, the lights go up and Johan stands with his arms spread towards the crowd, a huge grin on his face.
Launching into Put Your Back Into The Oar, about halfway through, the masses of crowd, stretching all the way to the back all sit…
“Are you ready!? ROW. ROW. ROW. ROW.”
And there you have – a field full of people in lines of rowing in momentum with each other as the guitars start again for the rest of the track.
Taking us into a truly stunning next track, Under The Northern Star, melodics are used here to create such a beautiful mood Ted Lundström uses some depths of basswork here to work with the harmonies of strings to bring a really heartfelt longing into the track. I cannot express how utterly captivating this track is in its live setting – with bursts of flames rising to the air, a viking reenactment is displayed on stage and gives an overall feel of tradition and history to the set.
Bludgeoning through First Kill and Shield Wall, we’re taken to the next track to near the end of the set.
“Skal!”
A whole field raises their beers, horns, glasses and all join in with the anthemic Raise Your Horns which is an inclusive and feel good offering from Amon Amarth fuelled with choppy riffs, chants and cheers.
Encore Twilight of the Thunder God served as the last track and ensured that Bloodstock would have a memorable set.
Raising the moljinar to the air, Johan smashes it down and an almighty display of fire, smoke and sparkler lighting erupted onto the stage.
Fighting the serpent on stage, Johan roars through his vocal delivery and with the rest of Amon Amarth, deliver a spectacular conclusion to their set. This track is one of my very favourites to the choppy riff breakdown midsection to the range of vocals that take on an entirely different depth of gutturals, this has to be one of the best Bloodstock headliners by far.
This year was incredible and there’s more to come from for interviews with a bunch of amazing bands so keep your eyes peeled!
Next year Bloodstock have announced Trivium, Machine Head, Gojira, Kublai Khan, Creeper FEUERSCHWANZ, August Burns Red, Emperor, Lacuna Coil, Breed 77, Orange Goblin, The Black Dahlia Murder, Kataklysm, Static X, Obituary, Lord of the Lost, All For Metal, 3 inches of Blood, Me and That Man so far… what a line up!!
As ALWAYS – Thank you to Metal Planet Music and Cosa Nostra PR for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this incredible weekend!
Photography by Pete Key & Artur Tarczewski for MPM