OH, AND THIS HAPPENED
The bands that closed out the weekend in style
Bloodstock isn’t traditionally the home of existential dread, but
GRAVE LINES pull you inexorably into their wormhole in the Sophie tent. The crawling, reeling, serpentine riffs are given added drama and frission by frontman
Jake Harding, howling like he’s hammering at the gates of psychosis. Sunday chill? No chance.
Anyone who longed for more Venom Prison after their set would surely approve of THIS IS ENDLESS on the New Blood Stage. The Londoners must have an allergy to frills, instead preferring to make music that sounds like death metal getting buggered in the shower by classic New York hardcore. It’s exactly as wonderfully unpleasant as it sounds.
On the Jagermeister Stage, the steampunk-styled SPECTRAL DARKWAVE create a smog of death metal-infused industrial doom, their skull-rattling riffs and lethal growls casting a trance that enraptures all within its wake and creating a blackened void in the centre of the Bloodstock field.
Administering a helpful dose of “fucking heavy metal chaos” on the main stage, ORANGE GOBLIN come on like the grime, grease and pungent odour of that one beer too many we guzzled down last night. Oh, and the sun comes back out for pretty much the entirety of their set. Massive riffs + sunshine? A perfect festival set.
With the ethereal illustrations of their debut album, Woodland Rites, providing an enchanting backdrop, coupled with aching yowls, esoteric lyrics and stupefying Sabbathian riffs, GREEN LUNG are immediately magnetising. Highlights include the recently released Reaper’s Scythe and towering anthem Let The Devil In. Heads are dutifully banged.
Making great use of a professional opera singer on backing vocals,
NECRONAUTICAL delight a healthy crowd with their symphonic, blackened death metal over on the Sophie Lancaster Stage. Their sound isn’t groundbreaking, but they’re expert performers, and the tent laps it up.
Perhaps just a tad ploddier than they were a decade or two back,
SAXON are NWOBHM legends nonetheless. Introduced by Brian Blessed, massive hits like Denim and Leather, And The Bands Played On and 747 (Strangers in the Night) affirm just how triumphant they are in their decades-long quest to champion heavy metal.