Bloodstock Festival continue to fill up the bill with rock metal and a tad of prog for this years celebration to be held at Catton Park Derbyshire with winners of the Metal 2 The Masses competitions around not only the UK but from Poland and Norway along with one or two acts who have been handpicked by the organisers as outstanding acts. The bands are all playing either the Jägermeister Stage or the New Blood Stage and for this news piece I will start with the acts rocking the Jager…
Jägermeister: Friday
Friday sees two acts both very different of each other. First up is stoner groove outfit Eyes Of The Raven from the West Midlands who describe themselves as “beer metal, what more could you ask for?” which is possibly Bloodstock summed up, beer and metal! As you can imagine they throw out heavy stoner grooves but also with a strong growled vocal from singer Dave Horan. Opening the stage for the weekend is spoken word artist Sophie Sparham. This young lady writes interesting amusing and thoughtful pieces with a hint of comedy. Her metal credentials cannot be faulted having written “When I Grow Up I Wanna Be Napalm Death” although I also feel she wrote “Anthem For The P. E. Losers” just for me as I sucked at sports at school.
Jagermeister : Saturday
Saturday brings Blackpool groove metallers Daybreaker. They have been around since 2015 and have a self titled EP out at the moment. The track I have heard had plenty of groove about it and rocked hard. Check them out on the Saturday.
On Sunday Victus from Portsmouth play the Jager with their doomy southern blues. They have supported artists such as Crowbar, Raging Speedhorn (also playing Bloodstock on the Friday night on the Sophie Stage) and Conjurer. They have an EP called “Sacrifice” out at the moment.
Moving onto the New Blood Stage…
New Blood: Friday
Friday brings 6 new band announcements, all winners of their M2TM finals. Firstly come Oxford winners The Hope Burden. They play what is called “post metal” and have been described (somewhat scarily) “Coldplay for Greebos“. They have a 3 track EP called “Decline. Despair. Decay.” which is the name of the 3 songs on it. The song titles give an idea of the music style even in intensity. The vocal style is something that I don’t think Chris Martin could manage!
Then comes Pravitas winners in Leeds. This tech metal outfit have released a couple of EPs and a single and namecheck influences including Gojira, Animals As Leaders and Between The Buried And Me. Plenty of time changes along with melodic guitar solos but with growled vocals.
Merseyside winners Marw are “blackened atmospheric noise” which translates into intense dark and brutal metal music. They have a self titled EP out and have been around for just a year having formed last year.
Widows were the top dogs in the Nottingham battle and play doom laden riffs. They formed back in 2008 and have a new single out called “Ten Yer” and have supported artist such as Orange Goblin and Nebula. They have just been joined by a new drummer and are ready for Bloodstock.
Tomorrow’s Lost Newcastle classic sounding hard rockers also have a spot on the Friday. They formed a couple of years ago and have so far released 2 singles and an EP which is called “The Shadowman EP“. This female fronted outfit have plenty of melody and power and in Marc Rush they have my favourite named drummer outside of Neil Peart!
Last but not least for Friday we have modern tech metal band Saurr who won through in Manchester. Formed in 2016 they describe themselves as “alternative” metal wise and name bands like Gojira, Machine Head, Between The Buried And Me and System Of A Down. So a right old mix. They have an EP available from 2016 and are working on a release for the near future.
New Blood : Saturday
Moving onto Saturday there are 2 new announcements. First up are the wonderfully named Goat Monsoon. They were winners in Essex with their garage fuzz rock. They call the music they play “Sweet and heavy music” and they have supported Crowbar, Paradise Lost and Orange Goblin. A good mix of stoner, doom and groove have a couple of singles available.
Reaper X the Northants winners are a classic thrash outfit from Corby. Formed in 2014 but with a brand new rhythm section since 2017. “Rise” is the name of their new album and it is full of fast riffs, and melodic guitar solos and stands up very well to old school stuff.
New Blood: Sunday
Sunday brings 4 new bands, 2 winners from M2TM and 2 specially invited to play who didn’t go through the various heats.
Firstly coming through the heats in Poland we have Setheist, a female fronted melodic metal band. They make music and write songs based on a certain style based on Italian “giallo” movies which are crime or horror themed with slasher tendencies and eroticism. (Yes I did look that up!) They have an album out from 2017 called “They“.
Winners in Norway truly are “new blood” being aged 14 and 17 years old. This duo of guitar and drums have been going an almost unbelievable 5 years (do the maths…) and play music that sits with Neuroses Kyuss Mastodon and Mayhem. Again they do have an album to check out from 2107 called “Norwegian Stoner Machine“. If they do half as well as the young lads from last year (Alien Weaponry) then they will do very well indeed.
The 2 guest bands include Fallen Temples, a 3 piece from Cardiff who are more classic rock in style. They mention influences such as Rival Sons, Led Zep, Sabbath and most excellently Budgie! It is groovy hard riffing hard rock music and they do have an EP out called “The Future We Leave Behind“.
Contrasting to that closing the New Blood Stage from London come Damim. They play and I quote “visceral deathly tones of blackened metal“. Fans of bands like Morbid Angel, Emperor and Coroner will find much to enjoy. They have a new album called “A Fine Game Of Nil” coming out at the end of the month of June.
Finally
There is a lot to get through in this list of bands, but I am positive there is just about something for everybody that would like to go to the festival in there. Of this goes with a whole host of bigger artists such as the headliners Sabaton, Parkway Drive, Scorpions along with names like Powerwolf, Children Of Bodom, Dimmu Borgir, Anthrax, Soulfly, Dee Snider and many others.
The festival is only around 5 weeks away so it is probably best to get on and buy tickets whilst you can.
Tickets can be purchased Here
For full updates and information check out the Bloodstock Website or Facebook pages…
