Bloodstock Festival Countdown : 24 Bands Not To Miss
Another rotation of the sun and another entry into are indomitable run down of the bands that you need to leave the Lemmy bar for. These are the ones you need to set an alarm on your smart watch for, these are the ones you will feel pretty stupid if you find yourself missing. And of course look out for your ROCKFLESH boys as well. Our Stewart on the access platform beating his stick like Yoda on amphetamines and missers Johann and Matt in their “You won’t miss them in the crowd” customs (more on them later) and of course our Ryan shooting EVERY SINGLE BAND on Sophie and the Ronnie James Dio stage. Never has a band of merry makers been so committed to capturing the weekend. So onto number 16 in the list that never ends.
16. Mantis Defeats Jaguar - Sophie stage - Thursday, probably at some point before 6 o'clock.
It won't have escaped your notice that nu metal is back big time. Download festival saw Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park play to audiences bigger than those they enjoyed in their heyday. However Bloodstock has never been about following the herd. They are celebrating the cultural renaissance of nu metal not by dragging out the corpses of its previous vanguard, but instead by going to find where the new blood is. And lo and behold the epicentre to nu-metal’s new empire is in the black country. Mantis Defeats Jaguar are as dynamic as they are funky. They are not retreading nu-metals past glories, they are meticulously planning its next steps. They are party music for Bloodstock’s party day. What better way to open up the weekend.
I just love Metal. I love it all. The bombastity of symphonic, the brutality of death, the rousing choruses of power, the nihilistic evil of black, the pounding atmospherics of doom, the whirling time changes of prog, the faithful familiarity of trad, the other worldlyness of post, the sheer unrefined power of thrash. I love it all!