Bloodstock Festival Countdown : 24 Bands Not To Miss

Ok ok, let’s have another piece of metallic goodness as we here at ROCKFLESH Towers hype you up in advance of the 25th edition of Bloodstock. Rockflesh.com will be there all weekend reviewing every band on the Ronnie James Dio and Sophie stages and interviewing number of your and our heroes. A good proportion of our team will also be in fancy dress and more about that later in another edition of this countdown. For now here is number 19.

19. Death Angel – Sophie Lancaster Stage – Saturday – probably around half six.

Thrash was never about just the big four. From its inception, it has cultivated a fantastic ecosystem of connected acts and artists. Hailing from the same Bay Area scene as Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus and Testament, Death Angel quickly built a reputation for producing thrash with a distinctly technical edge. 1988’s “Frolic Through the Park” still to this day remains one of the most perfect and precise examples of pure unadulterated thrash. However on this tour around Europe, they are showcasing its rather underloved and undervalued younger sibling “Act III”. Whilst it may not have set the world alight in the way that their major-label patron Geffen wanted it to, it remains a dark and twisted delight that saw the band heavily experiment with the confines of thrash. With their move into the Sophie stage there is an anticipation they might now be given enough time to play the whole album as they are doing elsewhere. So fingers crossed we get to hear ‘A Room with a View’ and ‘Disturbing The Peace’ the first time in forever. “Act III” might have at the time sunk the band but it is now considered a triumph. A unique and pulsating ride that set the blueprint for how thrash could be and subsequently has evolved.