Celebrating its 10th edition in 2024, ArcTanGent has grown from a defiantly DIY offshoot to one of the world’s great gatherings of alternative artists from far leftfield. Beyond bill-topping heavyweights Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai and Meshuggah, there are countless other weird and wonderful sounds to dive into…
ArcTanGent has really pulled out all the stops for its 10th edition. Started back in 2013 when the brilliant but relatively underground 65daysofstatic and Fuck Buttons topped the bill, it’s always had the aim of drawing the biggest and best acts in post-rock and experimental music, while evolving to encompass a hefty chunk of metal and other esoterica over the intervening decade. But the fact that it’s become an indisputable destination for true alt. outsiders is a point to loudly applaud.
Organiser James Scarlett has spoken about breaking the bank to finally book Glaswegian kingpins Mogwai to headline ATG10, while the returning Meshuggah and Explosions In The Sky can both claim to be the biggest bands in their respective niches. Yet it’s the sheer depth of the bill that’s truly astounding. Bringing in the likes of Dorset doomsters Electric Wizard, Los Angeles djent-lords Animals As Leaders and Rugby space-rock legends Spiritualized to stack the immediate undercard is one thing. Dig a little deeper, though, and there are a galaxy of stars on show, from returning Nottingham alt. metallers earthtone9 (after whose 2000 masterpiece Arc'tan'gent the festival was named) to the comeback show from renowned UK instrumentalists Brontide and, perhaps most tantalisingly, Curse These Metal Hands, with their famous ‘I can’t believe it’s not Baroness’ shirts, playing on the same bill as the actual real life Baroness. It is a ridiculously loaded line-up.
Seeking out the weird and wonderful is a big part of ArcTanGent’s appeal, with many dedicated punters looking to the festival to uncover new favourites or underrated veterans who mightn’t get the spotlight elsewhere. And with its impeccably curated booking – we’ve not even touched on the likes of Amenra and Red Fang, KEN Mode and Imperial Triumphant, Sigh and Show Me The Body – it’d be nigh-on impossible to shout out everyone worthy of your time. But here we present 10 of the finest you shouldn’t let slip under your radar at one of the best UK festivals of the year...
Lesser-spotted legends they may be, but Aiming For Enrike are something of an ArcTanGent favourite at this point. Indeed, looking back, we even included them as a highlight to look out for in our festival preview this time last year. But the Oslo duo of Simen Følstad Nilsen and Tobias Ørnes Andersen are getting two slots in 2024, with their ‘silent disco’ performance on Wednesday night sure to fit well with energetic, esoteric cuts like Don’t Hassle The Hoff and Hard Dance Brainia. Then Thursday’s fully cranked performance in the PX3 Stage should provide a chance to blow us all away with the noisier and more expansive likes of Nibblonian Car and The Rats And The Children. They’ve only got a handful of home country concerts currently booked beyond this, so catch them while you can!
Another set of boundary-pushing Norwegians – albeit with an Aussie vocalist and a distinctly Slavic sense of style – Blood Command will be out to kick up a ‘deathpop’ riot on the PX3 Stage at teatime on Friday. The Bergen crew have actually posted their full performance from last month at ATG’s sister festival 2000trees on YouTube if you fancy a really specific preview. What’s perhaps most interesting is how the shape-throwing jubilation of songs like Heaven’s Hate or A Villain’s Monologue will go down with the nerdier, more chin-stroking ArcTanGent clientele. Given the hip-swinging strength of last September’s fifth album World Domination, and the levels of heart we’ve seen from them out on the road in the 11 months since, we’re betting that it’ll be wild.
Kerrang! actually named Frail Body amongst the 50 greatest American hardcore bands a full five years ago, but the Rockford, Illinois trio have transcended the tongue-in-cheek ‘skramz’ subculture to become a far more devastating exponent of Midwestern screamo in the half-decade since. 2019’s seven-track A Brief Memoriam was their only ‘album’ until this year, but March’s awesome follow-up Artificial Banquet was a game-changer, with emotion pouring from between the seams of tracks like Refrain, Devotion and Horizon Line. They’re just coming off European dates with the mighty Baroness, too, so expect them to have sharpened their teeth with the best of the best.
Testament to ATG’s dedication in recognising the young bands who’ve really stepped up at the festival, Hidden Mothers are amongst those rewarded for barnstorming 2023 performances with a slot at the Wednesday ‘pre-show’ in 2024. It’s the least they deserve, frankly. Having absolutely blown the roof off the PX3 Stage with an exhilarating, visceral display of their post-black metal last year, they’re pumped up to take the early spotlight. And with long-awaited debut album Erosion / Avulsion scheduled for release on November 29 – lead single Defanged having dropped specifically in time for this festival – they’ll have untold new wares to show off. They’re on just after doors, mind, so make sure you’re in and have your tent up in time to properly get the party started.
Maybe they’re not actual centenarians, but Hundred Year Old Man have been toiling away on the UK underground for years now, and it feels like they’re finally beginning to get their dues. Press play on 2018 debut Breaching or 2022’s Sleep In Light and you’ll quickly get a handle on their brand of expansive, scourging post-metal. Where, even at ArcTanGent, bands with songs routinely around the 10-minute mark can struggle with the truncated set times and countless distractions that come with festival sets, HYOM have proven themselves remarkably adaptable: powerful enough to draw audiences beneath the waves of their deeply-layered maelstrom regardless of what’s happening on the periphery. And while with 30 minutes scheduled on Thursday afternoon we might only get a few tracks like I Caught A Glimpse Of Myself In The Fire and Livyatan, it’ll be a half hour of dark power that few will be in any hurry to forget.
Now here’s the Christmas gift set we’ve been waiting for. If you already know Julie, you probably don’t need us to tell you why the Brooklyn songstress’ Main Stage bow on Thursday afternoon is essential viewing at ATG. If you’ve not had the pleasure of the former Made Out Of Babies and Battle Of Mice vocalist yet, imagine a post-metal Björk and you’ll be at least partially there. Most renowned in traditional rock and metal circles for the astonishing 2016 Mariner collaboration with Cult Of Luna, her solo material has tended to veer loosely between jazzy, often dissonant prog and truly crushing riff-laden assaults. Having just released the (aptly titled) Ridiculous And Full Of Blood back in June, however, it feels like we could be in for a set that dispenses with genre altogether. Strap in.
At a point where some amongst the disenfranchised British public are straying perilously close to fascism, directing their misplaced ire at refugees and some of the most vulnerable on the fringes of society, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of bands like Underdark. The Nottingham post-black metallers’ second album Managed Decline was one of the finest of 2023, not just for its gut-wrenching heaviness and incredibly tactile atmospherics, but also for a complex narrative exploring how the world we’re now living in is a result of generational impoverishment overseen by those in the highest echelons of government and industry. Playing at lunchtime on the Yokhai Stage isn’t normally the ideal place to experience music full of such suffocating darkness, but there’s no harm in throwing harsh truths into the cold light of day.
There are some seriously heavy acts at this year’s ATG, but Urne could give all of them a run for their money. Having completed a slew of headline shows, alongside sets at Download and Bloodstock since completion of wrenching, Joe Duplantier-produced second album A Feast On Sorrow, frontman Joe Nally, guitarist Angus Neyra and drummer James Cook have been galvanised into an emotional wrecking crew. Although there is almost an overload of darkness in chronicling the life-stealing impact of dementia through tracks like Becoming The Ocean and To Die Twice, it's the flashes of beauty – influenced by guitar heroes like Gary Moore – that make these Londoners truly shine.
When French post-metal legends Year Of No Light dropped out of ArcTanGent 2023 late in the day, it was one of the most keenly-felt losses of last year’s festival season. Fortunately, the Bordeaux collective are out to make it up to us in 2024. Three years on from massive fourth album Consolamentum, and almost a quarter-century into their career, the reputation for organically flowing and growing compositions that meld everything from sludgy doom to glassy ambience and scourging extremity precedes them. And although compositions like Hiérophante and Stella Rectrix feel like fixtures in their set, the real joy is seeing how exactly each new performance unfolds.
Building and building towards the arrival of their eagerly anticipated, self-titled debut album on September 13, enigmatic duo Zetra will feel right at home at ArcTanGent while also being quite unlike anyone else on the bill. An otherworldly beauty-and-the-beast pairing, whose live performance has the power of a communion with interdimensional beings, and whose music incorporates elements of shimmering shoegaze and pulsating goth metal, they will take you to dark places you’ve never been and offer enlightenment beyond what you’ve felt before. And with acolytes including Sólveig Matthildur, Unto Others’ Gabriel Franco and Svalbard’s Serena Cherry featured on the album, you’ll be in good company falling into their entrancing abyss.
ArcTanGent 2024 takes place at Bristol’s Fernhill Farm from August 14 – 17. Get your tickets now.
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