Live Review: RADAR Festival 2025 - Friday
4th July 2024
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: William Mawdsley
I can only image how stressful the week leading up to a festival is for the organisers; dealing with the foreseen issues must be a nightmare but thrown unforeseen problems like the one faced by Radar a week out and it’s a wonder how these things ever happen at all. I’m not going to comment one way or the other on the situation leading up to these obstacles, it’s not my place and I’m here for the music and the music alone. I will say that, no matter your point of view on the subject, death threats are way out of line, and something no one should be subjected to.
By the time Friday rolled around that day’s bill was seemingly untouched by the incoming storm and it was time for the music to do the talking. Opening the proceedings on the Sneak Energy stage were Mother Vulture whose easy-going vibes can quickly give way to fearsome barks at the drop of a hat. Kicking off on the Kerrang stage is Floya who make a welcome return to Radar two years after their impressive set of 2023. Not much has changed for the band, whose languid vibes and anachronistic approach, combining pop-punk with an Eighties soft rock, is still the sort of thing to set your festival off on the right footing.
If Radar festival is about anything it’s about the dismantling of barriers and most of the bands booked are like Venn diagrams; not more than quartet Tropic Gold who merge elements of metal, alt rock and electronics into their sound. The opening ambient bars of Holy Horror could be lifted from the last Crosses record, before driving headlong into some powerful guitar lines. Theirs is a musical journey through the consideration of what it means to be human; both the joy and the pain.
Another band from the Radar Class of 2023 is Brighton duo, Lake Malice whose attack of heavy guitars and harsh electronics come with an added layer of dirt. Leaning heavily on their EP, Post-Genesis, Alice and Blake have lost none of their acerbic attitude. Blossom, Black Turbine and Creepers open the set, with singles Creepers and No One Wants to Be You following closely. No matter where they play, Lake Malice always bring it. 2000 Trees next weekend – Kneecap beware.
Hailing from Hamberg, Avralize are a whole lot of fun for Friday afternoon. Their positive vibes and crushing breakdowns make odd bedfellows, as to the catchy choruses which abound throughout. Strange that the single, Higher, didn’t get an airing, but a chunk of the 2024 debut, Freaks, did. Lotus, Bright, Canvas and the title-track, all hearty slices of modern metalcore.
Using Roy Batty’s iconic speech from Blade Runner is a bold move for any band’s intro tape, yet Berkshire’s As Everything Unfolds take the challenge and enter the stage with a gladiatorial fervour. With a dozen-years under the belts of the collective creatives, the band serve up bombastic rhythms a plenty. Opening with the most recent single, Set in Flow suggests the possibility of new material coming soon, though the rest of the set is heavily dominated by the last full-length, Ultraviolet, songs. Chugging riffs and industrial-grade electronics – can’t go wrong with that combination.
Cyan Kicks‘s frontwoman, Susanna Saarinen, certainly makes a statement with her outfit, yet this is not to distract from the Finn’s amalgam of heavy rock riffs with pop sensibilities. Labelled Disco Metal in some quarters, the band have been prolific single releasers since their inception in 2017, and the whole of their Radar set has, at some stage, been used as promotional material. I say that to give an idea of the quality of the set today, as genres are broken and boundaries are blurred.
The second ‘As’ band to grace the Kerrang stage arrives with thumping percussion and hard-hitting alternative rock. As December Falls have been doing their post-hardcore, alt rock, progressive punk for more than a decade now, with vocalist Bethany Curtis able to lull you to sleep one moment and curse your soul to damnation the next. Ride, from the self-titled opens things up, staples Mayday and Join the Club keep things moving, and Carousel closes it all off. However, the band have a new album waiting patiently in the wings for its early August release date. Everything’s on Fire But I’m Fine will begin a new round of shows for As December Falls and it’s a brave move to play three new songs in a festival setting (I saw Europe do something similar at Milton Keynes Bowl in 1989); For the Plot, Ready Set Go and Bathroom Floor are all given live debut and suggest the new record will become a favourite with the fans, old and new.
Making their UK festival debut is Berlin trio, Future Palace, who feisty frontwoman, Maria seems to at her wits end with the misogyny of the music industry. Their third album, Distortion, isn’t even a year old and the dedicates its second single, The Echoes of Disparity to the ladies at Radar Festival. Heavily informed by the European scene, their pulsing electronics are a popular booking indeed.
Swiss avant-garde band Zeal & Ardor have a lengthy track record of bamboozling audiences with the combination of mind-bending music and thought-provoking lyrics. Seamlessly blending extreme metal, black and industrial metals with jazz and the blues, main man Manuel Gagneux is a twisted musical genius, who appears destined to mangle cortexes.
Combining complex polyrhythms with unbelievably catchy hooks is a tall order but Zeal & Ardor manage it with apparent ease. The vocal harmonies are pitch perfect, even on the Sludgy Trust No One and the Speed Metal of Devil Is Fine. Last record Grief gets a lot of airtime, through opener The Bird, The Lion and the Wildkin, the back-to-back of Kilonova and Fed You Off and later To My Ilk and Sugarcoat.
Clearly a band who’ll be headlining this festival one day, it’s just a matter of time.
However, headlining the Sneak Energy stage tonight is GhØstkid, former member of Eskimo Callboy - before the change of name to Electric Callboy - with the harsh electronics and eminently danceable sections. Start a Fight has a Marilyn Manson feel, back when he was dangerous, rather than the artist he is today, Supernova and You & I come over with some Bring Me the Horizon energy, whereas the latest record, Hollywood Suicide, is heavily represented with Black Cloud, Heavy Roan and the title-tune.
Which just leaves French Synthwave artist, Carpenter Brut to close out the first day of Radar. Taking influences from as far afield as Iron Maiden, Meshuggah, Nine Inch Nails and Napalm Death, along with the soundtrack work of John Williams, Alan Silvestri and Ennio Morricone, the performer has been one of the standard-bearers, with the likes of Perturbator – who played here in 2023 – and Author and Punisher, both playing Damnation in November – blending retina-searing light shows with irresistibly catchy dance tunes. Fifteen years ago I seem to remember Pendulum being the darlings of the genre, judging by the crowd’s reaction to Carpenter Brut’s set, I think there’s a new kid in town.
Photo credits: William Mawdsley
