ArcTanGent 2025 - Friday/Saturday Highlights
Words: Chris Taylor
Photos: Carl Battams / Abbi Draper / Derek Bremner
As ArcTanGent's strongest year to date draws to a close, The Razor's Edge team picks out some of the highlights from the final two days.
Ithaca - Arc Stage - Friday
Despite playing relatively early in the day, Ithaca’s set on the Arc stage is one of the most anticipated shows of the weekend and the high turnout of fans certainly prove that. As well as the band having a dedicated cult following to begin with Ithaca’s Arctangent performance this year is a tearful goodbye as the band have made it known this is the final ever performance before they say farewell forever. Despite the short set the band for obvious reasons want to make this a memorable show, with plenty of their album They Fear us On Display and joined on stage by Ed Gibbs of Devil Sold His Soul for The Future Says Thank You and the always brilliant Kate Davies of Pupil Slicer for Cremation Party.
The band’s final released song, aptly titled Ithaca, soars with the lyric “Don’t cry because it’s over, we’ll smile because we had it” echoing throughout the tent. The sense of finality is overwhelming by the time the criminally short set is coming to an end, as the band take their final bow and exit the stage one of the most exciting bands in UK metal’s underground are no more however the show was as it should have been; loud, epic, heavy and emotional. Ithaca may be gone but their final show at Arctangent will be remembered for a very long time to come.
Green Lung - Arc Stage - Friday
Green Lung’s quick rise through the scene has been fascinating to watch. Forming back in 2017 the London stoner doom band have already found themselves on the main stage of Bloodstock festival and now grace Arctangent on the Arc stage with an audience in full attendance. The English folklore vibe fits right in with the atmosphere of Arctangent, and the three piece horn section just adds to the bombast of the show. Music wise of course Green Lung have many epic riffs and grand choruses to fill the tent.
The stunning album This Heathen Land is the primary focus of the setlist, with anthems such as Mountain Throne and The Forest Church bringing some of the biggest sing-a-long moments of the weekend. Green Lung continue to bring swagger, riffs and epic melodies to another UK festival and leave as one of the highlights of the weekend. Should this band’s momentum continue we will hopefully one day soon see them at a show that is worthy of their music; loud, epic, huge and magnificent.
Between the Buried and Me - Yohkai Stage - Friday
Between the Buried and Me’s presence looms over all of Arctangent this year. The legendary prog metal band treat the festival to two sets, one a standard set that fans from across their career would enjoy as well as a special set where they played their legendary album Colors in full.
The tent to witness Between the Buried and Me play their seminal album is bursting at the seams with many willing to spill out into the outside just to hear this classic played in all it’s glory. With it being many years since Colors was played all the way through in the UK, to get to witness it here is a real privilege.
Between the Buried and Me - Arc Stage - Saturday
Their second set may not have included any songs from Colors but here on the mainstage is where Between the Buried and Me truly belong. Showcasing songs from across their career, from 2005’s Alaska all the way to their latest album Colors II, it’s a true spectacle of epic musicianship and some of the finest prog metal the genre has to offer.
With their two sets going flawlessly, and their guitarist Trishtan playing a set with his own band Sometime in February to much success, Between the Buried and me absolutely dominate Arctangent 2025. They cannot return soon enough.
Clown Core - Arc Stage - Saturday
After the abrupt cancellation of Clown Core’s appearance at 2024’s Arctangent, the experimental rock duo (dressed in horrifying clown attire of course) are met with much hype from the 2025 crowd. With a turnout that rivalled that of all four headliners Clown Core brought a sonic and visual assault that many in the audience are likely still recovering from.
The performance can only be described as audio nihilism. Clown Core doesn't care about the audience and that is the entire appeal. The almost hour long show is hard to make sense of; with many abrupt endings, random passages that seemingly go nowhere and infantile clown noises over the top of unsettling synth. Again, that isn’t a criticism as it is the entire point of the bizarre spectacle the band are trying to achieve. One of the biggest talking points of the weekend comes during a seemingly never ending repeat of the same note and drum pattern while the backdrop flickered with morphing AI artwork depicting truly horrific images that would make a Carcass fan feel uneasy. All capped off with a simple message of “please leave. And thank you for your money”, it’s hard to say whether Clown Core’s set is an enjoyable experience. However, there are many bands that claim to be challenging, or unique or artsy.
It’s very rare for a band to tick all three of those boxes and Clown Core without question fulfils all those criteria. It is meant to be unpleasant, and it is. It is meant to be uncompromising, and it is. It is meant to be memorable, and it absolutely is.
Tesseract - Arc Stage - Saturday
Over the Arctangent weekend we’ve had headliners from all over the spectrum. Something tribal, something introspective and haunting, something nostalgic and now something massive and epic. Technical progressive metal band Tesseract bring Arctangent 2025 to a close with a stunning display of incredible musicianship and huge presence that leaves the audience awestruck. Despite how technical the music is, Tesseract are not ones to stand stoically and just let the music speak for itself. The band have incredible amounts of charisma, as vocalist Daniel Tompkins has the audience in the palm of his hand, with every gesture, callout and soaring melody being met with much enthusiasm from the crowd from the beginning of the set all the way through to the end.
2023’s album, War of Being, gets the most attention with tracks The Grey, Natural Disaster and Echoes being brought out early on and concluding the set with the title track, but the show also features plenty from 2018’s Sonder as well as the first two parts of Concealing Fate. If you are a big Tesseract fan, there is a lot to love here.
It is no easy task closing out a festival such as Arctangent. After a weekend full of technical bands, bombastic acts and dozens of bands who yearn to push genre boundaries, it takes a very talented band to do that final headliner spot justice. Tesseract more than step up to the challenge, with their arena sized music and strong performance they expertly wrap up one of the strongest Arctangent’s ever.
Photo credits: Carl Battams / Abbi Draper / Derek Bremner
