Bloodstock 2025: Saturday Review - S.O.P.H.I.E. Stage
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
Saturday’s under-canvas programme starts at the early hour of 10:30 with Leeds-based progressive death metal outfit Ireosis hitting the stage and offering up a host of grooves and alternate vibes. The band’s latest EP, Dark Matter, has seen all its five tracks released as singles, and the set concludes with some laid back stoner groves. Atmospheric sludgy post metal is the order of the day for beguiling quintet - and non-users of the letter ‘u’ - Vnder a Crvmbling Moon. It’s gothic and windswept, and glacially paced doom-death, epic in scope and emotional in intent. The musical passages are long and drawn out and poetic in their construction; upliftingly depressive and soul-scarring, and another early S.O.P.H.I.E. artist to shine brightly in 2025. In the same vein are Sheffield’s Ba’al who bring an uncompromisingly raw version of black metal to the mix, epic and melancholic breakdowns, in the mode of the wave of heritage BM bands of the early 2010s.
It's proof-positive that Bloodstock is evolving as a band like Pengshui would have been chased off site with flaming torches and pitchforks are one time. Now, the fusion of metal, punk, grime, drum & bass, and more attracts a big crowd and are a whole heap of fun. They have a song called Eat the Rich which isn’t a Motorhead cover and play Omen which is their version of one of Prodigy’s. When the band announce they like the vibe of playing Metal festivals as the crowd is always up for a party, you get the feeling it’s heart-felt.
I caught Waterlines at Radar last month, but their show here today was a world away, perhaps due to the size of the stage, but the northern hoodlums take the steadily growing crowd by the scruff of the neck and, like a friend your mum warned you about, leads Bloodstock into bad habits. Big metalcore beats mix with poppy sounds to create a party atmosphere; it’s the sound of the festival spreading its wings and embracing modern aesthetics and new directions. Daisy Chains gets the whole tent jumping, and the ladies are dominating the crowd-surfing by a significant margin, including one particular lady who was so happy she’d done it that she cried tears of joy on the way out of the photo pit. It was genuinely a pleasure to spend part of the afternoon in the company of the band.
Pheonix Lake opened this stage on the Sunday of 2023, that day the heavens had opened, but this year the skies are clear and sunny, meaning everyone in attendance is there to see this Nottingham melodic hard rock quartet. They are much more in the auspice of traditional Bloodstock bands than the two that had preceded them. They supplement their stage with fire-dancers and pyros and bring things back to a more historically Bloodstock orientation. Much the same could be said about power metal outfit Neonfly whose choral intro and fire-maidens add to their epic bombast and hearty reaction.
Two things endear me to Undeath from the very start: first, their show at Damnation in 2023, and the second it their use of Cock Sparrer’s We’re Coming Back as an intro. Otherwise, the New York death metal crew are brutal in their execution, combining excoriating riffs with heavy beatdowns and more than a little groove. Dead From Beyond and Rise from the Grave have come and gone before you know what’s hit you; Necrobiotics lumbers slow and brooding like the zombie apocalypse the band warn against, and new material from More Insane festers along side established songs from Lesions of a Different Kind and It’s Time to Rise from the Grave.
Breed 77 are survivors of the first Bloodstock Open Air, where they played the main stage alongside Mostly Autumn and Sebastian Bach. The Gibraltarians were all set to be a big thing back then, with their combination of alternative and nu metal, mixed and blended with a Spanish flavour. Sadly, the planets did not align, and the band faded from the consciousness of all but the most devout of followers. They headlined the third stage at last year’s Uprising Festival in Leicester, signifying they were at least active again.
Their set is built around the mid-noughties albums, Cultura and In My Blood (En Mi Sangre), giving fans what they came to see: set opener World’s On Fire, A Matter of Time and Blind. There’s even a cover of The Cranberries’ Zombie, which has increasing resonance with every day that passes.
Machine Head’s fireworks are illuminating Catton Park as the crowd hot foots it to the S.O.P.H.I.E. tent to see headliner Static-X. The passing of main man, Wayne Static in 2014 put the band into hiatus for several years, reforming in 2018 and issuing the two-part Project: Regeneration albums in 2020 and 2024.
Replacement frontman, Xer0 dons an uncanny Wayne Static mask as the band play through almost the whole of the debut, and all-round industrial metal classic, Wisconsin Death Trip. Bled for Days, the title-track, Fix and Sweat of the Bud all come and go before we get Cannibal’s title-track.
Having warmed his pipes with Fear Factory earlier, bassist and original member, Tony Campos, gets in and keeps the machine ticking over, drummer Ken Jay providing the metronomic timing as Koichi Fukuda handles leads and keys.
It’s been an industrial kind of day at Bloodstock, with the battle of man against machine from Fear Factory and Ministry raging for a more human future, it’s only fitting that one of industrial metal’s most important, if underrated bands, close out the day.
Terminator Oscillator is the only post-Wayne tune played tonight, slotting in before Love Dump and I Am. It’s the Death Trip material that gets the most positive response, and the band give the public what they want, sprinkling in a few from Machine, Start a War and Shadow Zone.
Folks now have the option to retire or carry on with one of the many post-show activities on offer. As today is my fifty-fifth birthday, it’s long passed my bedtime and my aged feet are starting to throb, so off to bedfordshire I go, ear ringing, but with a song in my heart.
Photo credits: Tim Finch Photography
