Bloodstock 2026: Sunday Review – S.O.P.H.I.E. Stage
9th August 2026
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
Apparently not learning my lesson from Friday, I’m having another Slushy and get the same brain freeze as I did then, only this one comes in lemon and lime flavour. In my frosty malaise I see a man wearing an inverted cut-off: just the sleeves, covered in patches, joined by some form of bootlace. Could have been a figment of my ice-riddled brain, or could have been a genuine leader of fashion.
Norfolk’s Acid Throne start the final day of Bloodstock 2026 with their brand of stoner doomy sludge. It’s a happy birthday to Sophia from the S.O.P.H.I.E. as the trio’s blackened, bass-heavy ditties cast oppressive shadows, regardless of that relentless sunshine.
Somerset death thrashers, Flayed Disciple, are elder statespersons of the underground with almost twenty-years of operation beneath their collective belts. Only album, Death Hammer, is fourteen-years old now, but Feast in the Forest of Impaled Bodies is still as feral as ever it was; Bleaching in the Sun was re-recorded for last year’s Blistering Autolysis EP, which gave ex-Hate Grind/ Priest Crippler vocalist, Merv Hembrough, a chance to lay down his version of the track. Newbie, Scraps for the Pigs rips and blasts, and Merv admits the band’s titular tune is a particular favourite of his.
I will have no truck with allegations of favouritism when it comes to Alunah – just because guitarist Matt happens to be a regular contributor here at The Razor’s Edge… ex-Hot Little Hands vocalist, Daisy Savage is a different visual fronting the band, following the 2024 departure of Sian Greenaway after the release of the Fever Dream album. I say visual, but the sound is still Alunah’s trademark fuzzy doom, part Wizard, part Sabbath, with Daisy’s pipes being an inspired choice. She gives a shout out to Sophie Lancaster herself as the band is now sound in a great place to explore all manner of new musical avenues. Latest single, La Pucelle, comes from the split with Samavayo, and the set closes with some guitar god virtuosity from our Matt.
Iranian blackened death mob, Trivax have attracted a big crowd and appear to be having a blast. Another band who has a 2025 album called The Great Satan (Robert Zombie, looking at you) the band bookend their set with tracks To Liberation and Beyond and Operation: Ramadan. Between these we get to hear vocalist, Shayan, extol the virtues of being free from deprivation [insert amusing comment about band having been based in Birmingham since 2011]. We get a rendition of an untitled song sung in Pharsi, and another metal rendition of a classic Seventies Iranian pop song; it is unimportant that we don’t know the references, all that’s important is Trivax rock hard.
Orange Goblin bassist, Harry Armstrong, bring his noise/ punk duo Nosepicker to the S.O.P.H.I.E. stage. Veteran of many projects outside Goblin, including Blind River, The Earls of Mars and Firebird, today Harry is here with this outfit, also celebrating a quarter of a century anniversary. Technical issues would normally derail the momentum of most bands, but the loose nature of Noisepicker means they’re taken in their stride. Feels there’s a certain Corrosion of Conformity vibe going on at times.
US metalcore merchants, Thrown into Exile, make their Bloodstock debut while being on tour with Zakk Wylde and Black Label Society. New vocalist, Joshua Santos has found his feet well and fronts the band like he’s always been there as he calls for movement from the crowd. A new tune is said to have been written specifically for the generation of circle pits and suggests a third album is incoming.
Square peg in Bloodstock’s round hole, Dream State are introduced as aiming to be the “least heavy band” at this year’s festival and, before they took the stage, and having seen them at Radar in 2023, I would have said there’s a reasonable shout for that. Fronted by the angelic Jesse Powell and playing alt rock and post-hardcore would seal the deal. Except, Dream State aren’t quite the shrinking musical violets they purport to be. Bittersweet Scars of My Past’s rambunctious approach, and progressive weight sees them falling at the second hurdle, even though there was a wobble during opener, Bloom. Words Unsaid comes with a call for a circle pit, rebranded as a Be Kind pit, before bouncing as well as any one this afternoon, and Still Dreaming is for “…all the dreamers out there”. Sorry, Dream State, you were just too heavy today! And I loved it.
Masked Ohio collective, Mushroomhead, were Slipknot two-years before Slipknot, combining all the elements of the then-most modern aspects of Nineties metal and blending into the blueprint for the genre. Alt, Industrial, Nu and experimental were all up for consideration as the ‘head have continued to make music and release records on a semi-regular basis since 1995.
The Spongebob Squarepants theme is the intro tape, and so confident in their new material are the band that they go straight into two of their most recent songs Eye to Eye and Fall in Line, both from the 2024 album, Call the Devil. The Righteous & the Butterfly duo Our Apologies and Qwerty land with hip-hop bounce and a harken back to the pre-millennial days, in tone if not timescale.
All those angry young people who raged as mis-understood teens in massive jeans, are now in their forties, with mortgages, kids and deadlines; but the soundtrack of your youth never leaves you, and the quieted angsty millennials are given a time to resurface and have sometime to see who you’ve let them all become. In the interests of general safety, Mushroomhead don’t play anything they recorded in the last century, making hay with The Madness Within, The Heresy and Sun Doesn’t Rise; even borrowing Prince’s When Doves Cry before finishing with 12 Hundred.
Also out of Cleveland, OH, but with something of a different approach to music, are 200 Stab Wounds, here to bridge the gap between Body Count and Judas Priest with a whole load of fierce old school death metal, that you can dance to, so says frontman Steve Buhl. And he’s not wrong. Fat melodic chugs, squealing, tortured guitars and rampant breakdowns dominate the set. New tune, Symbolic In Glory leads the charge, Masters of Morbidity and its B-side, Fatal Reality, come early in the set. The calls for circle pit have been echoing around Catton Park since Thursday, so Steve goes for a more explanatory “run in a circle” to break things up. A slow and brooding, yet meaty riff, comes from Itty Bitty Pieces; Release the Stench is a moot request at this time of a four-day festival, and Phallic Filth rages like one-hundred-miles an hour grind. Slave to the Scalpel’s Skin Milk and Tow Rope Around the Throat takes us into the finale of new song, Pain of Conscience.
There’s always going to be a problem when Judas Priest has just finished on the main stage and there is still one act to play. It’s hardly fair to have anyone sign off the show, knowing they’re on a hiding to nothing… unless you book an act so far removed, that it will seem a world away from the dying sounds of Living After Midnight. After seeing them close out the first day of Radar 2025, French Darkwave act, Carpenter Brut, with their combination of disco revival and progressive metal, all with a synth delivery and some of that eccentric Galic flare, seems so wrong, it could only be right.
Those with just enough energy left for an hour of uplifting Darksynth tunes close out Bloodstock in unusual fashion and confirm, again, that Catton Park in August is becoming a hot bed for all manner of heavy music.
Four days of the S.O.P.H.I.E. and my 2026 highlights are Cryptopsy, Shining, Stampin’ Ground, Death Angel, Sanguisugabogg, and 200 Stab Wounds. But all the bands, here, on the Ronnie James Dio, the EMP and the New Blood, should be congratulated for making the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bloodstock Metal Festival such a success. Until next year…
Photo credits: Tim Finch
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