Bloodstock 2025: Sunday Review - S.O.P.H.I.E. Stage
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
The final day of Bloodstock’s S.O.P.H.I.E. is opened by the blackened thrash of Apathy UK whose call for a circle pit at such an ungodly hour is hopeful to say the least. They bust out some interesting synchronised guitar moves, and load themselves up with some two-steppin’ rhythms. Mancunians Barbarian Hermit issued their new album, Mean Sugar, last year and it makes up much of the band’s show today. Theirs are slow and sludgy riffs, constantly building atmosphere and always laid back and chilled. They dally with classic riffs and even go back to their 2016 demo for Burn the Fire and Widowmaker.
Out of Cleveland, OH, Frayle bring a doomy, post metal atmosphere, seemingly unconnected with the goings on of the day, the band appear to exist in their own sorrowful and emotional environment. Wall offer another unique take on the metal genre, the two piece - twins Elliot and Ryan, also of Desert Storm - are unapologetically worshiping Black Sabbath. Despite only having guitars and drums, the duo create a wall of sound, a fitting tribute to the late great Ozzy Osbourne, with the riffs slick and heavy. In support of their latest album 'Brick By Brick', out on APF Records, the Oxfordshire lads win a lot of hearts with their solid doom laden performance.
Dressed sort of as nuns, female four-piece, Dogma sound not a million miles removed from Ghost, their look equally as sacrilegious. The self-titled album bares the brunt of the show, with Madonna’s Like a Prayer finding itself fitting rather well into the overall aesthetic of the show. Equally theatrical, though more in the vein of Frayle or Friday’s Eihwar, come London’s Lowen, a late replacement for the unable-to-attend Spirit Adrift; their ambient percussion and ancient beats create an atmosphere which fills the tent, through big gothic breakdowns and ritualistic chanting.
The blackened folk of Siglos is one thing, seeing a purple dinosaur headbanging over the barrier is on another level, and one of the funniest things I’ve seen this weekend- or maybe the sun has finally gotten to me, who knows. Taking influence from both modern and ancient cultures and drawing them together in a demonstration that both the past and the present shape the future, theirs is a journey through lost civilisations, accompanied by black metal vibes and another demonstration of Bloodstock’s increasingly successful musical diversity.
Stockholm’s Thrown take heavy hardcore beats and ambient passages and fuse them together in a white-hot cauldron of performance to push the boundaries of where one genre ends and other one begins. In a similar vein to Bloodstock alumni Pengshui and Waterlines, and previous year’s Street Soldier, Thrown go heavy with their Excessive Guilt debut, adding an extra flavour to the metal banquet this weekend.
Ten years after they disbanded Canadian heavy metal institution, 3 Inches of Blood are finally back at Bloodstock, twelve years after their previous appearance. Possibly the most straight-up Metal band at the festival this year, the hiatus has not done Cam Pipe’s voice any harm as he seems to breeze those high notes and screams with a Halford-like ease.
The reunion is a couple of years old now, yet still no new music, so we must rely on the oldies; Upon the Boiling Seas I: Fear on the Bridge gets things going, its Advance and Vanquish partner, Wykydtron comes next, opening the flood gates for an hour of pure classic heavy metal.
I’m enjoying a pie as Gods of the Cold White Silence, Destroy the Orcs and Call of the Hammer come and go, all standard metal anthem titles. You know exactly what you’re getting with Leather Lords, Night Marauders and Battles and Brotherhood, with only Deadly Sinners and The Goatriders Horde to finish the set. It very heavy, very metal, and it’s great to see them back. Now, a new album if you please.
As Gojira’s fireworks fade, there would be a crushing sense of disappointment that Bloodstock 2025 had come to an end; there’s not many bands who would come close to what the Frenchmen have just done on the Ronnie James Dio stage; but we’ve still got Florida Death Metal legends Obituary to come on the S.O.P.H.I.E. stage and when it comes to realistic billing, very few others could bring the curtain down on this year’s show without being seen as an anti-climax.
Never Obituary, as the brothers Tardy and company dole out a final hour of death metal classics from throughout their career. They have been so ubiquitous in venues across the country over the passed few years that I hardly need to tell you what they were like. When you have the likes of Infected, Body bag, Turned Inside Out, Slowly We Rot, and Threatening Skies in your arsenal it’s a sure-fire thing. A cover of Celtic Frost’s Circle of the Tyrants is not unexpected considering we’re looking at thirty-five years of Cause of Death, and the consistency of the band, who don’t ever seem to put a foot wrong, is astounding.
And there ends the Book of Bloodstock, 2025 edition. Main stage highlights for me were Gojira, Ministry, Emperor, Orange Goblin and Kublai Khan TX; with the S.O.P.H.I.E.’s most impressive moments coming from Obituary, Nailbomb, Waterlines and Turin. But credit should also go to the people who keep the show going: the security, the medics, the cleaners, and all those ‘little people’ who get no recognition, but without whom, this great show would not!
Photo credits: Tim Finch Photography
