ArcTanGent Festival 2025 – Saturday
King Offa of Mercia ruled his Anglo-Saxon kingdom between 757 and 796. Around the middle of his reign, he ordered the minting of a gold coin – a copy of a dinar that bears both the inscription OFFA REX and the Islamic declaration of faith.
An Arabic inscription, declaring that there is no god but Allah alone, was minted at the behest of a Christian king on an English coin, probably intended for trade with merchants in the Mediterranean. In an era wrongly termed the Dark Ages, Offa’s dinar stands as a testament to the cultural and economic interchange that took place throughout not just Europe and the Middle East, but throughout Eurasia along the many and varied trade routes of the Silk Road.
As we stand in a field not far from the ancient kingdom of Mercia, it is fitting to reflect upon the mix of different cultures, nationalities and languages that are present on both the stage and in the audience at ArcTanGent. And to reflect that we are present in just one more chapter in the rich and varied tapestry of migratory British history that stretches back millennia – encompassing the Celts, Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Danes, Normans, Huguenots, Irish, West Indians, South Asians, Poles, Balts and many more. Whatever a so-called British (or English) nationalist might tell you, we are truly a mongrel population, speaking an ersatz language that has filled its pockets with a plethora of words of Greek, Latin, German and French origins, not to mention Farsi, Arabic and Hindi, and which has evolved a bastardised grammar to match.
This melting pot – which is in no way unique to Britain – extends to the cultural output of humanity. Instruments, melodies and rhythms borrowed from other cultures, integrated into new genres, and made and remade until they can be distinguished no longer from their origins. This process of innovation, annealing and refinement drives the musical variety on display at Fernhill Farm and enriches our existence. With bands from several continents and dozens of countries gathering in Somerset, long may it continue.
Our final day at ArcTanGent began ten minutes into Sugar Horse’s set on the Main Stage. We joined them in time to catch the fuzzy, proggy vibes of Office Job Simulator and the raw aggression of Shouting Judas At Bob Dylan. The latter opened with jagged guitars, shortly joined by the jagged vocals of Ash Tubb, before fading (twice) to Tubb’s unaccompanied gentle lyrics and finally resurging to a crashing end. Sugar Horse closed their set with a new track that continues their musical miscegenation of different genres – encompassing ‘80s post-punk and new wave as well as aggressive hardcore and post-metal.
Next up were Wren on the Bixler Stage, performing songs exclusively from their latest album Black Rain Falls. Showcasing a darker, more intense sound than their previous work, Flowers Of Earth opened with a malevolent guitar riff, joined by arrhythmic drumming that pauses briefly to create short lacunae in the piece. The effect is slightly jarring and serves to build the tension of the piece before it descends into a cascade of chugging riffs, powerful drumming and screeching guitar. The sound at the Bixler Stage had been excellent throughout the festival and particularly brought out the best of Wren’s scuzzy, bass-heavy notes.
Swamp Coffin continued the heavy UK underground theme of our morning, with the lads from Rotherham peddling their, well, swampy brand of sludge at the PX3 Stage. We enjoyed the sheer viscosity of Know You’re Worthless oozing menacingly from the amps, and a supposedly fast song proceeding with the percussive power of a mangrove-dwelling mastodon. Guitarist/vocalist Jon Rhodes was clearly enjoying himself as he asked the crowd to form the ‘world’s slowest wall of death’, parting the masses from the stage to the sound desk and encouraging them to advance, zombie-like, towards each other as the band spewed forth another quagmire of filthily viscid riffs.
The antipodean Lo! were something of a surprise package on the Yohkai Stage. Not knowing their music, we were delighted to see guitarist Carl Whitbread (also of We Lost The Sea) on stage and enjoyed their high-tempo fusion of doom and hardcore. Vocalist Sam Dillon was also clearly enjoying himself as he alternated between bellowing into the microphone and moving flamboyantly around the stage.
We then headed to the opposite side of the festival to see The Callous Daoboys on the Main Stage. As one might expect from a band which adopted such an exquisite spoonerism as their name is all about witty songs – which were entirely lost on Tim, whose lyric-deafness has led to many a bemusing mondegreen. As such, we admired their peppy vigour and a video projection of skateboarding bloopers before going to see Burner, whose frontman Harry Nott admitted that, were he in our shoes, he would be at The Callous Daoboys. However, the band were nonetheless aflame with rambunctious energy for the wordplay-spurning crowd.
Bipolar Architecture and DVNE each provided robustly pleasing slices of post-metal, although the former was wrongly billed as being from the UK (the band is based in Berlin, with members from the German capital and Istanbul). Both bands enlivened the crowds at the Yokhai Stage with intense, multi-layered songs that demonstrated their prowess in the genre.
We then took a seat next to the Main Stage to take in some of Between The Buried And Me, who served up pacy and aggressive progressive metal that was not particularly to our taste.
Much more up our street was Inter Arma – leading candidates for the heaviest set of the festival – who tore the Bixler Stage to shreds with an unrelentingly aggressive and pummelling performance. Highlights included the mammoth riffs and Cro-Magnon vocals of Citadel – a track of preposterous proportions that proceeded like a pack of pachyderms on parade. Inter Arma (presumably) take their name from the famous proverb attributed to Cicero: silent eni leges inter arma – in times of war, the law falls silent. After such a display of sheer hostility, they should be glad not to be carted to The Hague to answer for their weapons-grade turbo sludge metal.
After 45 minutes of mistreatment, we reattached our limbs, located our sensory organs and toddled somewhat dazedly to see Rolo Tomassi. The stalwarts of the UK progressive metal scene delighted the Main Stage with their trademark switch-ups between hardcore and more gentle rock, complemented pleasingly by the presence of a string quartet that brought a rather refined air to proceedings. As with Between The Buried And Me, this wasn’t really our kind of scene, so we were pleased to head for some nautically themed funeral doom from German rockers Ahab.
They clearly take inspiration from Herman Melville’s character in Moby Dick, and their entire performance could aptly represent the pursuit of a great sea beast on tempestuous seas – moments of quiet, building to crashing waves of riffs and pounding bass as the harpooned leviathan dragged our whaling vessel hither and yon. This was good, old-fashioned doom for seafarers.
Clown Core were one of the most eagerly awaited bands of the festival – having pulled out in 2024, the tent housing the Main Stage was overflowing with punters who were raring to see them. We endured about five minutes of (admittedly exquisite) drumming and (less exquisite) electronic noises from two grown men dressed as clowns, playing to a background projection of explosions and AI-generated pornography, before feeling that this wasn’t quite pitched at us. No matter our opinion – they were by far the most well-attended band of the festival, and we’re sure that you can find several people within your postal district who did see the duo and can explain its merits to you.
God Is An Astronaut concluded our festival endeavours for 2025 with a superlative set of post-rock that had all the hallmarks of the genre – delicate guitars, swelling crescendos, moments of quiet contemplation, moments of cascading guitars with more layers than a millefeuille, and a bonus performance from Jo Quail on cello. What more could one ask for than to be in the Yokhai Stage at the end of four days of superb music, listening to groovy, psych-tinged instrumental excellence from a group of sonic artists?
As diligent readers may have surmised from the foregoing review (and the preceding days’ critiques), ArcTanGent is, in our opinion, the foremost UK music festival for interesting music, in a great setting, with good food and excellent organisation. Every band was on time, sound was generally solid at all stages (especially the Bixler), and the entire operation was delivered professionally. Our thanks to all the bands, crew, staff and volunteers that made ArcTanGent 2025 an unforgettable experience.
