ArcTanGent Festival 2025 – Thursday
Situated at Fernhill Farm, where cattle and sheep roam the lush grassland of the Mendip Hills, attendees at ArcTanGent Festivalmay have cause to wonder at the transition of early humans from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of raising crops and livestock. Agriculture – the intentional planting of crops and domestication of animals – arose around 12,000 years ago, after millennia of humans depending upon what nature provided. The changes that agriculture wrought upon human societies can be directly linked to the rise of complex political structures, the emergence of specialised skilled workers, and the resulting sophisticated technology that such workers could produce.
One of the earliest plants to be domesticated was the almond tree – which exists in the wild primarily as a producer of bitter, cyanide-laden fruit that is poisonous and indeed lethal to humans. So how and why would prehistoric humans eat and then domesticate almonds?
The answer lies in genetic mutation: wild almond trees arise naturally without the gene that makes their fruit bitter, humans perhaps notice birds and other animals eating the nuts without ill-effects, and then deliberately propagate almond trees from the mutant seeds. Thus, from bitterness comes sweetness. This process of human intervention in the selection of seeds to cultivate has shaped the many foods which we eat today – an intervention that imposes the same selective pressures as evolution, but moulded to human preferences for larger, faster growing, more robust, sweeter or seedless produce.
In a similar fashion, artists performing at ArcTanGentwill adapt, experiment and release songs that drive the evolution of music. Revellers will consume the music, selecting in accordance with their preferences and discarding the fruit of musicians that leaves a bitter taste (or in the case of most post-metal fans, probably preferring the anguished misery evoked by much of the genre). And so, the scene evolves – new artists and musical styles emerge, artists refashion themselves, individuals gravitate towards this or that release, and the sum of human happiness is enriched by the variety of produce available.
Thursday opened with a clout round the head from Codespeaker, who provided a bombastic thirty-minute set that bristled with jagged guitars, pulsating drumming and abrasive vocals. Similar in style to yesterday’s Hundred Year Old Man (with whom they toured last year), but playing at a higher tempo, they woke up the bleary-eyed crowd and got the blood pumping. In a similar fashion, the next band we saw – The Grey – came to the Bixler Stage with a furious energy and edge that was unexpected from prior listening to their recorded content. A first half of heavy instrumental excellence was followed by a turn to a spikier, hardcore-style as the band were joined by Grady Avenell of Will Haven (both the vocalist and the band feature as collaborators on The Grey’s latest album KODOK). Further listening beckons for both acts.
After the ferocity of Codespeaker and The Grey, we bustled to the PX3 Stage to sample Lemondaze, whose shoegaze and gentle vocals felt somewhat insipid in comparison, and then to the Yohkai Stage to sample Ni’s experimental noise-rock (and to inhale a superb burrito). Their chaotic sonics and switching time signatures were appreciated by the crowd, but not to our taste, so we headed back to the Bixler Stage for another dose of Amaya López-Carromero’s exquisite singing in the guise of Maud The Moth.
Our first foray to the Main Stage took us to see REZN, a Chicago quartet peddling doom and psych-tinged rock. They possessed an excellent bass tone that enveloped the crowd with its delightful reverberations, but plodding songs and a lack of innovative composition affirmed our view that modern stoner rock needs more in the way of evolution to sate our musical appetite.
Pothamus were our next appointment and provided flashbacks to Wyatt E.’s performance in 2024. Also from Belgium (presumably from whichever Belgian town borders the Negev desert), Pothamus didn’t fully embrace the fancy dress proclivities of their compatriots, but they did provide a set of viscous post-metal suffused with Middle Eastern influences. While Wyatt E.’s music might create the impression of a camel caravan traversing the desert, Pothamus’ performance had a more aggressive, militaristic edge with pulsating drumming and growling vocals – shades of Arab guerrillas mustering to assault the Ottoman forces in the Hejaz. The renditions of Zhikarta and Ravus from 2025’s Abur were particularly evocative of such insurgent endeavours.
Up next was We Lost The Sea – the first from the trio of post-rock royalty that ATG had assembled for Thursday, also including Pelican and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. We Lost The Sea opened with If They Had Hearts – also the opener from their recent album A Single Flower. Starting with a single guitarist playing the refrain, members of the band joined the stage, adding drums, keyboards and further guitars until the layers of music builds to a crashing, brutal mid-section, signalling a return to a harsher, more metalstyle compared to Departure Songs or Triumph & Disaster. An evolution from sweetness to bitterness, perhaps.
The band segued seamlessly into A Dance With Death, sustaining the darker, more malevolent tone that drew the audience into a macabre rhythm. The minor chords and demonic drumming combined to great effect before falling away to gentle guitar work. This then lulls, before the band resurges with a further blast of energy and vigour to finish the song with powerful guitars reaching the zenith of sonic violence.
Gentler fare followed with A Beautiful Collapse showcasing them at their more cheerful/uplifting, before the behemoth of Blood Will Have Blood. Taking its name from a line uttered by Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, We Lost The Sea have cooked up something special in their cauldron to create this imperious masterpiece. Starting with gentle, mournful guitar and keyboards (eye of newt and toe of frog), the track has the customary build to pulsating drumming and bagpipe-esque guitars (wool of bat and tongue of dog). Shifting to quiet distortion and deep chords (adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting), tuneful guitar and martial drumming (lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing) until the apocalyptic ending that boils and bubbles like a hell-broth. It isn’t hard to imagine Macbeth meeting his end at the hands of Macduff on the ramparts of Dunsinane Castle as the English army sacks his fortress.
Some repose was required after the musical onslaught we’d just witnessed, and after a break, we headed to see Pelican. Pioneers of the instrumental post-rock genre, their 2001 Untitled EP and 2003 album debut Australasia are touchstones for many fans within this domain. And after more than two decades, their 2025 album Flickering Resonance shows that they continue to develop and evolve their sound. Opening their set with the comparatively brief and straightforward Gulch, totemic of the lusher, more psych-inspired sound that pervades the album compared to their earlier, rawer music.
Evergreen followed, showcasing fuzzy grooves and hip-swinging rhythms, before the band paid homage to their older supporters with a feisty rendition of Drought – replete with jagged riffs and piercing guitars. The audience was also treated to Pining For Forever before closing with Wandering Mind, a dreamy track that soothes and sways the listener, packing more groove than a busload of Austin Powers clones. This was post-rock that puts a smile on the face and a spring in the step.
We then headed to see Melvins on the Main Stage, although we were somewhat puzzled at the rapturous reception for a band that seemed to play the same song ad nauseum and lacked any distinguishing features. Kylesa were much more our bag – a high-octane rendition of party metal tracks that were like a Jamaican ginger cake – dense, spicy and delicious. Harsh vocals, heavy guitars, fast and furious drumming – this was a performance that rattled the chest cavity and provided fuel for the headbangers.
After Kylesa, we moseyed towards the Main Stage where Leprous were peddling their brand of experimental progressive rock. Unfortunately, the closer we got, the less appealing this became – much like leprosy. Instead, we sat and enjoyed a veggie curry from the Manjula van – a delightful mix of spices, cauliflower and chickpeas with fragrant rice, topped with shredded cabbage and avocado – highly recommended.
Thus refuelled, we considered Arab Strap a more attractive option than Sungazer (not to be confused with the sadly departed Sungrazer). The Scottish stablemates of Mogwai provided an interesting diversion from the heavier end of ATG, providing relatively pedestrian indie rock with spoken word accompaniment that veered from the profound – ‘They’ve got your attention, The slapstick insurgents with giggles and shits and grenades, They’ve got your attention, Deluders and doxxers, self-righteous self-styled renegades’ – to the mundane – ‘I saw you, In Tesco with your buttons undone, I saw you’. Aidan Moffat’s relaxed and down-to-earth on-stage presence (‘This song’s about shagging’) certainly lightened the mood.
Thursday’s headliners, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, were eagerly awaited as ever, with dense crowds forming in the Main Stage long before they began to arrive on set (the decision to have Battlesnake playing trad metal at the same time was seemingly inspired, as the overlap in the fan base was likely to be minimal). GY!BE’s musical prowess is accompanied by a strong political message, exemplified by the title of their latest album No Title As Of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead, a reference to the ongoing tragedy of conflict in Gaza. This concern at the depredations of politicians, the degradation of civil society, the diminution of international laws and norms, and the corruption of standards in public life were surely on the band members’ minds as they composed this mournful album.
Projected scenes of urban decay, environmental abuse, riots, wildfires, cockfighting and the chicanery of financial markets were a fitting accompaniment as the Canadian octet performed the album in (almost) its entirety. But although the band may have conceived and constructed the album with despair at the state of the world, the strains of Sophie Trudeau’s violin and the layers of guitars combine to create songs of beauty that lifted the spirits of the ArcTanGent crowd. From the fuzzy melodies of Baby’s In A Thundercloud to the hopefully titled and toe-tapping Grey Rubble – Green Shoots, concluding with the incomparable Moya and Blaise Bailey Finnegan III. Godspeed You! Black Emperor played a set that, in a nutshell, transmuted bitterness into sweetness.
