Main Stage
The consistent coolest thing about Arctangent is the platform it gives to acts that, at any other major, multi-stage, outdoor festival, they’d rarely be in touching distance of. Of course, that comes with the remit of Arctangent as an event, and the onus it places on post-metal, prog and the more experimental sides of the rock spectrum. So, while headliners Karnivool and TesseracT fit a crossover framework that still has a place here (and Wardruna, as de facto early-bird ‘headliners’, get Wednesday‘s main stage all to themselves), no similar event is having Godspeed You! Black Emperor topping its bill. It speaks to how well the audience is considered, and the lengths gone to meet that consideration with one of the most acclaimed and influential post-rock bands of all time. Clearly that’s trickled down the main stage, too, with We Lost The Sea, A Swarm Of Sun, Overhead, The Albatross and Lost In Kiev filling out a rather robust post-rock contingent.
Still, this is a festival, and thus there’s a tacit responsibility to give the biggest and brightest in its field the most airtime. Not that that’s a problem when you see both the variety and the quality on offer. Between The Buried And Me are a slam-dunk on their own, as a band whose reputation in prog and technical death metal has been ironclad for ages. Elsewhere in prog is the lofty scope of Leprous (and similar cues taken by Sugar Horse and REZN), while mathcore finds its bases covered in undeniably great fashion by The Fall Of Troy, The Callous Daoboys and Car Bomb. In hardcore, the final show from Ithaca is the main event, alongside the evergreen chaos of Rolo Tomassi and the sweeping screamo of envy. Even in the corner cases to fill out the musical map, there’s no shortage of great stuff—Mew and Melvins hold their positions as legends in dream-pop and noise-rock respectively; Emma Ruth Rundle stands proudly in enchanting dark-folk; and Green Lung’s psychedelic stoner-rock has really found its audience in recent years.
Finally, there are the weird outliers that couldn’t go anywhere else, and for whom it’s insane that they’re given main stage billings to begin with. Like, who else would give Clown Core a sub-headline slot, with their madcap fusion of industrial music, electronica and jazz that’s fare from your standard second-from-the-top fare? Joined by the experimental math-rock of Drongo and the avant-prog of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (making music with the aid of their own homemade contraptions, no less), there’s something to be admired for the deep bench of even Arctangent’s most front-facing names.
Yohkai Stage
Unlike the sprinkled-around variety of the main stage, the Yohkai Stage puts more of a focus on post-metal and post-rock, with some doom on the side. Not exclusively, mind, and when it breaks from that, it’s arguably its most interesting. Between The Buried And Me return, this time for a full playthrough of their 2007 album Colors. There’s also a headline set from Arab Strap to show off their deeply underrated post-punk; the ever-snarky bite of Future Of The Left’s post-hardcore; and a solid lode of math-rock, with synapse-shorting fare of Adebisi Shank and Alpha Male Tea Party, and Love Rarely’s taut crossbreed with screamo.
In terms of the main focus, though, a headlining duo of Maybeshewill and God Is An Astronaut lay down the standard. Both are among the most celebrated post-rock acts of the modern era, a trend that the Yohkai Stage is keen to build on, albeit through heavier avenues. Thus, there’s a lot of powerful, grand offerings to indulge in. Kylesa and Pelican have been at the top table forever when it comes to sludge- and stoner-metal; Lowen’s Middle Eastern-influenced doom adds another layer of heat and intrigue; Giant Walker take up a more anthemic form of prog expanse; and Pothamus, Bipolar Architecture, Lo!, DVNE and The Sad Season round things out to a phenomenal degree (the last of those even featuring SikTh’s Mikee Goodman).
That’s not it, of course; there’s still more to offer, even on the main lineup. Here, you’ve got the more fringe representatives of Unprocessed in djent, Dimscûa in black-metal, and YOSHIWAZA and Ni in different forms of histrionic weirdness. There are also the silent disco inclusions, featuring live sets from a slew of acts carrying just as many different sounds among them. Nordic Giants’ ambient post-rock mightn’t scream ‘disco’, but there’s absolutely an experience to be had there. Less transcendent and more crushingly terrifying is John Cxnnor’s dystopian industrial violence, joined in out-there eccentricity by the electronic noise-rock of YARD, and AK/DK, known for their improvised sets of synths, delays and a double set of drums. They appear on Wednesday’s lineup, itself packing a great selection for early-comers. The stoner-y Krautrock of SLIFT is set to headline, with more coming from Kalandra’s cinematic Nordic folk; flavours of post-rock from Year Of No Light and Healthyliving; waves of sludge from Hundred Year Old Man; and lastly, some off-kilter alt-rock from Sans Froid.
Bixler Stage
As you move to the bottom half of Arctangent’s lineup, you start to get to the real diversity, starting on the Bixler Stage. The headliners alone make a good case—Sungazer’s prog-metal-meets-electronics-meets-jazz-fusion is fairly par for the course as far as this festival is concerned, but some grindcore from Frontierer and irreverent noise-rock from Mclusky are both good deviations. Following that, Horrendous’ tech-death is more straightforwardly brutal than much of what’s around, and vianova and Royal Sorrow take a surprisingly pop-oriented approach to metal that typically isn’t what Arctangent is all about. Not that that’s a complaint; it’s refreshing to see, and still fits a remit of musical boundaries that are nowhere close to being closed off.
That being said, the usual array of doom, prog and post- makes up the lion’s share, though at least with the odd twist thrown in here and there. Papangu, for example, infuse their prog-metal with elements of their Brazilian heritage. Elsewhere, Maud The Moth’s doom plays with a neo-classical side, while Ahab’s eschews all gentleness to amplify its crushing, funereal weight. Continuing on that more feral train, Inter Arma are known far and wide for their truly punishing take on sludge and doom, joined in that by the noise and hardcore flavours that go into Coilguns and Heave Blood & Die.
As for the ‘standards’ to wrap up, the Bixler Stage refuses to slouch. Key among them is the weekend’s second appearance of We Lost The Sea, this time playing their post-rock tour de force Departure Songs in full for its 10th birthday. In post-metal, OMO is the side-project of members of Mogwai, The Twilight Sad and other Scottish alternative luminaries, creating dread and atmosphere alongside Wren, the atmospheric doom of Mt. Onsra, and the ambient work of The Grey. Along other branches of metal, Sometime In February bring a strain of prog that’s not afraid to soar more readily, while delving (another side-project, this time of Elder frontman Nick DiSalvo) opts for the psychedelic. Finally, in math-rock, headed up by Tangled Hair, and followed by the appointed “Meshuggah in major” Snooze.
PX3 Stage
Now this is where the real variety lives! The PX3 Stage arguably goes the furthest outside of the ‘traditional’ Arctangent boundaries, to where these outliers may even outnumber a still-respectable clutch of the usual. Two of the three headliners certainly fit the bill, in the eccentric metal hell-raising of Battlesnake, and the synthwave / black-metal hybrid of GosT. Particularly with some of the more noteworthy names, things even begin to trend towards a vestige of normalcy (for this kind of music, anyway). A big, melodic post-hardcore performance from VOWER certainly seems more stylistically reigned-in, as does hardcore from Burner and EYES, and breeds of industrial music from Tayne and Sure.
Punk and post-hardcore gets a good look in, too, though mostly skewed towards the latter. The former leans on a thundering, quasi-industrial variety from street grease, and the spoken-word polemics from Meryl Streek. Post-hardcore, though, comes out all guns blazing in terms of bleakness and intensity. Across the gamut of As Living Arrows, Chalk Hands, Indifferent Engine and Boneflower, it’s the sort of genre fare that’s definitely acclimated to an environment filled with noise and harshness.
Because the PX3 Stage still has its fare share of what makes Arctangent tick, arguably in a weirder capacity than anywhere else, in places. Before that, though, there’s a reliable suite of what continues to work wonders elsewhere—Vessels’ experimental post-rock headlining; more dalliances into post-metal and the avant-garde with Kayo Dot, The Gorge and Codespeaker; a hefty dollop of sludge from Swamp Coffin; noise-rock from meth.; and shoegaze from Lemondaze that parlays into slowcore from Palmeras Negras. Get past those, and the real freaks begin to come out. Hexcut combine piano-jazz with dance rhythms for a unique, deeply listenable brew; Vincent Vocoder Voice make some of the most tense, uncomfortable alt-rock you’re likely to find; and Waldo’s Gift, with their experimental math-rock and penchant for live reworkings of Radiohead and Aphex Twin songs, are quite literally like nothing else.
Finally, there’s the PX3’s Wednesday lineup, again showing a bit of a shakeup from its counterpart over on the Yohkai Stage. The blurred psychedelia and post-rock of Teeth Of The Sea tops the day, while the quaking post-punk of Thank and God Alone and the progressively motivated blackgaze of Underdark fill things out. Last of all is Colossal Squid, in which Three Trapped Tigers drummer Adam Betts mixes prog with glitch and IDM, for the sort of electronic experience that, seemingly, Arctangent can’t get enough of.
Arctangent Festival takes place on 13th-16th August 2025 at Fernhill Farm. For more information, visit arctangent.co.uk.
Words by Luke Nuttall
