Run With The Torch

It’s now been a week since the ‘most excellent!’ Bloodstock Open Air festival in Derbyshire, England. It offered a really great balance of major names and unsigned bands who earned a spot on the bill winning band contests all around the UK. This was maybe the most attractive element of Bloodstock, I just love discovering new bands. The first part of this writeup is going to be all about the unsigned stage.

Bloodshot Dawn
I did not see the whole of their set, nor was I planning to, but passing by it sounded too good not to check them out, and I’m glad I did walk into their energetic death metal show, laced with great riffs and more than decent vocals.

Snakebite
This was actually the first band I knew on BOA, seen them do a set alongside Sanguine and Inner Rage at ‘The Gaff’ on my London visit last January. I quite liked this band and their set Bloodstock was more of the same, that is bodily groove metal with UK trash influences. The comparison with Pantera & Down aren’t hard to make Snakebite deliver the same energy and their frontman’s voice and style reminds me a lot of Phil Anselmo. I was a little dissapointed by the turnout on their set, having to work with Municipal Waste on the mainstage luring most metalheads there. Go see these, well worth it!

Alternative Carpark
I was a bit worried when these lot took the stage, they didn’t look a metal band at all. Now I’m not sure if they can be describe as metal, tho their groovy hard rock has many elements of metal in it. But once they got in action, all my worries dissapeared. Alternative Carpark are a live band, their myspace or demo CD you might does no just on how well these do on stage. Later that day they did an acoustic set that wasn’t the least bit less of a high octane thrill.

Blindfolds Aside
These lot bring you melodic metal, where explosive grunting switches constantly with clean vocals, not much unlike the great 36 Crazyfists. Though I felt a lack a sense of definition in their live sound, this however could be fluke as their myspace sounds much better. Blindfolds Aside has in my opinion a lot of potential, the riff works, the vocals work, Identity might need a little tweaking.

Vallenbrosa
Together with Alternative Carpark, Vallenbrosa was definitely on of the best sets on the BOA unsigned stage. For the same reasons that they serve a spectacular show full of energy.  Enjoyable energetic and groovy hard rock with unique throaty vocals and catchy rhythmic riffing.

They Will Rise
Opening the Unsigned Stage on the Saturday They Will Rise filled quite a bit of the tent with straightforward Metalcore with mix of grunts and cleaner vocals, supported by qualitative backing vocals. I did like their set, however I do not think these lot have enough identity to beat the wave other bands just like this one to the top.

Niyah Sky
When I saw these set up for their set, I found them to be quite young, and had no idea what that would result in. However, once they started playing their own unique mix of groove and grungy hardrock I worried no more. These young lads from Belfast are filled to the top with potential, they remind me a lot of Alice In Chains and that can only be a good thing especially considering how young these are. Their vocalist has an amazing voice and good stage presence, unfortunately the other members of the band has nearly none.

Switchblade Scream
The scottish formation Switchblade Scream are a newly formed band that play a mix of Power metal with a more faster, melodic Thrash/Death sound. Their frontman has great stage presence and an amazing voice and singing talent despite his stature. It wasn’t a suprise to hear to term the New Scottish Dio…. This band did it all for me, great vocals, well performed and written riffs and licks, and thus I consider them amongst the best bands at BOA, I hope these guys keep on going for a long while, I’m intrigued to hear more of them.

Internal Conflict
One of the first things I noticed about this death metal band is it’s fanbase, who got some pit action going from the start. Internal Conflict are what you’d expect of these modern Death bands, great growls, chuggy riffing and nice breakdowns. Again altho they are good at what they do now, they to lack identity in an with deathmetal over saturated enviroment.

Inner Eden
Took a while for this set to start, troubles setting up. Inner Eden is a female fronted metal band with male backing growls. And, a keytar!!! that seemed to blend in extremely well. Their shortened show was however thoroughly enjoyable.

O.M.T
Fronted by an huge scary dude, this band brought some great Thrash metal to the Unsigned stage, riffing was tight, solos were very qualitative. And the frontman seemed to putting every ounce of power he had into each growl that alternated with clean nearly punkrock singalong vocals.

All in all I’ve really enjoyed the Unsigned Stage at Bloodstock open air, a great formula they should keep on doing. I’ve seen more unsigned bands I haven’t touched upon in this blogpost as I either didn’t really like them that much or didn’t hear enough. There are also many photo’s I’ve taken here.