ArcTanGent Festival 2024 – Thursday
The Mendip Hills, where Fernhill Farm is located, are ancient geological limestone formations. Created by sedimentation during the carboniferous period, they have been shaped since by rain, wind and humanity, resulting in a rugged landscape featuring such stunning geomorphological features as Cheddar Gorge and Burrington Combe. It was at the latter that an Anglican minister – Augustus Toplady – took advantage of a large rock to shelter from a storm, where he was inspired to write the hymn Rock Of Ages.
On Thursday, Day 2 of ArcTanGent, Amenra took to a packed Yohkai Stage to preach their own gospel. Post-metal riffs fashioned upon the bedrock of forebears such as Neurosis, lyrics shaped by the pain and dismay of the past, and sound on a geological scale that penetrated to the very depths of the earth’s crust – theirs was a Set Of Ages. Amenra’s influence is evident across many of the bands playing at ATG – yesterday’s Psychonaut, today’s Pleiades, tomorrow’s Fange – shaping the musical landscape and creating an ecological niche where post-metal can prosper, and we lucky audience members can simply admire the beauty of this craft.
Day 2 of ATG began with the aforementioned Pleiades, peddling their post-hardcore wares with energy and aplomb. A pleasing mix of fizzing riffs and soaring vocals were just what the doctor ordered to get the blood pumping. And if we weren’t sufficiently invigorated by the time their set ended, we certainly were by the irrepressible mania and aggression of Oddism, who had clearly had their Weetabix.
A torrent of searing guitar and violent vocals spilled out from the PX3 Stage in staccato cadence, pulling the audience one way and the other at a ferocious pace. The vocalist was a master puppeteer, conjuring death circles within the crowd and exciting the masses into a terpsichorean frenzy as he bellowed from the pit. But this was not just mindless thrashing – there were some spectacular riffs within as the music writhed from one bar to another.
Hundred Year Old Man were up next also on the PX3 Stage – a band that we first saw in 2019 after the release of their debut album Breaching and we’ve been following with great enthusiasm ever since. A couple of years ago, in what can only have been a clerical oversight, HYOM were booked to play at London’s 229 on Desertfest Saturday and we were among the few in the audience to hear them play tracks from their then-unreleased second album Sleep In Light.
The tribulations of the band since the sad death of founder Owen Pegg have been recorded elsewhere, so it was a delight to see such a huge crowd gather for their first ever performance at ATG – probably the largest that they have performed in front of. Opening with Disconnect, it was rapidly apparent that HYOM were in the mood to put on a show – blending distorted metal riffs with the vocal talents of David Ashley Duxbury in an eight-minute leviathan of a track. This was followed by a new song that bears all the bands hallmarks of stupendous composition, heavy guitars and atmospheric immersion.
They finished with the final track from Sleep In Light, Livyatan, a thirteen-minute behemoth. It takes the listener on a journey through a land of crushing heaviness, via an enchanted waterfall of gentle female vocals interplaying with Duxbury’s guttural lyrics, out to the raging torrents of a pulsating finish as the pace accelerates and the audience is swept out to a blissful sea where they drift, ears evermore filled with the fading riffs. The only regret was that this superb outfit were only afforded a thirty-minute set, but this performance, and the rapturous reception that they received, they will surely be gracing ATG’s stages again.
Next on our roster were Wyatt E., a curious Belgian outfit that briefly masqueraded as being from the Middle East, whence their Assyrian-tinged doom draws considerable influence. Having seen them several times, we knew what to expect – a quick raid of the dressing-up box after tuning up saw four musicians striding out in faux-Akkadian garb, complete with fake beards. However, look past the pantomime element and a serious band emerges.
Wyatt E. played their third album, Al Beluti Daru in full, crafting songs that take the listener across the desert in a camel caravan rich with the scent of dates and spice. Layers of notes ebbed and flowed like sand dunes in a shifting soundscape, with a superb duo on percussion that synchronised perfectly to drive the music forward. Having started late, the band exceeded their timeslot, to the evident consternation of the sound crew, but to the audience’s benefit as we swayed to the last bars of their fading chants.
Julie Christmas provided our first foray to the Main Stage, where a festive mood prevailed – Julie had even decorated herself with some fairy lights, and headgear that appeared to be a cross between a fencing mask and the head of a bluebottle. The fruitful collaboration with Cult Of Luna that yielded the exquisite Mariner has continued in some measure, with Johannes Persson contributing to the composition and performance of Julie’s latest album, Ridiculous And Full Of Blood. This recent release provided the bulk of the material performed at ATG, with particular highlights including Supernatural and Not Enough. Julie’s fantastic voice matches impeccably with the stupendous riffs and bellowing vocals of her Swedish team-mate and her evident delight at performing to the crowd manifested in a lively stage-presence that took in the crowd’s admiration and applause.
Conan are so well-known on the circuit that they need no introduction, and no words could add materially to the ink that has already been spilled on their prodigious musical output and prolific touring record. Suffice to say that they were in typically rowdy form and their sludgy-doomy tones were well-received by the audience.
ATG’s weather gods saw fit around this time to provide the traditional mid-August deluge that accompanies the festival, and the sheets of rain sent festivalgoers scurrying for cover. Thus, when Baroness took to the Main Stage it was positively packed with sodden riff-seekers (although it would probably have been crammed anyway, given the band’s enormous following), who revelled merrily.
Other reviewers will doubtless be better informed on the substance of their performance (one of your duo was more focused on the substance of his dinner at this point), which doesn’t feature in our usual listening and, while energetic and spirited, didn’t necessarily seem to be pushing the genre along in the direction to which we are inclined. The same could probably be said of Red Fang, whose fuzzy, stoner-influenced riffs were diverting and filled with elan, but not altogether stimulating.
Our focus was primarily on the next helping of Belgian musical output (is it time to start an ArcTanGhent?) from post-metal titans Amenra, who delivered a stand-out performance. Slow-building guitar tinged with angst combined with doleful Flemish lyrics to reach the zenith of crashing, crushing, brash and baleful discordance as riffs rained down upon the audience and their heads nodded to the pulsating beat. This was ATG at its peak.
Closing Thursday on the main stage were Explosions In The Sky. Intricate guitars interwove to create blissful soundscapes that were more of a rolling and gentle nature than Amenra’s jagged limestone landscape. Explosions… can clearly work a crescendo with aplomb, as their music swells to an outstanding outburst of furious drumming and towering riffs, but these episodes were all-too-isolated fireworks against a rather genteel and mannered backdrop of melodic tunes.
The highlights of the first two minutes of Greet Death or the furious finale of their set just seemed too infrequent. It’s rather like being seduced by an exceptionally well-mannered and loquacious eunuch – lots of foreplay and not enough fornication. This isn’t to say there’s nothing wrong with foreplay, but sometimes there’s a desire for something more direct and invigorating – which Amenra certainly delivered in spades.
