By Jase Walker
It’s the last day of Arctangent 2023 (boo!) but today is probably my most packed day out of the whole thing.
Starting off today with Psychonaut, I’ve dragged myself out of bed and off to the main stage and hopefully get myself back together with a bit of loud metal. The pressure from the music they’re kicking out, maybe along with the baked potato I just inhaled, is definitely helping with the hangover. I do wish this was a bit of a longer set though, but sadly as with a lot of progressive metal bands that lean towards post-metal, a lot of their songs are quite lengthy. The movement from droney parts into lumbering, inexorable force is reminiscent of The Ocean and serves well to shake the hangover off.
Now I’m a bit more put together, I’ve popped into the press area for a quick chat with The Callous Daoboys, covering their response from Europe and the ÜK and upcoming EP and TesseracT tour.
Following that, I’m back to Main Stage for VOLA, a band I will never miss under any circumstances. Opening with ‘24 Light Years’, a wonderfully spacey and emotional song, welcome back to the UÜK VOLA, you’ve been dearly missed. ‘Stray The Skies’ so early in the set as well, they’re going for the ‘as much good stuff as possible’ approach by the looks. ‘Alien Shivers’ followed by ‘Black Claws’ then into ‘Head mounted sideways’? Stellar run of songs! And finishing up with ‘Straight Lines’, what an incredible setlist, easily showcasing VOLA’s best stuff in their short set, headline tour again please!
Next up is probably the happiest band on this whole lineup, standards. Lots of sparkly, tappy, happy math rock and I felt myself break into a big beaming smile as I was walking up to the Yohkai stage to see them and heard the start of their set. Legitimately I cannot overstate how joyous their music is, I’m sat with a group of friends and they’re all nodding along with big smiles on their faces. This is what I love about math rock, it’s such a fun genre of music that while it’s often very busy music that can be a bit overwhelming at times, it’s just innocent fun. Even at one point getting the audience to a scream vote for various types of fruit, apparently we’re all sleeping on Kiwis.
Back to main for Rolo Tomassi, opening with ‘Drip’ and I get immediate chills, that riff combined with Eva’s terrifying growls would make anyone shiver! With the newer material there’s a definite shift with using more atmospheric moments with clean vocals but that just seems to make the sudden switches back to heavier segments hit so much harder. The heavens opening has done little to dampen the crowd response to Rolo, nor has it hampered my enjoyment either. Despite not being exactly in the tent because everyone else already is, I can hear and see Rolo loud and clear from the periphery of the tent and it’s bloody fantastic.
Keeping the energy up, I want my Callous Daoboys! RADAR was not enough for me, I need more, their literal chaos is addictive and I need my next fix. Opening with ‘Star baby’ and getting things rolling immediately at a billion percent and the tent is absolutely bloody packed, no doubt people will be kicking seven shades out of each other down the front. Honestly trying to remember the words to these songs is a challenge in itself, they’re every bit as busy as the shifting gears of the rest of the instruments. The strong Dillinger influences are on full display during this show with the frantic playing, cacophonous noise, raspy screamed vocals. The strong turnout clearly shows that they’ve got something special that people want right now in their more extreme tastes. There’s a bit of everything here whether you’re a hardcore kid wanting some crazy music to throw down to or a Sikth fan wanting sudden time signature shifts and more notes than you can shake a stick at. And so ends a triumphant first trip across to the UK and Europe for the Daoboys, see you next year with Tesseract!
Next today is Aiming For Enrike, as part of my most packed day at ATG for this weekend. A mix of funk, progressive, and weird bleepy music, Aiming For Enrike has an incredibly unique sound and not only that, this is all done live with just two guys and a ton of effects pedals. With songs like ‘Don’t Hassle The Hoff’ and ‘Hard Dance Brainia’ what’s not to love? But also, no way you’re not gonna dance to this either! I mean at one point we end up veering off into something similar to psy trance, it’s all a bit weird but pretty par for the course with these! Finishing with ‘Hard Dance Brainia’ I get my fix of having a dance to some weird music and closes out another short but sweet set that leaves me wanting yet more music.
Next up is a proper nostalgia booking for me, The Fall Of Troy, technical post-hardcore legends that have been part of these scene so long they’re part of the furniture even if they’re rarely over in the UK and Europe. Admittedly the sound is a bit off, the guitar seems to cut out briefly for a moment and doesn’t sound particularly good the rest of the time. The time keeping isn’t great either and it’s spoiling the set a bit which is disappointing. Between the sound and timing, I don’t really think I’m particularly enjoying this set but I’m still going to stick it out at least. Admittedly I was waiting for ‘FCPREMIX’ which was probably the cleanest song in the set, I’m a bit underwhelmed by the performance on the whole though, happens sometimes I suppose!
Next up is back to the main stage for Igorrr, another fantastically weird band that absolutely smashed it at Radar festival and of course I’m gonna enjoy a follow-up! Following a pretty similar setlist the bizarre combination of breakbeat, baroque, metal, even some bizarre folk influences as well is exactly what ATG needs in the closing out of the festival. ‘Downgrade Desert’ thunders through the tent of the main stage with the vocals working similar to a Bulgarian Choir after its lumbering intro riff. The intensity of Igorrr’s shows is truly an experience to behold, whether it’s crushing riffs, rapid fire screaming that would make Jonathan Davis blush, soaring operatic vocals or glitchy drum and bass, this is truly an unreal live show. I don’t know anyone that even comes close to sounding like Igorrr, truly a band that someone should see at least once, although I’d rather see them repeatedly because shows like the one they’ve put on today just make me want to go back every time.
The penultimate band of the weekend for me is Haken. Opening with ‘Taurus’ as I arrive, it’s already sounding like the Haken I know, they’re on form today and I couldn’t be bloody happier! Next up with ‘Sempiternal Beings’ and seems were getting a much stronger focus on the Fauna album with this set, well that is until they decided to drop fan favourite, ‘Cockroach King’ into the set. ‘Lovebite’ with its crowd participation singing goes down a storm as well, not just that but it’s really sinking in how stellar they’re sounding on this show. One of the more angry Haken songs starts a lot of movement further down the front in the form of ‘Prosthetic’, definitely one of the more moshable songs they’ve done. The set feels short but that’s mainly just down to the length of a lot of their songs, but quite happy that I called it on their finished being my favourite song, ‘The Architect’, a 13 minute or so long epic, excellent.
Finally Devin “I’m socially awkward and I love your balls” Townsend takes the stage for the final act of the weekend. I’m a bit sad about it but finishing with Devin is the icing on a very big cake. I didn’t expect ‘Kingdom’ to be the second song in but Devin has been anything but conventional! ‘Deadhead’ is a pretty deep cut for a show like this but I’m pretty damn happy that so far we’re getting quite an interesting selection of songs. Even going back as far as ‘Ziltoid The Omniscient’ this is already shaping up to be one of the best setlists Devin’s played in a while! The sound of Devin tonight is magnificent, the heavier parts are oppressive but the quite parts are so soft and you could hear a pin drop with the crowd in silence as the band plays. Apparently ‘Heartbreaker’ was voted least enjoyable song in a festival environment? Hmm, not sure about that one.
A newer classic, ‘Spirits Will Collide’ gets a cheer from the audience and a sea of waving arms for what is now one of Devin’s biggest singalongs. Well, that is until he follows it up with a musical theatre number, ‘Why?’ Which just showcases how varied and yet silly a lot of Devin’s work can be. Partway through he pulls a jacket on from none other than my mate Dan Singleton and I can’t actually fucking believe it, he actually did it, the absolute madman! And finally to finish, it’s ‘Stupid Hat Time’ with big stupid cowboy hats and Devin with horns on top, I wouldn’t have it any other way and finally finishing with an encore of ‘Love?’
What a bloody fantastic way to end ArcTanGent 2023, no doubt I’ll be back next year and going wild for the whole weekend all over again, I fucking love this festival!
- Early bird tickets for ArcTanGent 2024 are now on sale.
- PHOTO CREDIT: Photos © Carl Battams/Derek Bremner/Jake Ten/Joe Singh/Jonathan Dadds and provided courtesy of ArcTanGent. Copyright remains with the relevant photographers.
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