With the sun breaking through the clouds and 2 Promoters, 1 Pod hosting a live podcast in the Elephant In The Bar Room tent, well, life doesn’t get much better really. Of course, a live podcast is subject to the same mishaps that can plague a live gig and a sudden loss of power occurs during this talk, and at the most inopportune moment. Nevertheless, the promoters of ArcTanGent and Damnation festivals regale us with some of the best anecdotes the music world has to offer while giving a valuable insight into the nuts and bolts of putting a multi day event together. A must for anyone looking for a career in the music industry, or anyone who likes a good chat.

Apparently, this is i Häxa’s first ever show, and what a way to break their duck than with a set on the main stage at ArcTanGent festival. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end, but the band rise to the challenge and deliver an earthy, organic set that is coloured with rustic reds, conker browns and burnt yellows. Against a backdrop of arresting images, the band deliver a thoughtful set, and by mixing up tempos and rhythms they keep things fresh and ensuring they don’t stagnate. A solid set that promises much, here is one band you’ll be hearing from soon.

Over on the Bixler Stage there’s a band called Modern Technology kicking up all kinds of dust. A two man army who sound far bigger than their constituent parts, the combo are powered forth by a drummer who seems content on nailing his kit to the floor while a hyperactive bassist also unleashed blistered, red raw vocals. Some choice samples add atmospherics, all of which makes Modern Technology feel like the natural successors to Godflesh. Turning in a no-holds-barred performance, this combo offer a frightening glimpse of a not-too-distant dystopian future and you can almost feel the energy radiating from the stage. If there were any hangovers present then Modern Technology have blown them away.

Back to the main stage and Zetra make a welcome appearance. With both members wearing corpse paint and chains hanging from their instruments and persons, the band make for an intriguing proposition, and they sound like it, too. Against a backdrop of blinding white light, Zetra deliver a deliciously dangerous darkwave sound that is the perfect combination of surgical synths and organic guitars. Painting their sound from a wide palette, they manage to be haunting and ethereal yet heavy as hell, and this tension of opposites fuses in strange and exciting ways, and the result is a set that’ll live long in the memory.

With a name that’s presented in caps rage, BLACKSHAPE deliver a sound that’s equally confrontational. There’s a sense of danger emanating from the stage; their sound is violence personified, and the band look as if they might throw down their instruments at any moment and challenge the crowd to a fist fight. Full of crushing riffs and bowel-loosening drums, this heaviness is counterpointed nicely by heartfelt vocals that add a touch of tenderness amongst the raging tempest, and that makes for a winning combination.

Having travelled all the way from Australia, The Omnific deliver a heavy, groove laden sound, but what did you expect from a band comprising of a drummer and two bass players? They hit the ground running, but when the drummer leaves his kit to come centre stage for some crazy “dad dancing” things really start to get interesting. They soon get the whole tent bobbing in unison. Their music is complex and the virtuosity on display is simply spellbinding, but the band’s genius lies in making this complexity seem simple which means you don’t have to be a musicologist to join in the party. And their set does have the feel of a party, and they magically turn a Friday afternoon into a sparking Saturday night.

The great thing about ArcTanGent is stumbling upon hidden gems, and whilst walking between stages I heard an amazing sound wafting from the Elephant In The Bar Room. After sticking my snout inside, it transpires it was Yomi Ship soundchecking, so I decided to hang around for their whole set, and I am mighty glad I did. With a stand-in drummer who learned their whole set in just two weeks (no mean feat considering the intricate nature of their songs) Yomi Ship set sail for our hearts and drop anchor in our cranium with a bunch of memorable songs. Impressive stuff.

A noisy trio (an unholy trinity, if you will), Glassing immediately land a succession of heavy blows and deliver a ferocious set, and one that really packs a punch. The bassist/vocalist really grabs my attention with a spirited performance, yet it’d be unfair to single out any one band member because they lock in tightly and almost become one entity. Delivering an aural assault, they soon have the crowd on the ropes and reeling from their sonic boom. Bombastic and brutal, Glassing depart, but not before leaving a bloody pulp on the floor.

It’s great to see a band throw themselves into a performance, as if it was to be their last, and that’s precisely the aesthetic that Night Verses give off. Throwing caution to the wind, the band stomp on it from the very first note, and they rarely let up over forty furious minutes. Headbanging and foot stomping like angry stallions, all while playing explosive guitar solos, nifty bass runs and technical drum patterns. Like animal from The Muppets, the drummer is particularly feisty, unlike many who hide behind a kit, he refuses to have his presence denied and seems to be playing to the whole room. If only every band was this frenetic!

Tearing things up on the Arc Stage, there’s a rare solo outing from Emperor frontman Ihsahn. One of black metal’s true legends, he’s riding on the back on a career-defining, critically-acclaimed album and he plays with the confidence that brings. The sound the band deliver sends out strange vibrations that reverberate throughout the whole venue and causes the crowd to ululate in unison, but I dare you not to stand still when Ihsahn is pouring from the speakers. Outside it might be bright sunlight, but here inside the tent it is pure black (metal). We’ve been treated to some stellar acts today, but Ihsahn takes things to a whole new level and brings decades of experience to bear, but with the majority of today’s set culled from his latest album, this is one artist who refuses to rest on past glories. If there were any among us who weren’t fans before Ihsahn took to the stage, they are won over at the set’s conclusion.

With a samurai looking like he’s returned from the dead and brandishing a burning sword you would be forgiving for thinking that this won’t be any ordinary black metal gig, and you’d be right. In that neat way that only the Japanese can, Sigh have taken the genre of black metal and completely rebuilt it in their own image. Subsequently, this gig is part concert, part kabuki theatre but it is wholly entertaining. In fact, the crowd lap it up and there’s a smile on every face, even when two children appear in corpse paint (not unlike the twins from The Shining). As faux flames lick the drum riser, a burning book is held aloft, a female vocalist leaves the stage and returns drenched in blood while unusual instruments such as saxophone and flute ensures that this will be no ordinary black metal gig. I’ve seen thousands of bands and concerts in my lifetime, but this ranks as one of the best.

With their powerful, chunky sound, Los Angeles’ Animals As Leaders are an intriguing proposition. The band use two eight-string guitars instead of a bass player and the result is a riff-centric affair that stacks chords until they become an impenetrable wall of sound. It towers over the listener like an immense monolithic structure and threatens to topple over a capacity crowd at any moment. Such is the power of this trio and they put it to good use in a set that begins with ‘Tooth And Claw’ and concludes with ‘CAFO’ whilst in between we get a progressive brand of metal that incorporates jazz fusion, funk and electronica, and is played with razor sharp precision, and that makes it all the more powerful. At once baffling and bamboozling, Animals As Leaders get there head’s down to do what they do best. There’s little in the way of between song banter (except a request for some ‘srooms!), the band preferring to turn the spotlight on their songs. A metal masterclass that sets the standards which others can only hope to obtain.

Although they are firmly rooted in the hardcore punk scene, New York’s Show Me The Body are open to all forms of music and incorporate elements of hip hop, sludge and noise rock into their sound. Tonight features all of this (and more), but things get off to a surreal start as vocalist Julian Cashwan Pratt walks on stage puffing a fag, chugging a bottle of wine while dressed in the height of skinhead fashion, and when he picks up a banjo things go off the scale (if you thought the banjo player in Deliverance was spooky, you ain’t seen nothing yet!). ‘Out Of Place’ is the opening shot and it’s a slow builder and it allows the band to enter the stage and get in the groove, it also means that when the following ‘Boils Up’ bursts into life, so do the band, and like a spark to kindling, the whole venue goes up in flames. From here on, it’s a full-on, take-no-prisoners affair that offers little in the way of redemption, and even a cover of the Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ can’t quell the fire as the crowd turn into a pulsating, seething mass. Smashing the boundaries of what a rock band can be, Show Me The Body welcome you to the future.

So many genre labels have been thrown at tonight’s headliners Meshuggah, but they’ve deftly avoided easy categorisation by constantly evolving and shapeshifting between each album. In fact, the only tag with seems fitting for this bunch is “Einstein Metal”, and it is the only one that unifies their entire discography. This Swedish crew seem to exist in their very own intellectual sphere and have made albums seemingly for a higher strata of life. Thankfully, us mere mortals can appreciate their sound and it’s undoubtedly Meshuggah’s appearance on the line-up that helped this year sell out. ‘Broken Cog’ makes the perfect opening gambit and then the band are off, delivering a mechanical brand of metal that is played with such exactitude that you feel it must be played by robots. Throughout the set, guitar lines run counter to each other while rhythmic streams flow in different directions, and while this could result in a tangled mess, tracks such as ‘Kaleidoscope’ remain catchy as hell and veer into earworm territory. A set list which visits eight of the band’s albums means that no one can have any complaints about tonight’s track selection and as second (and final) encore ‘Demiurge’ fades into the ether, no one leaves disappointed.

Meshuggah Set List:

1. Broken Cog
2. Rational Gaze
3. Perpetual Black Second
4. Kaleidoscope
5. God He Sees In Mirrors
6. Born In Dissonance
7. In Death – Is Life
8. In Death – Is Death
9. Humiliative
10. Future Breed Machine

Encores:

11. Bleed
12. Demiurge