Radar Festival 2026: The Review – Sunday
Closing out the final night in Manchester for one of the best independent festivals in the UK, Radar saw off their home of recent years in spectacular fashion. Next stop Sheffield.
Words by Andy Calderbank & Vee Richardson.
Maebe
Wake up and smell the prog! Our final day begins, and it’s one for the purists. Maebe has a nice crowd to shake off any groggy heads with a performance of adrenaline fuelled math prog theatre. Michael Ashley-Brown galavants round the stage, melting a few faces along the way. Cuts from the well reviewed album Brain Paint is a free for all in fret tapping to loosen up any limbs for the last day. AC
Benthos
Italian progressive mathcore outfit Benthos were a surprising spectacle. Presenting as a picture of style and elegance but delivering a wounding mathcore inspired performance. Frolicking and jabbing in staccato rhythm over the low wounded boar vocals which entices a push pit out of the locals. Bravo Benthos. AC
Elwood Stray
Back on the main stage and straight from Essen, Germany, Elwood Stray brings European metalcore with no frills to satiate those who long for old Northlane and Polaris. A clinical performance of classic modern metalcore which may not push the envelope, but not everything needs to. It’s brutal and melancholic with phenomenal vocals, both screamed and sung, and sometimes that’s all you need to get a very receptive main stage crowd moving. AC
Photo Credit: Lauren Robey
Einar Solberg
God’s own voice, Einar Solberg, is dressed for a hellish opera backed up by classical and crushing instrumentation. His voice lifts the floors from the venue with a haunting falsetto bookended by a scream summoned deep from within. He is a man of infinite charisma and an ability which makes other vocalists feel inferior. We are serenaded by a healthy amount of Vox Occulta, which is cinematic and impossible to take your eyes off. An absolutely breathtaking display. AC
DALI
DALI offered a suitably abrasive start to Sunday, twisting groove-heavy metal through odd rhythms and sudden changes of direction without losing sight of the impact underneath it all.
There was plenty of technical detail for RADAR’s more analytical crowd to pick apart, but the band’s greatest strength was how physical the music remained. Clever, certainly, but never at the expense of a riff that actually made people move. VR
Voyager
Voyager’s return carried an emotional weight that was impossible to ignore, but the set never relied on sentiment alone.
The band’s mix of progressive metal, huge synths and unapologetic pop melody remained as distinctive as ever, with Danny Estrin visibly relishing his return to the stage. ‘Promise’ inevitably produced one of the biggest reactions of the afternoon, its Eurovision-sized chorus filling Victoria Warehouse with considerably more joy than most progressive metal sets usually allowed.
There was something genuinely moving about seeing Voyager back, but also something reassuringly familiar. Keytar included, naturally. VR
Photo Credit: Lauren Robey
Employed To Serve
Employed To Serve arrived at a point where Sunday’s progressive leanings were beginning to feel almost civilised and promptly tore straight through them.
Justine Jones and Sammy Urwin traded vocals across a set built on serrated riffs, huge grooves and the kind of controlled aggression the band perfected over years of touring. Tightness never came at the expense of danger, and the pit quickly reflected that.
Against a bill full of musicians doing increasingly elaborate things with their instruments, Employed To Serve were refreshingly direct. They weren’t interested in proving how clever heavy music could be. They were much more concerned with how hard it could hit. VR
Animals As Leaders
Animals As Leaders remained the sort of band capable of making technical brilliance look almost unfair.
Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes moved through impossibly intricate guitar parts with remarkable ease, while Matt Garstka’s drumming made conventional rhythm feel largely optional. Yet the appeal went well beyond virtuosity. Their quieter passages gave the set room to breathe, allowing the heavier moments to land with even greater force.
Their return to close RADAR carried an added sense of symmetry. They headlined the festival’s first edition in 2019, and seven years later they returned to bring another chapter to a close. The pairing still felt completely natural.
Animals As Leaders represented what RADAR always did best: musicianship pushed to its limits without losing the sense of spectacle underneath it.
A fitting way to close the weekend and this chapter of Radar. VR
Photo Credit: Lauren Robey