ArcTanGent Festival 2026: The Review – Friday
A day of farewells, fluids as instruments and falling bodies, here's what happened on day three of ArcTanGent 2026. Words by Dan Hillier, Rowan Bruce, Adam Robertshaw and Adam Vallely.
There’s no hiding the fact we love Worn Out. But saying that, in theory, the Irish lads should be facing some difficulty this morning. Not only do they have the job of waking up a crowd weary after two days of festivaling, but they’re also more or less the only hardcore band on the entire lineup. Thankfully, most of the people here have been awake since 4 am due to some pricks bin jousting at that hour, and understandably, most are rightfully pissed off. Also, it certainly helps that Worn Out are just naturally brilliant at what they do. Breathlessly running through 30 minutes of breakdowns, riffs in odd time signatures and enough rage that feels like the anger of everyone sleepless here combined, Worn Out are essentially perfect viewing this morning. Their new single, ironically titled ‘No Sleep’ see’s the first pit action of the day even before most finish their coffees. A sample of Gavin McNally singing their praises intercut mid song pretty much summaries our thoughts on this band too, and should any event need a band to represent hardcore as a whole, it’s hard to think of band more suitable than Worn Out.
In true mercurial ATG fashion, it’s the direct opposite vibe over in the Bixler. Sounding blissful as they mare shoegaze, post-rock with a tender alt rock approach, Wildernesses sound like the ethereal dreamscapes like many missed last night. Still, the fashion in which they sound so dreamy and translucent shouldn’t be too surprising given how the band features members of Earth Moves and the dearly missed We Never Learned to Live in their ranks. But regardless, it’s nothing but blissful to hear a new project such as this sound as sublime as they do. A wonderful listen for those captivated at the barrier as well as for those napping outside the tent on the mildew-coated grass. Should this be anything to go by, their upcoming tour with Din Of Celestial Birds should not be one to be missed.
Photo Credit: Jez Pennington
As for moksha, it’s kind of funny. The last time Sam Chetan-Welsh was on this stage, it was to play the final ever Ithaca show. Now with moksha, he’s introducing a set with breathing exercises. Not that such a thing is a negative, quite the opposite in fact. If anything, such a thing only emphasises just how healing an experience moksha are this early afternoon. Bound by spiritualism rather than standard genre motifs, the London collective sound utterly transcendent this summer afternoon, their math rock, emo, and jazz tendencies harkening less to pigeonholeable sounds and more to the natural world that inspires this collective. It’s clearly a sentiment shared here; whilst moksha may be playing to a smaller crowd as expected, with Blessings no doubt capturing many across site, everyone here sounds utterly transfixed by the vocal harmonies and natural, organic creativity being expressed. It’s still very early days for this project, with the band only having one single out, but come the end of this transformative set, everything feels a bit brighter and lighter.
As for Conjurer, they’re a band whose history is entwined with ATG, having played numerous times on various stages. Even their side project with Pijn, Curse These Metal Hands, was originally commissioned by the festival’s organisers. As ATG has gotten bigger, it seems so have Conjurer, so it’s fitting that on ATG’s busiest ever day, they’re here to lay waste to a jam-packed main stage. From the haunting opening notes of Unself to the devastating closing notes of ‘Retch’, it’s a masterclass in emotional catharsis through the medium of crushing heaviness. Dani Nightingale and Brady Deeprose trade guttural roars and piercing screams, and their guitars combine to create one of the gnarliest tones this stage has produced this weekend; all the while, between them, bassist Conor Marshall’s hair does not stop spinning. ‘Let Us Live’ gets a huge cheer from the audience, as Dani dedicates it to the trans community, a testament to the inclusivity of this festival. ‘Hang Them In Your Heads’ is pure sonic rage directed at the billionaire class. ‘Choke’ from their debut album Mire sounds absolutely gargantuan, as waves of molten riffs pour over the audience against a backdrop of what looks like a lava lamp filled with blood. After the final notes of Conjurer’s set ring out and the audience peel away, there are looks of shell shock on people’s faces as if they’ve just survived an earthquake and found a new, shared meaning to life in the process.
Photo Credit: Carl Battams
Fans of ArcTanGent’s more accessible, slightly proggy emo side, don’t be put off by the sci-fi-inspired name; The Intersphere are your band. Throwing together Thrice and Coheed and Cambria style oddball emo textures with tight alt-rock grooves, this Mannheim-based quartet make for a refreshingly straightforward experience in amongst all the post-rock and extreme metal on display. Despite only making their ATG debut this year, The Intersphere feel tailor-made for the festival, drawing a packed crowd to the Yokhai stage and riling them up into huge progressive alt-rock sing-alongs with tracks like ‘Wanderer’ and ‘Time To Deliver’, backing sparkling, memorable vocals from frontman Christoph Hessler with tastefully intricate beats by drummer Moritz Mueller. While hidden away in the middle of the afternoon under big names like Primus and Perturbator, The Intersphere might be one of this year’s most refreshing hidden gems, delivering an ArcTanGent-friendly set of progressive alt-rock bangers wrapped in a catchy, radio-ready package.
To the uninitiated, Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs may sound like Sweden’s most intense and brutal death metal band, but names can be deceiving, and this Japanese shoegaze and post-hardcore trio might actually be the most accessible act here this year. Having played previously in 2022, Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs return for a set on the main stage, keeping fans singing along to their catchy blend of energetic math and shoegaze-tinged alternative rock despite the language barrier. Pulling out the biggest hits, the three-piece got the packed audience jumping with tracks like ‘Aoi, Koi, Daidaiiro No Hi’ before slowing things down on the dream-pop inspired ‘Dramatic’. Four years on from their debut at the festival, Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs prove that bands don’t need to be bleak or nauseatingly complex to find an audience at Arctangent.
It’s a totally different vibe across site, however. In our ArcTanGent preview, we said that Believe In Nothing would easily be the uncomfortable 40 minutes of the entire weekend. If you disagree with us following this set, we sincerely recommend having a word with yourself. Clashing with arguably the peppiest band on the bill, in the shadows of the PX3, the Eastbourne noise merchants offer a set that’s an exercise in pure disgust and nihilism. As vocalist Caine Hemmingway opens the set by silently inserting a hammer into their mouth and choking on it, what proceeds is 40 minutes of sludge and noise so ugly that it mirrors the inherent hideous nature of mankind. However, what makes this set so striking isn’t the barrage of noise or the antics of Caine, but more the silence and stillness that chapter the set. Sure, seeing a man convulse over a noise board in a fugue state is uncomfortable, but to see him lashing themselves whilst shouting poetic mantras about loss is intimate to a horrific degree. In a way reminiscent of Otay:Onii, this is more horrifically immersive performance art than a standard musical set. Also, it’s a brilliant example of how to incorporate bodily fluids into a performance.
The Mendip Hills have now delivered a now yearly expected ArcTanGent downpour. Is this a sign of the end of the world and the impending apocalypse? No, it is the sign that finally good things must come to an end with HECK. If you can sum up Heck’s last ever show in two words, it would simply be emotional chaos. But to reduce their career to so few words would do the thunderous engine of a band a disservice. It’s clear throughout their set, in which they perform Instructions in full, that the quartet would be leaving it all out in the field for one last time, leaving a hole that will be hard to fill. Bodies intertwined from crowd to band; no space was left unoccupied, from ground to the rafters. Matt and Jonny make it a mission to spend more time with their friends and fans they have made over the years than be on the stage. There will be much to be said in years to come about these four souls and their music, but it does ring true when people will say “you had to be there to see it”. RIP Heck.
Photo Credit: Joe Singh
The ATG faithful may have all gathered in these fields for the weekend to enjoy being challenged by odd, mostly guitar-based music, but that doesn’t mean they can’t let loose and party when the opportunity arises. Perturbator provides that opportunity with their throbbing rave-at-end-of-the-world take on synthwave, industrial metal and techno. For 45 minutes or so, the main stage has the atmosphere of the rave scene in Blade, only with less blood dripping from the ceiling. Only ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Art of War’ get a showing from last year’s Age of Aquarius album; the rest is pure fan favourites like ‘Humans Are Such Easy Prey’s ‘Future Club’ and ‘Neo Tokyo’, a choice that keeps the place bouncing for the entirety of their set and a permanent stink face on a good chunk of the audience.
A booking that was forged in a conversation between James Scarlett and Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury last year, the sizeable crowd proves that there are no boundaries to what counts as an ATG band. It’s unfortunate that Shane can’t be on stage with them due to health reasons, but vocalist Barney Greenway assures the crowd he will be back no matter what the consistency theorists say. He also promises “horrible sounding shit for the next 40 minutes”, and given what follows, it’s clear he’s a man of his word. The audience laps up the short, sharp shocks of frantic grindcore as the band tears through a career-spanning set with the energy of a band decades younger than they actually are.
The one-two punch to the temples of ‘Everyday Pox’ and ‘Contagion’ is especially savage and gets the front rows spinning. Barney jokes that musical beauty and Napalm Death aren’t things that go together, but the ditty that is ‘Amoral’ does come sort of close. Then it’s back to the hellish grind of ‘Practice What You Preach’. It wouldn’t be a Napalm Death show without some bashing of politicians and religion, and after a speech about the absurdities of the latter, ‘Suffer the Children’ sends the place into a frenzy with its unrelenting groove. Even though most people in the crowd were babies when it came out, classic ‘Scum’ gets the best response of the night, the crowd almost missing the second-long ‘You Suffer’ in its aftermath. Eyebrows may have been raised when they were booked, but they’ve proved that if a band does what they do as well as Napalm Death do their thing, then anything goes.
Photo Credit: Joe Singh
As for the band playing across site whilst Barney and co grind the populace of the Yohkai into a fine paste, lofty expectations await. Not only did BRUIT ≤ release arguably the best post-rock release of last year with The Age of Ephemerality, it’s clear that every fan of the genre as a whole has been waiting years for this very set. After all, the last time the French collective appeared at Fernhill Farm back in 2022, their set was heavily delayed due to logistical reasons, and they only managed to perform one or two songs. At the time, it was nothing but heartbreaking, and given today’s circumstances, you can’t really blame the band for radiating anxious anticipation as they prepare to perform. But as soon as the band slides into their set, any nervous jitters from the crowd and band alike dissipate immediately. Delivering a set composed of material from their aforementioned 2025 record and their LP debut The Machine is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again, BRUIT ≤ sound simply sublime and utterly transcendent.
Sounding emotionally powerful as the motifs of neo-classical, post-metal, and industrialism coalesce into a singular soundscape that ebbs and flows between being imposing and tranquil, it’s hard to think of any band today who are as lost in their set as BRUIT ≤ this evening. However, what makes this set such a success and, without hyperbole, a triumph, is what this performance stands for. In an age where art as a concept has become cheaply commoditised and is now being created to appeal to algorithms rather than people, this set is approximately 1000 people gathered to enjoy music that purposefully challenges the current corporate state of art consumption. None of the music performed this evening is available on streaming services, nor has it been created to be dissected to be used for disposable short-form content for social media. Instead, this set feels like BRUIT ≤’s ethos made reality; thousands of people collectively enjoying inherently human music that rallies against a system that’s designed to make it obsolete. Either way, come the end of closer ‘The Machine is Burning’, it’s hard to ascertain who’s more pleased; the band or audience. A set worth waiting an additional four years for.
Regarding tonight’s headliner though, it’s easy to understand why today is the busiest day ArcTanGent has ever hosted. Ask any diehard Primus fan their thoughts on their favourite band and, after enthusiastically explaining why Les Claypool is the greatest bassist of all time, they’ll tell you “Primus Sucks”, a statement as sarcastic and self-aware as the band themselves. From writing the theme tune for South Park to playing with icons as far apart as Rush, Korn, Queens Of The Stone Age and Slayer to releasing multiple top-10 hits, Primus are undoubtedly the most accomplished act to ever grace the main stage of ArcTanGent. And do that have the crowd to show it.
Marking not only their Arctangent debut and the final show of their European tour but their first visit to the UK in close to a decade, Primus open the crowded main stage with ‘Those Damn Blue Collar Tweakers’ before launching into a decades-spanning hour and a half long set. While best known for frontman Les Claypool’s bass acrobatics, Primus are far from a one-man show with Claypool and guitarist Ler LaLonde trading lines over intricate beats from drummer John Hoffman throughout their many extended jams.
As chants of “Primus suck” fill the air, the trio shed through ‘The Ol Grizz’ and ‘Wynonna’s Big Brown Beaver’, striking a perfect balance between the groovy and the surreal with Claypool pulling out a pig mask and a double bass for the title track from their album Sailing The Seas Of Cheese and ‘Mr Krinkle’. Primus continue to trot out the fan favourites with ‘Too Many Puppies’, ‘John The Fisherman’ and ‘My Name Is Mud’ before closing out on ‘Jerry Was A Racecar Driver’ and unceremoniously leaving the stage in silence. Sure, their booking has led to some contention within the ArcTanGent community due to opinions that their presence has led to many newcomers sullying the festival’s unique vibe, but it’s nigh on impossible to deny how good this performance is. Love them or think they suck, Primus are still just as wild, talented and bizarre as they were in their mid-nineties heyday.
