The weather is holding, and the bands are holding their own. Check out our reviews from the first day of this year’s Bloodstock Open Air Festival.

KATATONIA
An blazing autumn sunset would have been the perfect setting for KATATONIA, but even on an overcast afternoon, the Swedes have a transformative effect, the dodgy sound of he first two tracks evening out until their richly evocative, restless laments sear themselves into the crowd. Hidden behind a curtain of hair Jonas Renske’s still manages to rove through vast emotional landscapes, his sonorous croon finding its starting point in states of abandonment and finding a finding a heavy-hearted freedom on the other side, songs such as Criminals reaching anthemia mass as they send lambent light streaming into the far recesses of the soul.
JONATHAN SELZER

SODOM
Twenty years since their last show on British soil and that most seminal of German thrash acts, SODOM, sound like a pressure valve exploding. As Municipal Waste’s Ryan takes mental notes from the side of the stage and the crowd start chanting their name, riffs from the most feral regions of thrash’s DNA come charging out, the raw, ravenous energy of Agent Orange belying the band’s collective age as frontman Tom Angelripper surveys his subjects with savage glee. Obsessed By Cruelty is aired in all its slavering, proto-black metal glory and the long wait becomes an adrenaline shot of head-spinning immediacy.
JONATHAN SELZER

SAXON
Do I detect the smell of burning martyr? Certainly, SAXON mainman Biff reckons that his band of mighty veterans should be higher up the bill, if the subtext of his stage rants is to be believed. One of metal’s great raconteurs, he regales his audience with his customary banter, even finding time to big-up Hammer: the man’s clearly got taste. Energised and brimming with enthusiasm, the band pound out classic after timeless classic like they’ve actually got something left to prove: Heavy Metal Thunder, Wheels Of Steel, 747 (Strangers in the Night), Denim And Leather… if tunes like these don’t move you, you’re already dead.
GREG MOFFITT

ARCH ENEMY
Militaristic in their precision and utterly relentless in their drive, ARCH ENEMY operate like a well-oiled killing machine on a single-minded minded mission to obliterate everything that stands before them. This makes for a flawless performance, perfect sound and not a guitar pick or hair follicle out of place, but it doesn’t always make for a great rock show. No metaller alive could stand before this spectacle and remain unimpressed, but unmoved? That’s something the Swedes still have to work on. Whatever the foibles of their tightly-focussed and almost grimly-determined approach to their craft, this is a band that undeniably looks at home on the big stage, effortlessly owning – even dominating – its cavernous vastness with the cocky self-assuredness than can only stem from total self belief and years of practising scales and – possibly – posing in front of a mirror.
GREG MOFFITT