Another year, another ArcTanGent festival done and dusted. This year marked the festival’s last outing at Fernhill Farm, and was replete with one-off reunions, once-in-a-lifetime shows and fond farewells. On the off-chance you weren’t there (and yes, we here at Echoes & Dust will want to know why), Jody Dunstan and Nick Dunn will take you through what you missed on Wednesday and Thursday.
Svalbard. Photo: Magda Campagne
WEDNESDAY
Jody
Unfortunately, due to some “logistical issues”, accreditation took a little longer than usual, so I missed the Swamp Coffin set. However, I was reliably informed by a friend that it was a great set, but that the slow wall of death could have been a bit slower. Maybe everyone was a bit too excited for the few days ahead of them. Giant Walker played an energetic set to a packed tent, vocalist Steff’s voice soft but powerful. Wednesdays are definitely busier than they used to be, and people are keen to see some live music!
Giant Walker. Photo: Derek Bremer
Overhead, The Albatross, again energetic and lively and quite dancey. ‘Hibakusha’ was a stand-out track, and ‘Paul Lynch’ is a track that always hits me in the chest. Lost In Kyiv’s new record adds a heavier aspect, and this comes across more live. Dimscûa were good, but didn’t grab me. However, I won’t write them off, and would see them in a different venue.
Svalbard, playing their last ever set: raucous and heavy, vocalist Serena smiling broadly at times, and the band certainly gave themselves a good send-off, finishing with ‘Wasted Years’, surely deliberately. It’s a real shame to see them go, one of the better modern heavy British bands, but I guess good things don’t last forever. Alpha Male Tea Party, who incidentally are really lovely people, really looked like they were having fun. They played their newer material from 2025’s Reptilian Brain, a bit of a departure from their early instrumental math-rock roots, with vocals throughout.
Svalbard. Photo: Magda Campagne
Nick
I arrived too late to enjoy a repeat of the world’s slowest wall of death from Swamp Coffin, eventually getting into the festival site in time for Overhead, The Albatross. Their synth-driven post-rock comes off as a pleasant mix of 65daysofstatic and maybeshewill, but was ultimately a bit too thin to leave a lasting impression. Onward, then, to Sans Froid, Bristol’s muscular, proggy art-rock outfit. Their music is not for the casual observer, wending where it will as guided by the siren call of Aisling Trafford’s voice and cutting a swathe through the audience with angular riffs jagged enough to slice deep.
Sans Froid. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
The first real attraction of Wednesday’s line-up was the mighty Dimscûa. Leading the audience in with gentle piano, they took to the stage like they were veterans. Which, in a way, they are: last year’s festival was their debut live performance. Now, with a whole year under their belt and a much stronger sound system behind them, this year’s show was an absolute knockout. They take a no-nonsense approach to their music: no frills, no complex polyrhythmic flourishes, just emotionally devastating atmospheric music all the way down. Their blackened, sludgy post-metal, crowned by Alex’s truly anguished howls, went down a storm. With new music rumoured to be on the way, I for one could not be more excited to watch this band’s career grow.
Dimscûa. Photo: Jez Pennington
From a triumphant arrival to a triumphant farewell: Svalbard chose this year’s ArcTanGent to mark their final live show ever. But what a show. ATG’s sound system is the only one of the four I’ve experienced Svalbard through that manages to lift the vocals out of the furious squall of their blackened hardcore sound. In recognition of the festival’s importance to their career, they dug out a deep cut from 2016, ‘The Damage Done’, which the crowd eagerly lapped up. Given the energy of their set, you could be forgiven for thinking they were rowdy young upstarts, not veterans of a 15-year-strong career. This might have been their farewell performance, but I’d be willing to bet we haven’t seen the last of Svalbard.
Svalbard. Photo: Derek Bremer
Then came Cardiacs. Dedicating their set to the dearly beloved co-founder Tim Smith, whose head-shot was held up in effigy during the bows, Britain’s premier cult-punk weirdos put on an almost deliriously deranged performance. Their music defies easy categorisation for the uninitiated (like me): it’s post-punk, it’s prog, it’s alt-rock, it’s cabaret, they have a saxophone and a glockenspiel in the instrumentation line-up. Whatever their music is, it is unique to them, and there’s no denying the sheer amount of fun they had on stage. The music veers wildly between genres with a madcap energy and an impish glee, leaving the audience to hold on for dear life or get left behind.
Cardiacs. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
Alpha Male Tea Party endured the tough task of following Cardiacs with aplomb, walking on stage to a remix of ‘Money for Nothing’. They’ve been playing ATG for twelve years now, and did a splendid job entertaining the audience with their proggy instrumental math-rock: it was truly something to witness the crowd clapping along to a drumbeat that wasn’t in 4/4 time. But it wasn’t all angular riffs and funky polyrhythms. Some of the songs taken from the latest album, Reptilian Brain, exhibited a tendency towards the cinematic and expansive that highlights a post-rock sensibility underneath the math-rock.
Alpha Male Tea Party. Photo: Derek Bremer
THURSDAY
Jody
Nobody really slept on the Wednesday night due to the biblical rain. Luckily, good espresso and the promise of another day of epic music helped us to get us through the day.
IAN. Photo: Carl Battams
IAN were brilliant: a huge, expansive sound and great stage presence, a band that really deserves more exposure. They are doing something a bit different, and it was a great start to the day too. L.O.E, hotly tipped by the Facebook group, were also good, a huge wall of sound and a set of cinematic post-rock, while Terminals, previously unknown to me, were also very good, huge thick riffs and great vocals, and are certainly in the ‘keep an eye on’ pile.
Briefly caught Matador: doomy post-metal with a touch of psych, which sounded great, and another to try to catch again. Pil & Bue were so good that Arnór from Agent Fresco stopped mid-interview to comment on the stunning vocals. Agent Fresco themselves were a highlight of the day, not at all diminished by their lengthy absence, and seemed genuinely happy to be there and playing to a receptive crowd. ‘Dark Water’ still has the edge it had when it was released nearly ten years ago.
Alcest. Photo: Jez Pennington
Alcest were a little delayed (apparently tour bus issues), but politely asked for patience, and that was rewarded by an accomplished set, albeit cut short, with tracks from across their back catalogue ending with the wonderful ‘Éclosion’. The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza brought straight-up, hard mathcore, the singer full of energy and engaging with the crowd; pretty sure the pit was an experience.
Igorrr. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
Shearling were angular and discordant, and not my thing, but Igorrr were their weird and wonderful selves, the crowd at this point fully into the swing of things. There are few times where you can enjoy opera and black metal at the same time. MØL gave a great stage show, vocalist Kim revelling in the atmosphere, the more expansive and melodic tracks from Dreamcrush coming across well in a live setting, ending with the fantastic ‘Bruma’.
MØL. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
Nick
Waking everyone up on the Thursday morning, IAN are not your typical post-rock band. Driven by a droning cello (which, by some miracle, was much more prominent in the mix than a cello might normally be when surrounded by guitars and drums), rumbling bass and thunderous drums, their music is a heady mix of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the post-everything of AMENRA. Opening the main stage for the entire festival is a tall order for any band, but IAN took it all in their stride, playing through their beautiful and elegiac debut album in full. Definitely ones to watch.
IAN. Photo: Magda Campagne
As a live experience, KLÄMP live up to their name. Their industrial noise-rock rumbled like a steamroller over the crowd, and felt rather like having one’s head squeezed in a vice while belt sanders screeched nearby. Elsewhere, Matador are just as crushingly heavy as the bovines their namesakes fight. One of Church Road Records’ up-and-coming artists, theirs is an emotional blend of post-metal and doom, simultaneously plumbing and pummelling the depths of the heart and soul.
Watching a tiny Chinese woman fling herself around the main stage playing a keytar was not on my bingo card for this year, but OTAY:ONII proved quite the engrossing watch, even as her glitchy brand of experimental avant-garde electronica set fire to my eardrums. Imagine the blood rave from the first Blade film, but with caustic acid both showering the ravers and playing from the speakers, and you’re on the right track. Bringing me back down to earth was Pil & Bue, a proggy duo from Norway. They conjure a thunderous alt-rock sound with just drums and a guitar, while Petter Carlsen’s soaring vocals dominated proceedings.
OTAY:ONII. Photo: Carl Battams
Belgium’s Psychonaut brought their psychedelic post-metal opus World Maker to life on the main stage. This was an emotional appearance on several levels: firstly, the music is truly crushing, moving easily between light and shade, soaring highs and devastating lows, and secondly because the album itself followed in the wake of personal tragedy for Thomas. He received a call from his father on the way home from their 2024 appearance at ATG, which tragically turned out to be the last time they would ever speak. World Maker is itself about becoming and being a father while also losing one, so to bring it to the stage in a full two years on from that personal tragedy gave the whole show a serious emotional heft. This was particularly true of the two-parter ‘You Are The Sky…’ and ‘…Everything Else Is Just Weather’, which delves deeper into Thomas’ loss. Hearing the rousing climax to the latter song live was a very special moment.
Psychonaut. Photo: Abbi Draper
Returning to ATG with a full live show, instead of last year’s silent disco DJ set, Nordic Giants marry their cinematic post-rock to a backdrop of award-winning short films while the duo themselves are wreathed in fog and wear costumes of feathers. This affords them a level of anonymity, and negates them having to do much on stage other than play the music. It also allows the audience to immerse themselves in the beauty of their compositions. All in all, a winning formula, and a vast improvement on a silent disco DJ set.
I am on record as a hater of emo music, and I’m glad to say that this year’s festival has done nothing to change that. This despite the emo-centric music of Michael Cera Palin, which was a delightful experience. Their emo sound is married with enough math-rock and indie punk that it doesn’t quite count as emo, so my street cred and dignity are still mercifully intact, and their live show was a lot of fun to witness. Unfortunately, tour-bus delays meant Alcest had a significantly truncated set, but their music and live show are always beautiful, so even though we only got a handful of songs, it was still a delightful experience.
Shearling. Photo: Jez Pennington
Onward to probably the most unique band of the festival: Shearling. Given that Igorrr were on the main stage, the audience was comprised mainly of the curious, and those faithful to Shearling’s predecessor, Sprain. But those in the tent were treated to quite the experience. Shearling is as weird and wonderful as you could possibly want a band to be at ATG. The experimental quintet works together rather like an ersatz chamber orchestra, literally conducted at certain points by guitarist and vocalist Alex Kent, who at one point appeared to be twerking. Their sound is the musical equivalent of a mixed-media collage you might see at a niche art gallery: noise riffs, spoken word, thundering organ, chaotically precise drumming, all of it feeds into a truly unique and unforgettable sound. That, and Motherfucker, I am Both: ‘Amen’ and ‘Hallelujah’… is a strong contender for best album title of all time, so to hear it played in full live was always going to be interesting.
Crowning the Thursday line-up was Chelsea Wolfe. Her material casts a dark spell over any audience, made up as it is of a bewitching blend of a variety of genres, including trip-hop, goth, doom metal, neofolk and more. Taking her set list from across her discography, the audience stood entranced by the whole show, especially the hypnotic strobe lighting and Wolfe’s ethereal voice.
Chelsea Wolfe. Photo: Jez Pennington
