Another day at Bloodstock 2025, this time with a fair amount more neck pain than we’d had on Friday morning— the festival was absolutely in full swing now, with the Saturday selling out its day tickets well in advance. The lineup was stacked, with everyone’s eyes most notably falling on Machine Head (who were hoping to one-up their explosive secret set in 2022) and Fear Factory (who had promised to play fan-favourite album ‘Demanufacture’ in its entirety). What followed should be no surprise: lots of beer, lots of head-banging, and a whole lot of fantastic music to enjoy.

Cage Fight

After an exhausting run of bands the night before, it was up to UK outfit Cage Fight to wake up the crowd and kick off another action-packed day— not such a difficult task for a hardcore band. The four-piece were bringing some diabolically heavy material to the Ronnie James Dio stage, with vocalist Rachel Aspe letting loose some particularly devilish growls: the contrast between the group’s relatively mundane appearance and cartoonishly overblown sound was almost laughable, with TesseracT guitarist James Monteith seeming so reserved and calm at all times. In fairness, that self-confidence was something of a double-edged sword— with a name like Cage Fight, many were probably expecting some more energy and drama to sell that hyper-aggressive hardcore style. Even still, the four-piece put on a solid show at Bloodstock, with cuts like ‘I Hate Your Guts’ coming careening off the speakers to reinvigorate even the most bleary-eyed in the crowd. It was just a shame to see the group run out of time, cutting the final song of their set on the fly and ending things on a somewhat awkward note.

The Spirit

Sometimes, people just don’t know what’s good for them: the crowd for German metallers The Spirit had thinned out considerably, though anyone missing the group’s performance surely missed out. The band brought with them some of that old-school death metal sound that so many Bloodstock veterans long for, launching into the ripping riffs of ‘Against Humanity’ without too much fanfare. Comparisons to Death really couldn’t be avoided as the band’s ominous writing devices and Matthias Trautes’ grim vocal tones unmistakably harkened back to the work of Chuck Schuldiner— The Spirit were carrying the torch, in some respects, delivering a show full of technical showcases and blistering playing. Though the band were hardly jumping across the stage, there was a quiet intensity to their playing that brought a cut like ‘The Clouds of Damnation’ to life: they may have gone under appreciated at Bloodstock 2025, but that was surely not fault of the surgical precision that The Spirit were displaying.

Warbringer

After the crowd had had so much fun moshing to Flotsam & Jetsam the day before, many Bloodstock-attendees seemed eager for California thrash crew Warbringer to knock their socks off— in true metal fashion, they may have severed their feet entirely! The five-piece brought a sheer aggression to the Ronnie James Dio stage that other bands were sorely lacking, injecting a blazing inferno of passion and energy into the set. Warbringer may not have been the heaviest band to play this year, but the absolute malice John Kevill delivered every single line with might’ve convinced you otherwise: it was certainly working for the audience, who erupted into circle pits from the opening moments of ‘Firepower Kills.’ The band ran throughout tracks from all-across their discography (with new record ‘Wrath and Ruin’ only featuring once), bringing that intensity to every single cut— Kevill’s crowd surf towards the end of the show solidified Warbringer as one of the most passionate and electrifying sets of the festival.

Heriot

Tech issues are an inevitability at a festival of this scale: this year, Swindon-based metalcore outfit Heriot were in the firing line. The four-piece took to the stage later than scheduled and ended up having to pause the show momentarily, with frontwoman Debbie Gough joking “something’s going wrong here.” Thankfully, the excellent team at Bloodstock got the ball rolling again soon enough, allowing the force of nature that is Heriot to finally pick up some steam. The group’s debut record ‘Devoured By the Mouth of Hell’ made up the majority of the setlist, with the diabolical grinding riffs of ‘Foul Void’ and ‘Sentenced to the Blade’ sounding grimier and more sinister than ever— Gough was another example of a vocalist who doesn’t look as she sounds, delivering some of the dirtiest and most monstrous growls of the day. Heriot’s show was about as meat-and-potatoes as you could get, plowing through breakdown after breakdown without relief (save for the haunting ambience of standout track ‘Opaline’): whether you found such an approach thrilling or monotonous was up to you.

Creeper

Ironically enough, some of the most memorable acts at Bloodstock can often be those that step away from metal entirely— just like The Night Flight Orchestra last year, Creeper were injecting a healthy dose of levity and brightness into the lineup, bringing their fun brand of horror punk with them. The band may have appeared intimidating with all that fake blood running down their chins, but Will Gould and company couldn’t have been any more inviting if they’d tried. Breakout record ‘Sanguivore’ was the main focus of the show, with fan-favourites like ‘Cry To Heaven’ earning themselves a massive crowd response: a hell of a lot of the audience were obviously Creeper fans, not even mentioning the excellent job Gould did in encouraging those giant sing-alongs. The group’s lighter, cheesier sound may not have appealed to the metal purists in the place, but for the majority of festival-goers, their catchy choruses and theatrical performances were nothing short of endearing— for the remainder of the festival, it seemed like no-one could stop singing the infectious hook of new single ‘Headstones.’

Kublai Khan TX

After Creeper’s set ended, the crowd around the main stage shifted in demographic quite considerably: the audience waiting for Kublai Khan TX were bigger, rowdier, and ready to create some absolute carnage. Even more than being musicians, Matt Honeycutt and company are salesman of an ultra-masculine fantasy, explored not just through their lyrics, but through the frontman’s continued flexing and spitting on stage— really, it was no surprise to see some of the most vicious moshing and walls of death in response, with some onlookers even barking between songs. Kublai Khan TX made it clear that they are not a band to be messed with, stomping all over you with some of the heaviest, meanest breakdowns of the festival. The group may not have played Bloodstock before, but you can bet everyone there knew the aggressive retorts of cuts like ‘Self-Destruct’ and ‘The Hammer’— truly, the response was remarkable. This was another show running the risk of monotony, as the group’s material did begin to blend together across the 45-minute set: that hardly seemed to matter to the fans though, who were in Honeycutt’s palm until the bitter end.

Fear Factory

There was a palpable excitement in the air before Fear Factory’s climactic set: the group are industrial metal legends, and had the entirety of Bloodstock on the edge of their seat and ready to head-bang. The wait didn’t last long as the crush opening riff of ‘Demanufacture’ soon had the entire festival in utter chaos: as soon as Pete Webber began to hit that deafening kick drum, the industrial metal madness commenced. The group were celebrating 30 years of ‘Demanufacture’ at Bloodstock (ironic, given that only guitarist Dino Cazares was actually in the band to make the record) and played the album in its entirety, much to the delight of fans across the festival— tracks like ‘Replica’ and ‘New Breed’ had droves of metalheads screaming along, eager to honour the band and their legacy. New vocalist Milo Silvestro was a great fit for the group, plowing his way through both harsh and clean vocals as needed: really, Fear Factory’s set was a celebration, rounded out by the unstoppable brutality of hit ‘Linchpin.’

Ministry

Just like a piece of heavy machinery, the industrial train kept on churning as Saturday’s special guest Ministry came shambling onto the stage for one of the most bizarre sets of the weekend. The band’s political bent was on full display from the off, with a hilarious anti-Trump cartoon giving way to the furious riffs of set opener ‘Thieves’— behind the band, parodies of various political figures became a running theme throughout the show, giving the performance a wild, disorienting appearance. For as fast and intense as Ministry’s music can be though, the show had a strange sluggishness to it: somehow, the ball never seemed to get rolling, with frontman Al Jourgensen doing little to engage with the audience and cuts like closer ‘So What’ grinding on and on for a laughable number of repetitions. Despite all that though, the band did manage to deliver their fair share of fun moments, as the catchy hook of ‘Just One Fix’ and outrageous shenanigans of ‘Jesus Built My Hotrod’ finally managed to get the crowd onside. Warts and all, Ministry were a memorable inclusion to Saturday’s lineup, even if their place as special guest over Fear Factory did feel a little unwarranted.

Machine Head

The Saturday night headliners: Machine Head. Dare we say one of the greatest headlining sets in Bloodstock history? We just might. The screams of “Machine F*cking Head” before the set even began— no doubt spurred on by the band’s curtain, emblazoned with that exact phrase— were absolutely overwhelming, making the crowd’s excitement for Robb Flynn and company’s show immediately apparent: if you’d managed to miss that tension by some miracle, the incredible response that opener ‘Imperium’ received must surely have clued you in. Machine Head were sounding more cutting and impactful than ever at Bloodstock, turning the twin guitars of Flynn and Kiełtyka into dominating instruments of terror: every song, from hit track ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’  to new single ‘BØNESCRAPER,’ felt bigger, bolder and more disgustingly heavy as a result, transforming the show into any metalhead’s dream. Robb Flynn proved himself to be a phenomenal frontman, somehow managing to interact with the crowd constantly (while playing and singing, mind you)— his jokes with audience members like ‘the banana man’ and ‘beer box Jesus’ were utterly hilarious, coming as a welcome contrast against the beautiful tribute to publicist Michelle Kerr. Machine Head broke Bloodstock’s record for crowd-surfers, with more than 1000 fans coming over the rail during their set— the indomitable heft of closers ‘Davidian’ and ‘Halo’ made it so, and cemented this as one of the grandest and most climactic shows you could possibly see this festival season.