FESTIVAL PREVIEW: Bloodstock Festival 2025

August 3, 2025 Jack Press

Bloodstock, the holy grail of metal in the UK, is back. Year on year, the festival curates a lineup that spans the entire breadth of heavy music for four action-packed days at Catton Park and 2025 is no different. With numerous stages and countless bands, for newbies and veterans alike, determining who to watch at this year’s Bloodstock is a challenge. Ahead of next weekend’s action, we preview this year’s festival – giving you the lowdown on who to watch across the Ronnie James Dio, Sophie Lancaster, Timothy Taylor New Blood, and EMP stages.

Thursday 7th August

With half the festival arriving early on Wednesday these days, Thursday’s less a warm-up day, and more a pre-drinks party. Before BEHEMOTH frontman Nergal brings his songbook of dark folk and americana to the Sophie Lancaster Stage during ME AND THAT MAN’s headline set, there’s a tipple for everyone to enjoy on the lineup. If breakdowns and blast beats put you in the mood for a party, Hertfordshire deathcore unit DEAD FLESH can serve up the shots for you, whilst groove metal veterans FOURWAYKILL return to British stages for the first time in 20 years. If you’re counting down the hours until the likes of ORANGE GOBLIN and MASTODON descend upon Catton Park, Antwerp trio GNOME will scratch that itch with more riffs than Guitar Hero, before Viking-adoring power metal collective ALL FOR METAL tell their high fantasy tales with all the pomp of a West End show. If this mad hatter’s tea party of a warm-up bill doesn’t get you ready, what else will?

Friday 8th August

As far as first full days go at festivals, Friday at Bloodstock is so stacked you’ll want to grab a pint, fuel up on Bunnyman’s, and get yourself in the mix early-on. Doom-mongers FAMYNE follow in GREEN LUNG’s footsteps as the dark horse of the main stage, whilst Copenhagen’s KONVENT add a little death to the doom and gloom for those who wish PARADISE LOST were on site. If nausea-inducing circle pits are your cup of tea, rising deathcore mob PALEFACE SWISS will be brewing plenty, before Britain’s favourite heavy metal stoners, ORANGE GOBLIN, wave goodbye with their final UK festival appearance. Previous headliners LACUNA COIL and EMPEROR take to the stage for show-stopping sets, before TRIVIUM close the night with a career-spanning set that celebrates Ascendancy, brings all the bangers, and debuts new music.

The SOPHIE LANCASTER stage is not short of entertainment. The IMMORTAL-worshipping OFNUS step up from previously playing the New Blood Stage in 2023, before making way for musical polymaths TURIN and LOCK HORNS. If heavy metal whiplash was a thing, it’s this wild run starting with Sheffield hardcore mob ROUGH JUSTICE, into Finnish symphonic black metallers SHADE EMPIRE, HEILUNG heirs-in-waiting EIHWAR, gothic supergroup HIGH PARASITE (featuring members of MY DYING BRIDE and TOMBS), and metal legend Max Cavalera’s industrial side project NAILBOMB playing their first ever UK live show. If that’s not enough, Canadian death metallers KATAKLYSM headline right after TRIVIUM’s Ronnie James Dio set.

Friday’s Timothy Taylor New Blood stage serves up a proper mixed bag of emerging metal talent that’ll have you ping-ponging between genres all day. From TEALDEER‘s alt-metal madness and RASCAL‘s lightning-fast speed metal assault, to BACKSEAT JULIET‘s glam-soaked rock ‘n’ roll, THUNARWÜLF’s folk-infused riffage, and DEVILHUSK’s glitchy deathcore/metalcore mash-up – it’s grassroots metal at its finest, guaranteed to unearth your next favourite band.

Elsewhere, the EMP Stage serves up proper underground thrash and death metal mayhem with Yorkshire’s old-school flag-wavers DESOLATOR, alongside LUST RITUAL, INSIDIOUS VOID, SHRIKE, and HELLDOWN.

Saturday 9th August

Saturday’s serving hair of the dog for breakfast, with a Ronnie James Dio stage line-up that could go down as one of Bloodstock’s best ever. Hardcore supergroup CAGE FIGHT’s pits will count as your park run, before sci-fi black metallers THE SPIRIT and modern thrash masters WARBRINGER take it up a notch. Proof that the future of British alternative music couldn’t be in ruder health comes in the form of HERIOT’s sludgy hardcore and CREEPER’s bombastic punk-rock goth opera back-to-back. As much as Bloodstock’s bleeding in new talent, it’s shining a light on the scene’s legends, from FEAR FACTORY playing Demanufacture in its entirety, and MINISTRY’s well overdue Catton Park debut, to headliner’s MACHINE HEAD’s all-conquering return following their not-so-secret secret set two years ago.

Saturday’s Sophie Lancaster stage is an absolute belter. STATIC-X headline with their industrial metal fury, marking their first UK show in six years, whilst earlier in the day you’ve got Sheffield’s blackened post-metal crew BA’AL, underground pioneers PENGSHUI mixing up punk, metal, and grime, atmospheric post-metallers WATERLINES, power metal veterans NEONFLY, death metal bruisers UNDEATH, and Spanish metal legends BREED 77 bringing their nu-metal nostalgia. It’s a proper genre-hopping marathon that’ll have you discovering new favourites whilst banging your head to established classics.

Saturday’s Timothy Taylor New Blood stage serves up a proper feast of emerging talent. London deathcore bruisers SYMBYOTE, Welsh folk metal conjurers ADFEILION, London’s NWOBHM-infused prog metallers HEKZ, Norwegian doom merchants ZEBULON, Birmingham’s genre-hopping MANTIS DEFEATS JAGUAR, Essex’s savage MECHROMORPH, and Kent’s metalcore ragers UNNATURAL ORDER are all guaranteed to deliver the goods. Your next favourite band is definitely lurking in there somewhere.

Saturday’s EMP stage delivers classic metal mayhem with CROWN SOLACE, TIBERIUS, BAD SMELL, thrash merchants THRASHIST REGIME, and RITES TO RUIN all bringing their distinctive flavours of heavy music chaos.

Sunday 10th August

Push through those hangover blues and heavy legs because Sunday’s Ronnie James Dio stage is just as stacked as the rest of them, delivering a final day that’ll have you forgetting all about your festival fatigue. The back-to-back dream booking of headliners GOJIRA – returning since first headlining in 2018, this time with a Grammy in tow – followed by special guests MASTODON (who previously headlined themselves back in 2016) is the stuff of metal legend. Earlier in the day, Eurovision contestants LORD OF THE LOST bring their theatrical heavy metal spectacle, whilst THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER make their emotional return to Bloodstock for the first time since Trevor Strnad’s tragic death, and their first appearance since 2012. Metalcore legends AUGUST BURNS RED deliver their trademark technical brutality, progressive death metallers RIVERS OF NIHIL showcase their genre-bending brilliance, and Germany’s medieval madmen FEUERSCHWANZ inject some proper party vibes into proceedings.

Sunday’s Sophie Lancaster stage offers the perfect counterpoint to the main stage chaos, providing a more intimate but equally crushing finale. Stoner doom lords BARBARIAN HERMIT bring their crushing, fuzz-laden riffs, whilst DOGMA – absolute masters of blending crushing heaviness with infectious groove – are guaranteed to convert new disciples with their genre-defying approach. Atmospheric post-metallers SIGLOS showcase their cinematic soundscapes, nu-metal-meets-hardcore bruisers THROWN deliver pure aggression, and Canadian metal legends 3 INCHES OF BLOOD return with their twin-guitar assault and soaring vocals. Capping it all off, death metal pioneers OBITUARY deliver their headline set straight after GOJIRA‘s main stage performance – a proper old-school battering that’ll leave you battered, bruised, and absolutely buzzing as the final curtain falls on another legendary Bloodstock weekend.

Sunday’s Timothy Taylor New Blood stage closes the weekend with one final push to discover your next obsession. Every region represents a different genre: there’s proggy metalcore from Reading (OCEAN PLANET), post-hardcore pummelling from Newcastle (RULED BY RAPTORS), Derbyshire-born deathcore (THE CARTOGRAPHER), filthy riffs from Birmingham (SPITTING TEETH), Belfast-hailing alt-rock (PREYRS), and so much more. Who will you leave loving?

Sunday’s EMP stage wraps the weekend with melodic metalcore juggernauts THE FIVE HUNDRED, Swansea’s sax-driven prog-jazz innovators Z MACHINE, Egyptian mythology masters MAATKARE, drone lords ORME, and sludge trio PHON.

Whoever you catch, four days of heavy metal and mates awaits. We’ll see you in the pit!