Top Ten Bands You Must Watch At Download Festival 2023

A staple in many a rock and metal fan’s calendar, Download Festival is the behemoth of our festival season. Every year, thousands upon thousands of music fans descend to the hallowed grounds of Donington Park for a weekend of action from some of the biggest bands and a plethora of exciting new blood. This year though is a special occasion as the festival celebrates its 20th anniversary. With an extra day of music on offer and quite literally hundreds of bands across the festival’s four stages, members of Distorted Sound‘s Editorial Team have dissected this year’s lineup, giving you 10 bands you simply have to see at this year’s Download Festival!

PUPIL SLICER – Dogtooth Stage – Friday June 9

Having smashed their way out of the underground with 2021’s raging Mirrors, PUPIL SLICER consolidated their chokehold on British mathcore with a hectic tour schedule – and then wrote an album that leapt them forwards several light years. Releasing the week before Download Festival, new album Blossom is a progressive mathcore opus with plenty of unexpected twists and turns, as well as surprising melodicism. Expect excoriating riffs, manic circle pits, huge choruses, and blistering, hilariously heavy breakdowns, possibly even within the same song. The four piece have never shied away from boldness, whether it be Kate Davies’ striking stage presence, Luke Fabian commanding the crowd to ever bigger pits and moshing, or just the sheer overwhelming force of their music. If you miss PUPIL SLICER, you’re doing it wrong.

BOB VYLAN – Avalanche Stage – Saturday June 10

From FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES in 2016 to THE HU in 2019 and SPIRITBOX last year, Download Festival‘s bookers have a habit of popping bands on stages they’ll pack out to the rafters — and then some. This year, our money’s on grime-punk’s BOB VYLAN. They’ve sold out UK tours, caused chaos in arenas and America, and stormed the UK top 20 as an entirely independent act. Decked in the finest Fred Perry threads, expect the Bob’s to make more noise than the airplanes flying over Donington; and when the likes of Take That, I Heard You Want Your Country Back, and Pretty Songs play out, expect the circle pits to cause an avalanche themselves.

BLIND CHANNEL – Opus Stage – Sunday June 11

Truly a band who can say that their first Download Festival appearance is massively overdue – BLIND CHANNEL’s transition amongst casuals within the rock scene from a Eurovision success story to fully fledged nu-metal superstars might seem like a recent development, however as the Finnish natives celebrate their ten year anniversary as a collective in 2023 so does how often you’re about to hear their name. Recent massive arena tours with metal heavyweights I PREVAIL and LACUNA COIL, coupled with new singles Flatline and Happy Doomsday which were specifically written with the sextet’s utterly explosive live performances in mind ensure that not only are they ready and prepared for opening up the huge Opus Stage this Sunday, but everyone in attendance should be too.

TERROR – Dogtooth Stage – Sunday June 11

Keepers of the faith for over two decades now, TERROR have only gotten better with age. Last year’s Pain Into Power is easily as strong as anything they’ve ever done – as urgent, aggressive and furious as all-time classics like Lowest Of The Low, One With The Underdogs and Always The Hard Way, and more than capable of giving bands 20 years their younger a run for their money. The Los Angeles legends have got a ridiculously deep well of mosh-ready ragers and gang vocal shout-alongs to draw from and they’re quite possibly the hardest working band in all of hardcore as their appearance on the Dogtooth Stage on Sunday evening kicks off yet another mammoth tour of the UK and Europe. No doubt they’ll arrive as the well-oiled machine they always have been, steered as ever by the inimitable and charismatic Scott Vogel as they continue their mission to ensure that everyone leaves with a smile on their face (and maybe one or two bruises if you’re doing it right)

BEHEMOTH – Apex Stage – Sunday June 11

Arguably one of the biggest exports in extreme metal, the success story of Poland’s BEHEMOTH is jaw-dropping, especially given the band’s potency for delivering blasphemous soundscapes of bombastic brutality. Although the band have three decades of experience under their collective belts, it was with 2014’s The Satanist that shot BEHEMOTH into the stratosphere and since then, and two records later, they are not resting on their laurels. At Download Festival, their prime-time afternoon slot on the Apex Stage might not be the most suitable setting given the sunlight, but don’t let that detract from what will be one of the most eye-catching and captivating sets of the entire festival. From Ov Fire And The Void‘s gargantuan riffing, to Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel enormous soundscapes or Conquer All‘s twisting rhythm, BEHEMOTH will fly the extreme metal flag high at Download Festival. Just be prepared to bask in blasphemy whilst you experience it.

PERTURBATOR – Dogtooth Stage – Thursday June 8

Rock fans have a strange affinity with synthwave. Recent years have seen those clad in denim and leather embrace the electronic music sub-genre with open arms, as show with the surging popularity in the likes of CARPENTER BRUT and GOST. French native James Kent, known better by his stage name PERTURBATOR, is another synthwave artist that has been lovingly adopted by our world and at Download, expect one of the most engaging and immersive sets of the entire weekend. Live, PERTURBATOR is thoroughly engaging as a myriad of strobes and lights dance with his cyberpunk-tinged synthwave, which will kick off a raging party to close out action on the Dogtooth Stage on Thursday. Variety is the spice of life, and with PERTURBATOR, you’ll be dancing long into the night.

SKINDRED – Opus Stage – Thursday June 8

Ah, SKINDRED and Download Festival; always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Until now. Stepping in last minute to save the day following FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH pulling out, the party-starting legends finally get the overdue callup they deserve. Arguably a Download Festival houseband – this’ll be their 10th time! – you’re guaranteed a good time. Benji Webbe will call you a bastard, Mikey Demus will riff you all the way to the bar, and there’s a back catalogue so full of bangers, you’ll have mash for dinner. Seriously though, imagine 40,000 people doing the Newport Helicopter during Warning. Just let that sit in. Beautiful, isn’t it?

ELECTRIC CALLBOY – Avalanche Stage – Sunday June 11

By now the Schlagercore sextet hailing from Castrop-Raxuel should need no introduction, spending the past three years reinventing their unique sound, amassing hundreds of millions of views on high-concept and equally hilarious music videos, winning multiple Heavy Music Awards, securing a No.1 album in 2022 with TEKKNO and multiple sold out electrifying arena tours and festival headline slots solidifying their current star power. Suitably making their Download Festival debut headlining the Avalanche Stage on Sunday evening, expect to look out and be met with a sea of 80s windbreakers, fake moustaches, neon gymwear and a hell of a party to close out your weekend.

BRUTUS – Dogtooth Stage – Friday June 9

Belgium might be a relatively quiet and small country, but its influence and presence in world of heavy music is outsized. BRUTUS meld post-rock, shoegaze, post-hardcore – all the post genres, frankly – into a melting pot of staggering beauty and vulnerability. Trouble comes in threes as the saying goes, and so do BRUTUS, with the trio managing to craft a racket that far eclipses what you’d expect from them. Live, they’re even more intense than on record, equally uplifting and harrowing; drummer/vocalist Stefanie Mannaerts somehow manages to provide the rhythmic backbone all the while singing her heart out, while guitarist and bassist Stijn Vanhoegaerden and Peter Mulders bring forth a torrent of riffs that ebb and flow like the tides, crashing down one moment before receding the next. Simply put, they’re breathtaking.

UNDEATH – Dogtooth Stage – Friday June 9

Having already laid waste to these shores earlier this year on their first ever overseas tour – and having crushed it at every turn of course – Rochester death metallers UNDEATH are set to make a swift and welcome return to the UK as they take to the Dogtooth Stage on Friday afternoon. Expect gargantuan grooves, blistering solos, pit-ready thrash parts and no doubt a fair bit of crowd surfing from frontman Alex Jones at the very least. These guys aren’t just at the forefront of the New Wave of Old School Death Metal, they’re one of the best and tightest bands in the extreme metal scene in its entirety and here you have a chance to catch one of those Download Festival debuts for the ages so make sure you don’t miss it. Oh, and there’ll be all the usual lyrics about fiending for corpses and being chained to reeking rotting bodies and the like so maybe don’t go for that big greasy burger right before this as no-one wants a pit-puker. Or maybe they do; you do you…

Words: James Weaver, Ellis Heasley, Will Marshall, Jack Press, Chelsea Cochrane

Download Festival takes place from June 8-11th at Donington Park, Leicestershire. Check out our big festival preview as well our retrospective Heavy Music History feature!

For more information on Download Festival like their official page on Facebook.