Bloodstock Festival 2025 is just around the corner, now into its 24th edition (including the indoor festivals), and over that two-decade period, the festival has built its reputation on giving heaviness room to breathe: big riffs, deep-cut setlists, and crowds that know how to meet a band halfway.
This year’s bill blends modern titans with scene-shaping veterans, alongside the new breed cutting through. Here are 10 must-see bands across the weekend.
The Headliners
Bloodstock has had some incredible and memorable headliners over the years, from the likes of Ghost, Parkway Drive, Judas Priest, to Rob Zombie, Slayer and Lamb of God, to name but a few. But when they announced Trivium, Machine Head and Gojira, it was arguably the strongest set of headliners they’ve ever put together, with weekend tickets selling out in record time.
These three bands underscore the importance of festival billing and how, when you connect the right dots between bands, fans respond in kind.
Trivium
Few bands in modern metal understand a festival crowd like Trivium. Their show thrives on momentum, and the kind of call-and-response that rolls from barrier to back fence. In anticipation of Bloodstock, it was revealed exclusively to Primordial Radio by guitarist Corey Beaulieu that the band will release a brand new song ready for their headline set, and the track has ‘the Spirit of ‘Ascendancy’.
Well, I guess to protect me if I say something I’m not supposed to… Basically, it’s gonna drop before… I can’t remember the exact day, but it’s supposed to come out before we play Bloodstock, ’cause we’re gonna play it at Bloodstock. So, I guess that would be anywhere the first week of August. So within that timeframe.
The new stuff definitely has kind of the spirit of ‘Ascendancy‘, but also a lot of kind of what we do now kind of blended in. So I think just focusing on playing ‘Ascendancy‘ definitely carried over into the writing of just trying to, I guess, capture that intensity and energy of what that record was. And when we played the stuff to some friends and stuff like that, they were just, like, ‘Oh, shit.’ This has got some pretty intense stuff. The first song coming out definitely is a very — I guess maybe the closest comparison might be ‘Rain‘, in a sense of just something right in your face, fast, very aggressive. So, it’s definitely gonna be cool.
– Corey Beaulieu
Ascendancy’s defining moments will anchor the set, but Trivium aren’t treating Bloodstock as their chance for a greatest hits. They’re folding in brand-new material, not as filler, but as signposts to where they’re heading as a band moving forward. The result should read like a handshake between past and future: the record that made them, and the sound that will carry them into their next chapter.
Machine Head
Machine Head arrives with the poise of a band that’s seen and done it all and still has the urgency to prove it over again. Back at Bloodstock 2022, Robb Flynn slipped into Catton Park for a secret mid-afternoon set on the Sophie Lancaster stage, a surprise that lit up the weekend and reaffirmed his bond with the festival’s grassroots energy.
In the years since, he’s been vocal about the new wave powering heavy music, name-checking Sweden’s Orbit Culture, who also tore up Bloodstock that year, an endorsement that speaks to the community spirit BOA cultivates between stage and crowd. Expect a headline set built on field-tested anthems such as: “Imperium,” “Halo,” and “Davidian”, alongside newer Unatoned-era material. This one feels like it will be less like a nostalgia trip and more of a statement from a band fully at home on Bloodstock’s turf.
Gojira
Few metal bands step from cult heroes to global icons the way Gojira did at the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony, where they delivered a fire-lit rendition of the revolutionary song “Ah! Ça ira” with opera singer Marina Viotti, an emphatic, first-of-its-kind metal performance on the Olympic Stage.
Perhaps the smartest booking in Bloodstock’s history, Gojira were inked for 2025 before the Olympics made them a global talking point. Their resilience at Catton Park is also part of the lore: in 2013, they arrived after losing their gear and still found a way to level the field, borrowing and adapting to make the set work.
And 2025 finds them in historic company again: Gojira recently appeared at Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning farewell at Villa Park, performing “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)” with Viotti and debuting a Sabbath cover, fuel for a headlining set that will surely balance precision, atmosphere and a sense of occasion.
The Undercard
Lacuna Coil
Lacuna Coil’s dual-vocal attack is tailor-made for outdoor stages. Cristina Scabbia’s clarity and Andrea Ferro’s grit create a push-pull that reads instantly, even at the back of the field, while the band’s modern low-end adds a percussive edge to the gothic drama. The band also has a deep history with Bloodstock, having headlined the festival back in 2007. Andrea remembers:
The festival was a little bit different back then. It was only just getting into its outdoor phase. My memories of headlining Bloodstock in ’07? It was a very primitive version of what it is today—the giant festival it is now. I remember a tiny catering area with very few items, and it looked like a countryside summer beer fest.
We came back a few years later and it was completely different—super well organized, with a lot of stages. I remember the first time as almost a challenge, like we were playing to help the festival grow. They were starting to get relatively bigger names for what it was, and then just a few years later it was already blowing up and becoming a much bigger festival. It was definitely a great time.
Mastodon
Mastodon arrive at Bloodstock, charting a new path. In March 2025, the band and founding guitarist Brent Hinds parted ways after 25 years, a seismic change they addressed head-on by keeping all touring plans intact. By May, Canadian virtuoso Nick Johnston had joined as the touring guitarist, slotting into the twin-guitar role alongside Bill Kelliher.
The new-look lineup got a high-profile stress test at Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning celebration at Villa Park on July 5, 2025, a historic, multi-artist farewell that doubled as a state-of-the-union for heavy music. Mastodon’s appearance there underlined how quickly the unit has gelled on a big stage and set the tone for the rest of the summer.
Expect Bloodstock to reflect that momentum: a career-spanning set that carries the muscle of their classic material while showcasing Johnston’s seamless fit, signalling how Mastodon intend to move forward without losing their core identity.
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Ministry
Ministry’s Bloodstock appearance lands in the middle of Al Jourgensen’s long goodbye; he’s announced one last album and a final world tour before retiring the band for good. The European summer run includes a Saturday slot on the Ronnie James Dio stage at Catton Park on 9 August 2025, positioning Bloodstock as one of the key festival farewells on their calendar.
That context gives extra weight to a set built for communal release: the steel-mill stomp, the chant-ready hooks, and a catalogue that helped define industrial metal on big outdoor stages. Expect a career-spanning set that reads like a curtain call rather than a victory lap, one last chance for field-wide movement to “Thieves,” “N.W.O.” and “Just One Fix,” delivered by a band intent on leaving a clean final footprint.
Kublai Khan
Texas beatdown distilled to its most efficient form. Kublai Khan don’t overcomplicate: short songs, hard stops, then drops that feel like trapdoors opening under the crowd. Speaking about their single Mud, Matt Honeycutt stated:
Mud is the scissors slowly closing in on the final thread keeping sanity intact. Entrenched and trapped with nowhere to go but deeper underground. Reflections and thoughts mirroring a man’s will to survive in a world obsessed with extinction.
Low tech, primordial soundwaves. Sludge covered, sun blistered frequencies of war and peace. Mud is mankind.
If you want to be in the thick of it, this is one of the weekend’s most kinetic pits.
Lord of the Lost
Dark rock with industrial polish and a flair for theatre, Lord of the Lost bring structure, spectacle, and a clear nod to Bloodstock’s melodic metal roots. After touring alongside Iron Maiden and Within Temptation in 2022, Chris Harms conceived their track “Light Can Only Shine in the Darkness” as a deliberate hybrid, part their chrome-edged drive, part symphonic lift and realised it as a long-planned duet with Sharon den Adel.
The track captures where the band are heading: heavier textures intact, but with bigger, cleaner crescendos that have the potential to capture the entire field. Expect a set that leans into that balance, industrial bite meeting widescreen melody, delivered with the kind of theatrical poise that fits Bloodstock’s main stage and history.
Cage Fight
Cage Fight’s rise has been anything but subtle. After tearing up the Sophie Lancaster Stage in 2022, the UK crossover outfit has gone from strength to strength, tighter live, tougher-sounding, and increasingly at home on bigger stages. Their blend of hardcore bite and thrash velocity lands fast and clean: short, hook-hard songs, hard-stop drops, then breakdowns that feel like floorboards giving way.
That momentum makes them a smart booking for opening the Ronnie James Dio stage. Expect a compact, high-velocity set built for instant movement and quick conversions, the kind where curious onlookers turn into pit regulars by the second chorus and head for the merch tent when it’s over.
Static-X
“Evil Disco” remains a festival cheat code. Static-X trades in chrome-plated riffs, guttural bass, and industrial hooks that practically instruct the field to nod in time. The show doubles as a tribute to Wayne Static’s legacy without getting stuck in nostalgia, sleek, high-energy, and primed for mass participation. If you’re pacing your day, this is a reliably fun reset that still hits hard. Be sure to get in early for what is sure to be a packed-out Sophie Lancaster Tent.
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