Mangata Festival
Rescue Rooms, Nottingham – 15/07/2023
With an enticing mixture of new and established bands, The Mangata Festival has quickly become a highlight in metal’s studded calendar. Held in the centre of Nottingham at the Rescue Rooms (and the Tap & Tumble bar) this year’s event looks to be the best ever. With so many great bands to catch, time is of the essence, so without further ado…let’s rock!
On what promises to be a brutally heavy day, Lost In Light are worthy openers, and despite the early start pull in a fair sized crowd. Operating as a sextet, they Specialise in a twin vocal attack and deliver a ferocious sound that threatens to shake the venue to to its very core. A heavy and atmospheric set, of which ‘Pariah’ is a definite highlight.
.
Over in the Red Room A-Tota-So are busy delivering a spiky sound that’s full of lines intersecting at impossible angles. Making good use of musical dynamics, they juxtapose loud sections with quiet and the result ululates like ocean waves. They’re a band who defy easy categorisation, so file under ‘great’.
.
With everything amped up to the max, things don’t get much more metal than The Outergods. They’ve a hyperactive singer who moves like a man possessed and with vocals dredged from the depths of Hades. Offering an abject lesson in brutality, this crew aren’t for the faint of heart and closing track ‘Flesh Prison’ is rewarded with the first pit of the day.
.
As the world teeters on the brink of global warfare, Azazel are here to provide the perfect soundtrack. Their vocalist has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, and a crazy-eyed stare that only comes from the slightly unhinged. It makes for an intense experience, and one that ensures Azazel won’t be forgotten in a hurry.
.
There’s something refreshingly old school about Hellfeckted, and they dish out a foot-on-the-moniter, horns-held-high metal fest, and it is tailor made for the live environment. With a bass player who is over the fretboard like a rash and a hard-hitting drummer, they have the requisite rumble and serve up a set that’s a perfect mixture of thrashers and mid-tempo rockers.
.
With a moniker like Thrasherwolf this London quartet can’t go wrong, and they do exactly what their name suggests. Vocalist and guitarist Daniel Lucas could win any gurning contest, and he leads his pack of bloodthirsty hounds through an enjoyable set. Latest single, ‘A Thousand Eyes’ goes down particularly well and signposts a bright future.
.
Local lads Draconian Reign deal a nice line in symphonic deathcore and employ tonality to great effect. Building huge sonic structures in worship of some strange deity, they pack a serious punch, and when those drums hit, they knock you sideways. It’s all very nosebleed inducing, but in the best possible way.
.
Typical of the new breed of rock band, Sugar Horse sculpt sound into previously unheard shapes and soon get the whole venue bobbing in unison. The vocals are haunting and ethereal, and weave through the huge peaks and troughs like a ghostly spectre on a desolate moor, and the wide palette from which they draw their sound marks them as one’s to watch.
.
If you want to know just how heavy two musicians can get, then you should check out Milton Keynes’ Tuskar. Drummer Tyler Hodges also provides vocals and his tortured cry adds a touch of desolation to proceedings, and when you factor in Tom Dimmock’s Sabbath-y riffs you have a sound that certainly gets the pulses racing.
.
Riding high on the success of last year’s A Letter To Anguish EP technical/melodic metalcore band Harbinger are in confident form, and that seeps through every note they play. They’re bold, brash and boisterous, which is exactly how metal should be played. Bathed in blood red light (obviously) Red Method look like a bunch of freshly exhumed corpses, and the sound they deliver is equally arresting. A bundle of nervous energy, they’re a feast for both the ears and the eyes, and in a set that doesn’t pull any punches, ‘The Absent’ hits especially hard.
.
The slight technical issues that hinder the beginning of Godeater’s set don’t phase the band, and truth be told, nothing can stop this runaway juggernaut. Both guitarist and bassist invade the crowd, which always adds a sense of danger, while the vocals, barked with venom, takes things over a cliff edge. Future headliners, me thinks.
.
A wall of feedback makes for a perfect introduction, before Raging Speedhorn hit the stage like an unruly street gang. Such is their sheer velocity that the stage seems too small, and they cover every inch, becoming a musical steamroller that crushes all in its path. There’s obviously some tension in the band, yet it only adds fuel to the fire, and the beat down that this Corby crew dish out leaves the crowd battered and bruised, but hungry for more.
.
Just like the powerful hound from which they take their name, Mastiff are a frightening proposition; they immediately sink their teeth into the crowd’s collective throat, and don’t let go over the course of 50 furious minutes. As soon as the first note rings out (and I mean the very first) the crowd erupts into a moshing ball; it’s that type of music. There’s some serious action going on in the pit, with band and crowd inciting the other onto greater insanity, but it is all in the right spirit, and Mastiff’s take-no-prisoners ethos is just what the doctor ordered.
.
Just when you think things couldn’t get much heavier, Heart Of A Coward arrive to destroy our eardrums. Since bursting out of Milton Keynes 15 years ago, they’ve left a trail of destroyed stages in their wake, and now it’s the turn of Nottingham to feel their musical wrath. Opening with recent single ‘This Place Only Brings Death’, finds the band at the top of their game and firing on all cylinders. With the band locking in tightly, every beat connects with force and each song is akin to going twelve rounds with Tyson Fury. Tonight’s finds Heart Of A Coward digging deep into their discography to deliver a ten song set that’s full of fan favourites and deep cuts. There’s plenty of action on the floor, and it doesn’t take long until waves of crowd surfers crash over the barrier. Things rarely let up over the next hour, and closing track ‘Deadweight’ offers little in the way of redemption, and attaches itself like an anchor to a drowning man, and makes just the right note on which to depart.
.
Review and photos by Peter Dennis