As I get to the venue and try to my best to work out where all the stages are the band on the big Jägermeister stage are the most immediate. Mutant play the sort of thrash metal that gets some denim patch-jacketeers wetter than a November day in Manchester. ‘Scrap Brain Zone’ and ‘The Rauncher’ weave from the stage with the assured ease that talent brings. Whilst the crowd is still a little sparse and rather lukewarm in enthusiasm it’s brilliant to watch and guitar/vocalist Tom Luchtenstein entertains with his silly über metal voice, bringing us gems like, “Do you like EVIL HEAVY METAL?” and, following some careful strums on his guitar, “I THINK I’M IN TUNE!”
Cartoony, comedic and cleverly crafted thrash is a good start to a day.

The Construct are on the Rocksound Stage, which seems to have been designated the “arty room” with all the more avant-garde acts. It’s pretty cosy, and trying to get in proves a challenge even this early in the day. I get a good vantage and The Construct delivered the goods with progressive doomy post-metal by way of Neurosis. The Construct proved like Mutant they are well justified in winning the fan’s vote to be here, being passionately stalwart in their performance and easily as good as any of their contemporaries.

Having found that we’ve missed Diascorium and Colonel Blast due to band overlaps, times and being uncertain of the layout we find ourselves watching Panic Cell. Back in the day I was full of praise for this band for their unashamedly mainstream sound, and slightly annoyed they weren’t bigger. Singer Luke Bell has the kind of voice that some bands would sacrifice their left nut for; holding his gruff impassioned melody lines well above the adept rock/metal riffs that bands in the US would make serious green with.
‘Save Me’ and ‘Away From Here’ are potential stadium pleasers and, handing around a bottle of Jäger, they finish with an awesome cover of Seal’s ‘Crazy’, complete with absolutely side-splitting contributions from atonal members of the audience.

Fen bring forth something UK metal fans in this neck of the woods don’t get enough of, competent atmospheric black metal. Enrapturing at times, Fen provide something completely different from the rest of the day with their gloomy but gleaming sound permeating the very fabric of the air. Whilst sombre it is also uplifting and avoids some of the tired clichés of a genre which has been blighted with so much crap over the years. Not a drop of corpse paint is to be seen and Fen make for an awesomely pleasing listen.

With another notch on this year’s bedpost of diversity, resurrected comedy thrash princes Lawnmower Deth arrive onto the main stage to the Muppet’s Show theme and proceed to be hilarious beyond measure. With short demented comedy thrash songs delivered like good time pub party entertainers they put one in mind of Municipal Waste crossed with Madness or Bad Manners.
For the song ‘Sheep Dip’ mass synchronised arm waving puts paid to the crowd apathy, as Pete Lee aka Koffee Perkolator chastises the people in the “posh seats”, and even the sound desk, for not joining in.
A crowd surf race is run and won by a man in a sombrero and corpse paint, and for the song ‘Flying Killer Cobs from the Planet Bob’ green alien-themed cob balloons with LED’s inside are released.

Trying to catch any of Push To Fire favourites The Ocean proves frustratingly fruitless as the Rocksound Stage is utterly rammed, so I rather courageously, or foolhardily, find myself front and centre for Anaal Nathrakh.
Dave Hunt, previously playing bass as Dave Cunt for Fukpig, and main composer Mick Kenney set up and I begin to get a little jittery. From the opening salvo of ‘In the Constellation of the Black Widow’ hell is unleashed. It’s like being in a war where everyone’s forgotten how to use words or their bodies properly.
Crowd surfing apocalypse rains down on us in the front row and my neck muscles get a work out from holding up gig-goers, which I think included the festival director Gavin at one point.
They also get a work out from the music which, without exaggeration, is like being repeatedly punched in the face by a fist made of anguish.
Dave in between yelling and screaming from the stage, yells and screams from the front of the barrier, which he laments...when he’s not just lamenting through yells and screaming.