Wanna get caught in a mosh at Mangata Festival? Check out these 9 bands, for mosh pits ranging from the violent and chaotic to the immensely silly.
Ignore anyone who says festival season is over, for next Saturday, 5 September, is Mangata Festival. Nicknamed “ArcTanGent lite” and spread across some of Nottingham’s finest music venues, the Mangata 2026 lineup spans Death Metal, party doom, club Metal, instrumental post-rock, atmospheric Black Metal, industrial noise pop, and more.
While some of the day’s musical offerings are of the thunderously atmospheric, will hypnotise you to the point of euphoric bliss with their cinematic visuals kind (Nordic Giants), others are more likely to blast you into a parallel universe in which The Midnight Beast evolved into an electronicore band to rival Electric Callboy (Premier Jester). To make sure you get a good amount of mosh n movement in to balance out the moments of ethereal instrumental therapy, we’ve collated a list of some of the bands most likely to command a mosh pit at Mangata Festival this year.
King Abyss
12:10 on Twisted Tavern Spirits Stage
One reviewer said King Abyss’ frontman Dom Bould is so commanding that some members of the crowd had the shit scared out of them. The Staffordshire thrashing hardcore death Metallers have been showing off their brutal hardcore streak for ten years, so if you haven’t already caught a whiff of their riffs, today at Mangata Festival is the day. There truly may be no greater reason to charge straight through the Red Room’s doors to the Twisted Tavern Spirits Stage than to show this festival (Dom) what you’re made of at midday with a full energy tank.
Listen to: Weapons of Mass Delusion, Snake Oil, In the Ground
Scordatura
13:40 on Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage
The words “sledgehammer of a set” have been used to describe Scordatura, a set that was chock full of pit madness, crowd surfing and circle pits swallowing up the venue. The Dying Fetus / Defeated Sanity / Cannibal Corpse-influenced Glaswegian death Metallers have been living up to their reputation as a “killer live act” since 2007, playing old-school Death Metal in all its gory glory, with a sharp touch of modernity tying their sound together in a technically rabid package. Fronted by Party Cannon’s Daryl Boyce, you can expect mayhem from Scordatura – just maybe a few less bananas than at the party slammers’ recent Bloodstock record attempt.
Listen to: Necromantic Disposition, Contorted Existence, Led Into Oblivion
Red Method
17:10 on Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage
The industrial groove nu-Metallers Red Method don’t plan to leave any survivors during their sweat-soaked shows. Awash in their own blackened paint and blood (still paint), their shows are high-energy mayhem that looks as ravenously unhinged as it feels. Imagine what the angry love child between Slipknot and Pantera, if they were listening to Sepultura and Nine Inch Nails during conception, would sound and behave like? The answer is Red Method. The Razors Edge say they give a Slipknot-esque hammering. Devolution Magazine remark on their impressive circle pits and how they even have time to perform a sermon and rip up some pages from a bible. Bring it on?
Listen to: Detonate, Counting Corpses, Cycle of Violence
Raised by Owls
18:30 on Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage
Raised by Owls, aka Sam’s Mum’s favourite (or least favourite) Metal band, put the comedy in death and grindcore when it comes to their particular flavour of Metal. If you want to tick “see Mr Blobby dual-wield double-ended dildos” off your bucket list and partake in a non-stop Death Metal party that ends in “blood, sweat and spilled beers”, then head to the Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage at 18:30. With songs like Going for a Pint With Corpsegrinder and a cover of Limp Bizkit’s Break Stuff, you know you’re in for a very, very silly, wildly chaotic time with Raised by Owls. You may even get to participate in a circle pit of Barney Greenway impersonators, as apparently when the Napalm Death singer dances on stage he looks like “a man who’s gone for a jog and is being attacked by a swarm of wasps and it’s fucking amazing”. Blast beats and ferocious growls galore; you will not leave a Raised by Owls show wanting. Well, wanting anything except more.
Listen to: I’m Sorry I Wore a Dying Fetus T-Shirt to Your Baby’s Gender Reveal Party, Dance Like Barney Greenway, Netflix and Kill
Maatkare
19:00 on BSB TV Stage
Maatkare are a “pharaohcious female Death Metal band from the UK/Netherlands”, and their ferociousness is not just in their pun game or their Death Metal, but in their resounding Egyptian mythological power – a power that conjures up “visceral pits”. It’s no surprise that their debut, and to date only, album is titled Rise to Power. Total Rock managed to describe a Maatkare live show in just five words: “Death Metal at its finest”. There’s an ancient blackened atmosphere to the otherwise crushing Death Metal that this four-piece has crafted, and it’s the kind of ritualistic heaviness that wants, nay, needs, to be experienced live. Even if they go “straight in for the kill”, and you’re likely to leave the BSB TV Stage ready to storm into war in the name of “The Queen”.
Listen to: War Before Peace, Death of One Thousand Voices, Long Live The Queen
Cober Mouth
20:00 on BSB TV Stage
One YouTube user says Cober Mouth scratch the itch left by their love for Paleface Swiss “so damn well”. Add to that an umbrella of influences including Slipknot, Architects, Northlane, Knocked Loose and Thrown, and you can imagine what kind of barking, scratching rampage the Bristolians are capable of across stages. Even if it’s at home with your furniture and “concert playlist”, their vicious nu-Metalcore sound will incite the rowdy mosher within. They even have a song called Cesspit. So as soon as they start their frantic, spitting set at 20:00 on the BSB TV Stage, you’re going to want to throw a limb or ten in the Cober Mouth “cesspit”.
Listen to: No More, Tenacity, They’re Only There For Their Food and Then They’re There For Their Food
THE HARA
20:00 on Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage
There are few things off the table when it comes to guessing what THE HARA will do live. Dress guitarist Zack Breen up as a panda and shove him in the middle of a circle pit? Most likely. Ignore all sense of health and safety and get vocalist Josh Taylor to climb onto anything he can get his hands and feet on, even if it’s wobbly as hell? Most definitely. Charge into a wall of death with a sword?…hopefully. When Punktastic reviewed THE HARA, they described it as “a stampede out of the zoo and into the wild”. With swirling circle pits of fans, usually around one of the band members, and bouncing walls of death, usually including one of the band members, THE HARA bring drama and high-energy bonkersness to every stage they lather their presence all over. “This is a band that doesn’t just play at a crowd – they play with them,” says Jowheretogo. So come prepared.
Listen to: Violence, Psycho Killer, Rockstar
ten56.
21:50 on Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage
“Go see ten56. now. Just saw them live a few hours ago and man they were crushing. Breakdowns into breakdowns into breakdowns. It was absolute chaos in the pit, insane energy from the crowd as well,” urged SexyGenguButt on Reddit. ten56. also feature in a “what’s the most violent moshpit you’ve ever been in” Reddit thread, alongside Converge in ’07, Knocked Loose, “my furniture at my Spotify playlist concert”, Bury Your Dead, and Knocked Loose. The word “brutal” features at least 56 times across their live show reviews over the past couple of years…but most make sure to elaborate that it’s a “delicious assault”. There’s a reason why this French Deathcore band are this year’s headliner, and their unabashedly pissed-off and violating mechanical breakdowns mixed with their clear reputation for an “all hell breaks loose” kind of show is it.
Listen to: Saiko, Pig, Earwig
Continents
22:10 on BSB TV Stage
Booted from their position as BSB TV Stage’s opener all the way to stage headliner are Welsh Metalcore act Continents. Electrifying. High-energy. Formidable. These are just some of the adjectives thrown around to describe what a Continents live show is like. And in addition to walls of death, crowd surfers, and riots in the moshpit, you may also get to experience “walls practically shaking from the vibrations of both the music and from the movement of the very enthusiastic crowd” if Soundscape Magazine weren’t just being metaphorical. With their tight, gristly Metalcore that explodes out of the speakers like an angry cat whose tail you just trod on, Continents are going to be a fun, and hopefully bruising, end to Mangata Festival 2026.
Listen to: GRITTED TEETH, Drowned in Hate, BAD BLOOD
