It’s always a bittersweet experience when the last day of Download Festival happens for the year, the longing to head home to sleep in a nice warm bed juxtaposed with the desire to squeeze out every last drop of the experience. Fortunately, for those who were flagging, there was plenty to fire up the synapses and Download XXII closed with a rush.
Download Festival – 15 June 2025
Words: Paul Monkhouse
Photography: Ryan Hildrew
The sight of Death-Pop duo VOWWS in the blazing early Sunday morning set could have felt very much at odds with their glacial goth meets Bowie stylings but they certainly made it work. The key here is their ability to push beyond the cliched expectations of the genre and whilst the music had an air of fragility and insouciant cool, there was something bewilderingly human and all-encompassing to all they did.
Backed by some stunning and hallucinogenic visuals, a propulsive Shudder and the stomp of One By One were breathless peaks in a set full of highs, it all providing a very high bar for all those following.
A quick trip to Avalanche would have provided the chance to witness the high energy set by Arrows In Action, the feelgood trio getting the rapturous response suitable for their effervescent personalities.
Having worked hard to make an impact on social media, the outfit proved that (unlike some their peers) they could really play and with the world needing as much positivity as possible, numbers like Cheekbones, All The Ways I Could Die and Light Like You causing huge smiles all around.
Lorna Shore brought their deathcore wrath to the festival with enough power to blast through the stratosphere. With a new album release fast approaching, the band were on top form, demonstrating themselves once more as one of the leading warriors on the heavier scene.
A little later, a stunning set from Amira Elfeky hit similar highs as Take Me Under, Everything I Do Is For You and Tonight brought memories of when Evanescence first emerged and became one of the biggest bands on the planet. Her flirtation with gothic symphonic style rock played with hooks, heart and heaviness was another thrilling display and a packed tent bore witness to the massive potential here.
Celebrating their quarter century, Municipal Waste certainly know how to entertain, their ability to make thrash metal you can actually dance to made it one of the days heaviest but most fun events.
Longtime Download favourites, Airbourne, were back on the festival stage with no less vigour than the last time. The name of their first release in six years, ‘Gutsy’, was blasted high on their back-of-stage banner, and gutsy they certainly were. Beer throws, piggyback guitar solos through the audience, and that signature Joel O’Keeffe energy keeping the party going, it was undoubtedly a set to remember.
Back on the Apex stage, technical wizardry and stunning vocals form the cornerstone of all Jinjer have built their mighty reputation upon. From opener Duél through to I Speak Astronomy and climaxing with their international breakthrough Pisces the Ukrainian wrecking crew showed the class that’s seen them become of the most talked about and vital bands in metal.
With a howl Faetooth brought their ‘fairy doom metal’ to devasting effect to Dogtooth and whilst Swedish extreme metal outfit Meshuggah sounded like the apocalypse filtered through a jet engine, things were getting serious at Dogtooth. Massively overspilling, with hundreds outside straining for a look or listen, the stage saw arguably the most anticipated set of the weekend as the not so mysterious President made his debut.
For those who could see or hear, the five-song set was a masterful display of control and manipulation, packed with killer hooks and harmonies that sat alongside whisper to a scream vocals, single Fearless and a wild Destroy Me being particularly impressive. Permanently masked and without saying a thing, the mystique was kept intact but it’s only a matter of time that a full launch happens and for once, it was all worth the hype.
Across on the Apex Stage, Spiritbox thrilled, Courtney LePlante, Mike Stringer, Zev Rose and Josh Gilbert bringing their A-Game. Wilfully and happily impossible to pigeonhole, the quartet are like no other band on the scene and the mash up of metal/shoegaze/djent along with elements of progressive deathcore makes them a headspinning prospect.
Seeing LaPlante let loose on Black Rainbow, Secret Garden and Ride The Wave a tremendous thing to witness and with their ability to cross boundaries and push envelopes they continue to be one of the most fascinating and compelling bands on the planet.
Whilst Movies and Smooth Criminal are undoubted bangers, the same could sadly not be said for Alien Ant Farm’s set, the whole feeling a little flat despite the band’s best efforts and there was a feeling that fatigue and heat had dampened the crowd’s enthusiasm.
It was therefore fitting that living legend Jerry Cantrell leaned more into the grungy desert rock of his roots and the touch of layered blues in his playing highlighting exactly why he’s considered to be one of the best six stringers in the world.
Peppering a third of the set with Alice In Chains songs (Them Bones, Would? and Rooster) brought an easy familiarity and a welcome chance to hear some stone cold classics played live by the man who helped mould them but a pugilistic I Want Blood and the woozy Cut You In were knockouts too.
Having reformed to great acclaim in 2022, it was a fine sight seeing Kids In Glass Houses back at Download and their hit packed set carried on with the wave, pop rock bangers like Undercover Lover nothing short of celebratory.
Much heavier and visceral, Bullet For My Valentine’s recent global trek celebrating two decades of The Poison has been a tour de force of metal, the ascendancy to the superleagues honing them to a razor-sharp edge.
A crowd this vast suits the Bullet boys perfectly, their big riffs and even bigger choruses pouring like waves across the thousands there. From the start, the band have been able to hit the sweet spot between coruscating heaviness and melody and armed with monsters like Tears Don’t Fall, All These Things I Hate (Revolve About Me) and Cries In Vain stand at the very pinnacle of what they can do.
Sporting what appears to be a gold-plated guitar, Matt Tuck displays the same commitment to each number the same way that Steve Harris lives and breathes Iron Maiden’s material, co-founding member Padge equally focussed as he peels out solo after solo. Finishing with a roar of sound, the city block destroying Waking the Demon sealed what could have easily been a headline set and it can’t be too far in the future when Bullet claim that very top slot.
For those seeking something a little less intense, both Turbonegro and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes provided so much needed levity and lunacy. With the formers Back to Dungaree High, Hot for Nietzsche and I Got Erection impossibly unhinged party anthems and the latter Supergroup’s high octane re-imaginings of songs by ABBA, The Beach Boys, Paula Abdul and others any semblance of restraint is soon thrown out of the window.
Another band a stranger to the subtleties of polite society, Steel Panther are in danger of becoming a parody of themselves, their onstage banter taking up as much time in the set as the songs themselves. You have to be totally invested in the show, the setlist and gags as predictable as a Status Quo gig of old, but the sizable crowd lapped it all up, the likes of Asian Hooker, Community Property, Gloryhole and the anthemic Death to All But Metal received with glee.
In spite of this, there was an air of fatigue starting to creep in both onstage and off and the feeling that this particular joke is starting to have run its course hanging over everything. That’s the danger of comedy though, once you’ve laughed hard that first time the punchline never hits as hard.
Korn, on the other hand, are deadly serious about every detail and the opportunity to do their first Download headliner something you feel has been prepared meticulously. It certainly paid off and the band were on imperious form, Jonathan Davis projecting his most intense persona thus far in a long career.
It’s impossible to argue with songs like opening salvo Blind, Twist and Here to Stay, Shoots and Ladders including a cheeky nod to Metallica’s One and set closer Freak On A Leash drained every last drop of energy out of the assembled mob, it’s place as a rightful stone-cold classic of the genre without any doubt.
There was just time for a slice of superb bowel shredding, Sikth to put the final cap on the night in the Dogtooth tent before everyone drifted off, the memories of one of the most extraordinary festivals in Download’s history destined to live long and warmly in everyone’s memory who had attended.
Here’s to Download XXIII, the speculation about the bill and another weekend spent in the company of the biggest metal family around.
