Nottingham opens its gates to 40+ bands and a horde of Heavy Metal enthusiasts for Mangata Festival 2026.
Deer, double-ended dildos, headbanging to club Metal and doing the robot to grindcore, and paint. Lots of paint. Some of it demonic, some of it clown, some of it staying on the bands, and some of it rubbing off on eager moshers. This is Mangata 2026, a festival full of surprises, the good, the mad, and the emotional.
Mangata Festival 2026
Rescue Rooms, Nottingham – 5 September 2026
Words: Lucy Dunnet
Photography: Matt Pratt
Best friends Kris and Laura from Mangata Music pulled together a variety of bands, from comedy Metal’s finest, Raised By Owls and industrial nu-Metallers Red Method, to Deathcore titans ten56., who ripped riffs from rooftops and dug screams out of the deepest depths of the underworld.
It was a headbanging delight. Here is what went down.
King Abyss
There is no time of day that a tasty slathering of aggressive Thrash cannot immediately improve, but unfortunately not everyone has dragged their arses out of bed to be reminded of this fact by King Abyss.
No matter, for the British riff brutes stomp through their 30 minutes on the Twisted Tavern Spirits Stage with a Hardcore edge that threatens to summon some two-steppers to the front. Alas, the curse of opening a festival means such threats do not always materialise, even with absolute belters like In The Ground.
Frontman Dom Bould makes it seem like it is entirely his choice to remain off the stage for their whole set, charging back and forth like an apex predator eyeing up his prey, with the rest of the five-piece filling the stage and pounding out menacing riff after menacing riff.
Bould forgetting which song is next adds a splash of laughter to the otherwise big, gnarly, chest-pounding performance that may not have caught the attention of every Mangata punter, but that is their loss.
Long live King Abyss.
Wolves Don’t Sleep
Opening Mangata’s Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage, aka the main stage, are Nottingham locals Wolves Don’t Sleep, whose Metalcore is as sharp as it is heavily crushing, and instantly snaps the crowd awake.
The darting white lights and punching rumbles from every bass lick make it feel like an air raid has commenced, with the feral soundscape enhancing the crowd’s feeling of excitement at this early-day festival find.
When half the band get on their knees, it is for a moment of melancholy as they move into a love song, Fears & Fractures. And while it may slow the pace, the intensity of this heartstring-ripping anthem foreshadows a day in the not-so-distant future where Wolves Don’t Sleep are playing not to handfuls of phone lights waving through the air, but thousands.
That they are still playing shows where you can stroll to the barrier without hour-long queues or well-intentioned shoulder barges is a sin, but one that needs to be taken full advantage of, for this is a band ready to explode.
Gürl
“Are you ready to rave like it’s 4 am?” asks Gürl’s singer Joshua Dalton in a husky (or should we say Hexy) voice. It is time for some bitch Metal for bitches who like to dance while headbanging, and Gürl eye-up the sea of curious Metalheads with sassy appraisal. They will either get these hips moving, or die trying.
These hips don’t lie, because after half an hour with Bristol’s catchiest club Metal band, even some of the crowd more likely to end a show with a subtle head nod of approval are bouncing up and down like drunk teenagers on a trampoline.
Unexpected breakdowns and guitar shredding solos in Evil Twin from Jonny Turner mix with gospel-esque harmonies in Medic, lots of songs about shagging, and even a questionably legal Dani Filth soundbite.
When bassist Jay Parker announces she has lost an ear, Josh explains that she is a cyborg and that is why she’s so attractive. Also, she did not lose her actual biological ear, just her earpiece, which is understandable as she has been owning the stage with her back-bending (literally) bass playing.
It may not have been a rave at 4 am, but a party with Gürl at 1:10 pm slaps just as hard.
tealdeer
From referring to their music as “ominous deer anthems” to stunts like wearing a four-man T-shirt around Bloodstock Festival last year, alt-Metallers tealdeer are nothing if not tantalisingly unpredictable.
Frontman Ted Claxton starts their set by weaving through the crowd, one of many crowd strolls he takes, to make sure everyone puts their hands up.
Then suddenly a man in a deer mask is jumping around on and off the stage, which makes complete sense because this is a deer band. While the mask is not teal coloured, it does transpire that this Ominous Deer Man is the fucking idiot guitarist who broke his arm doing karate moves he learnt off Tekken.
All of this bonkersness only adds to the sheer brilliance of their music, which bounces through Post-Hardcore, grooved-up Metalcore, and occasionally something stranger like…carnival music?
Throat-shredding screams are complemented by gravelly cleans and three-way harmonies that make you want to drill new holes into your brain for greater sound absorption. The crowd is having a whale (deer) of a time, and when Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You starts playing, only to be interrupted by a roar from Ted, laughter permeates through the crowd. Not for the first time, nor the last.
With their absurd crowd engagement tactics and increasingly addictive music, tealdeer get even the grumbliest of back row punters breaking into a grin.
Ofnus
“Ofnus have one goal in mind: to reunite you with your misery through atmospheric black Metal.” Such a premise should not be so deliciously enticing. But the Welsh five-piece attract a mighty crowd that edges towards the stage like a group of zombies clawing at the life-emitting wonder before them.
This is a band with a vision that transcends mere individual experience and turns shattering shards of sound into moments of catharsis. Sorrow-stricken melodies dance with shrieks so raw and loud you can hear Ofnus’ new singer Brendan’s tonsils scraping against his throat.
There is even a point where they seem to veer towards black ‘n’ roll, before immediately reigning in the roll and plunging straight back into the atmospheric black void of an epic cinematic battle score.
When Brendan asks for Nottingham to give him their hands, he does so in such a way you feel compelled to chop off your limbs and surrender them to the five “dreaming men” on stage.
The crowd headbangs with utter abandon until the moment of inevitable loss arrives. As Ofnus announce the end has come, chants of “Ofnus! Ofnus!” boom from people who may not yet have fully confronted their misery, but have been convinced that they want to.
In Search Of Sun
If Backstreet Boys had decided to pivot into a rock band with a focus on twirling riffs, they would have sounded something like In Search Of Sun. It is Alternative Metal that they have rather ingeniously described as “bop Metal”, and while some of their songs, like In The Garden, are cheeky earworms that burrow deep on record and elicit big, bouncing crowd cheers from the stage, others, such as Ariel, are the retreat into pop territory that would have been better left in the idea factory.
However, the Londoners are absolutely having the best time on the Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage, and it is Contagious. They grin even when no one seems to have the brain power to remember the ten words they wanted help with singing, and jump about the stage whilst a three-man bromance pit breaks out in the crowd.
Somebody, please see if In Search Of Sun would take a gig as a wedding band for an alternative couple because they would be an absolute hoot.
Red Method
“My world is painted in red.” When industrial groove villains Red Method take to the stage, for 40 minutes, the world becomes theirs. And they do not so much paint it as they do annihilate it with a red assault that cracks open at least two trap doors into hell.
It is like a party with Jason Voorhees, half of Slipknot, and a possessed, blood-thirsty Tarzan (if Tarzan was covered in paint, half-Gibraltarian, and screamed in a Metal band).
Bulldozing drums smack through sampling straight out of a Saw trap while Alex Avdis weaves sadistic tales on his keyboard, and the guitars add gruesome grooves that become something to cling onto amidst the demonic onslaught coming out of J S.A.N.G.R.E’s mouth.
And then there is the crowd invasion. It is impossible to keep track of which band members are playing inside the whirling vortex of moshing, flying limbs, and which are carving out a technically charged monolith of chaos on stage.
Detonate, Messiah, Counting Corpses, Cycle Of Violence. Red Method’s discography is swarming with songs that light a match under the furious part of your brain that delights in disorder.
With every inch of fervour the crowd throws at them, Red Method spit it back tenfold. By the time J returns his borrowed cowboy hat (who knows, who cares, amen to the chaos) and has barely a lick of paint left on him – so covered in sweat is every inch of his body – the Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage shudders with a sigh of sad relief as what may have just been the greatest set of the day comes to an end.
Raised By Owls
What time is it? It is comedy Metal time, and the Heavy Metal Hairdresser Stage is positively heaving with contestants eager to join the Big Metal Gameshow shenanigans hosted by Raised By Owls.
“What the fuck is wrong with you all?” asks frontman Sam’s Mum’s son, after loud cheers answer his question of who has seen them before.
The self-deprecating grindcore nutcases have nailed the art of appealing to the competitive child within us all whilst simultaneously chucking out a destructive torrent of blast beats, frantic riffs, and screeches that actually make up a really great live Metal cocktail.
Mr Blobby dazzles with his double-ended dildo twirling (apparently this is harder than it looks and should be regarded with the utmost awe), before he morphs into Cocknose from Slipknot to present three prizes, which will be competed for in the form of a headbang-off, crowdsurf-off, and dance-off.
The star of the show ends up being the security guard who puts up with every single second of this insanity with a smile on her face, and she is subsequently rewarded with a T-shirt that says, “I got my clit pierced at Claire’s Accessories”, an ode to Sam’s own Claire’s Accessories piercing.
It is 100% the silliest thing you may ever take part in in the name of Death Metal, but in the wise words of Raised By Owls: Live, Laugh, Lars.
Maatkare
Pharaohcious, formidable, and grounded in an ancient brutality, Maatkare lead a Death Metal reckoning out of the cosy confines of the BSB TV Stage.
Named after one of Egypt’s most powerful female pharaohs, Hatshepsut (who used Maatkare as her throne name), this band use the slaughterous power of Death Metal to celebrate all the phenomenal women who came before them and inspire the unde-nile-ably awesome women who will come after them.
Vocalist Janneke screams with a thunderous venom and ravages the small pub until everyone is ready to journey with them down to the underworld. Even the way they play with tension and atmosphere is visceral. Bungee-chord riffs and shackling drum blasts pull you in only to release you into a hungry, cavernous darkness.
One crowd member seems to be having an out-of-body experience for the entirety of their set, so blown away by how “holy shit good” they are.
The time of Maatkare the Pharaoh may be long over, but the time of Maatkare the band has only just begun.
ten56.
ten56. drove a whole day to be here, so when they ask for face-smashing pits, they will not stop until they get them. And while the room has not been heaving since Raised By Owls, the face-smashers show their faces, and come out to play with the French Deathcore unit.
ten56. in three words would be: Filthy. Fucking. Breakdowns. They hit with a force live that is borderline impossible to recreate on record, but there is definitely a lack of star factor (and bodies) for tonight’s headliners.
Continents
Welsh Metalcore bruisers Continents bring it home for Mangata Festival 2026, with a furious, face-slapping set in a tight space that they refuse to be smothered by.
Ever since their comeback in 2022, they have been working back up to the killer live reputation they had been building on tours with the likes of The Ghost Inside and Comeback Kid, and reeling in new fans on top of the old.
Packed with searing emotion that frontman Phil Cross screams out with more serrated screams than a heavy-duty cheese grater, we are reminded why they garnered an influential status ten years ago and why it is desperately vital we see them continue.
The infectious beats, dirty riffs, and abrupt song endings that suck all the air out of your lungs keep the set momentum in a constant state of climax, whether it is newer tracks like Smile or old favourites like Pegasus, Pegasus.
“This represents social anxiety, and the gas lamp is both gaslighting AND the light to always guide you out of the darkness,” Phil explains while holding up a cardboard ghost. It is the ghost of their Lifeline EP, a brutally honest and haunting release that marked their emotive return following a necessary, life-saving, mental health break.
Continents have barely struck their final notes when Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now fills the room, a gloriously cheesy, heartfelt way to say goodbye to Continents and to this year’s Mangata Festival.
Mangata Festival 2027 early birds have been snapped up already. Keep an eye on MangataFestival.co.uk as more tickets will be released soon.
