Radar Festival opened on Friday just gone with a whole host of bands on deck for the early goers to tuck into. Sleep Token ruled the day by far as its their first UK date since the release of ‘Take Me Back to Eden’. Bands were split across the Prog stage in Victoria Warehouses main room and the Strandberg Guitars Stage located by the entrance, with notable sets from last year’s headliner Haken, as well as Monuments & Unprocessed taking major slots elsewhere in the night.
Shattered Skies, Playgrounded & Forager
A special mention to departing band Shattered Skies who were first on for the Friday crowd as a means to play their last ever show as a unit. The passion is absolutely there for these guys, as the group are fully engulfed in light as part of the stage setup and had it not been signposted as a final goodbye you’d have assumed these guys were a new band playing with something to prove. The crowd are with them, swaying arms and all, a fitting way to interact for a band saying goodbye. Over on the main stage, it seems business as usual for Victoria warehouse. Playgrounded are playing the moment things wrap up for Shattered Skies, and this is much more the speed of Radar Fest. The group bashed through songs like ‘Rituals’ and ‘A Road out of the Flood’, with a very smooth prog sound which makes them seem tailor made to welcome in the early day crowd. That said, the drums completely punch through that slow start anyone was hoping to have. Anyone who is a fan of the Tesseract style would be very at home with these. Playing in their hometown, Forager say “orite” to second stage and flips the chilled vibe from Playgrounded on its head. Frontman Oli Lindops’s manic energy is impossible to keep track of - in a 20 second space he goes from running the circle pit himself in the crowd, to the being on stage and then perched on the barrier itself as they play tracks from their latest EP called “Who wants it?”. If anyone is in search of a bombastically energised set full of bangers (though one track, ‘Converse’ was incredibly Neck Deep-like) then look no further.
For a band whose lyrics read “looks like you’re on your own, because you keep burning bridges”, this band are far from on their own as the crowd loved them. A runner for support band of the day, by all accounts.
Exploring Birdsong, The Five Hundred & A.A Williams
Exploring Birdsong’s Radar debut was met with a high degree of anticipation, as the vocalist Lyndsey Ward is affiliated with headliner Sleep Token as a backing vocalist. The group's piano as the lead instrument is incredibly refreshing, helping set them apart from the pack of the day - though that’s not to take away from Matt Harrison’s frenetic drumming, who seems to be channelling his inner Dave Grohl. This section of the day could not have been more varied, as The Five Hundred were on the second stage as replacement for Hypno5e and had made a serious claim for ownership of the stage, as fans were visibly haggard, but hyped upon leaving the set. We see AA Williams hot off a number of dates, including a slot on the Dogtooth Stage at Download. The lighting is deep blue but the act themselves are red hot - anyone viewing the main stage on Friday afternoon is getting a peek at the kind of name we should be seeing on the UK scene for a while.The musical tone of the group crossed with Williams’ vocals has this almost haunting effect to it, and the band themselves are the definition of “doing a lot with a little” as a four piece.
Unprocessed & Owane and Jack Gardiner
Feature act Unprocessed, from Germany, are a great case of one of the festival's big attractions bearing fruit. Unprocessed had a space at the 2019 instalment of Radar and this is the largest of the possible homecomings for a number of bands who played that event. The flair for showmanship is a lot more noticeable as we climb the Friday bill; lighting and turnout both take a step up for Unprocessed’s set, as well as the band themselves who managed to get a great response from asking the crowd to use their phone torches. On a personal note, the group provides an exceptional “blegh” that the internet has begun to covet. The mix for this band was notably exceptional on the songs ‘Abandoned’ & ‘Real’ which played a perfect juxtaposition to one another. There is a lot of still very underrated talent in this band; exciting to see what venues their next UK tour puts them in. The second stage sees the grooviest act of the weekend, Owane & Jack Gardiner, who are solely instrumental. Some segments of this set honestly wouldn’t be amiss in a Sonic Adventure game and yet somehow it absolutely works here. It isn’t until the last song that we actually hear from Jack Gardiner where he thanks everyone and introduces the band. They play ‘UTFF‘ before unfortunately running up their allotted time before we could hear a final track.
Check out our interview with Unprocessed here
God is An Astronaut & Aviana
There is a short breath between set times, and third from top band God is an Astronaut await us on the Prog Stage. Unfortunately that wait ends up longer than planned, as tech issues scupper a completely on time start, as well as stutter them in the first song, and twice more in the set. Positively, the parts that do get into the set without issue are very good - a prime example of a band being numerous moving parts. GIAA deserve a commendation for doing what they did with what they had, as the performed parts did have something epic in nature to them. Aviana then proceeded to blow the Strandberg Stage wide open. The Swedes are a beautifully literal act. The track ‘Illuminate” has an absolute solar flare of a light show, followed by ‘Erase’ which proceeds to clean half the room out by their request of the largest pit of the evening. The band blasts through the bulk of last years Corporation album save for a duo from 2019’s Epicentre. They thank the crowd for how fun their evening in Salford is coming all the way from Sweden. In an ideal world there would be a case made for Aviana to have been placed on the main stage, but they seem more than happy as is.
Haken & Monuments
The penultimate bands of day 1 bolt onto stage in succession. Taking the sub-headline slot on the main stage is Radar returnee Haken, decked out in some frankly glorious Hawaiian shirts. This set was largely reliant on the The Mountain album in celebration of a 10th anniversary, though they also dipped into Fauna and Virus for two songs a piece. For the uninitiated this was the most eclectic watch of the day, featuring a song about cockroaches, a capella and jazz-like keys that interject in the music for such easy listening. This, when paired with Ross Jennings vocals, honestly wouldn’t be out of place in an 80’s power ballad. The second of our final three bands had much more treacherous intent. Monuments barrelled onto the Strandberg stage with ‘Cardinal Red’, and had those arriving late from Haken genuinely charging into the crowd to get in on the action. Frontman Andy Cizek comments on the likelihood this is the craziest crowd of the weekend and addressed the elephant in the room that everyone looks out for each other with this stage being close to capacity. There’s a level of humour to him insisting this as samples of literal war horns play in the interlude between songs. There was some concern over the arrangement of the lineup and having Monuments so close to the headliner. Those concerns in the course of that hour set had been very safely obliterated.
Monuments vid coming soon!
Shout out to Floya
Sleep Token
The crowd is at fever pitch for both mood and temperature awaiting the arrival of the hallmark headliner of the weekend, Sleep Token. The crowd is at almost a deafening level as they take to the stage for staple opening tracks ‘Chokehold’ and the song that broke the internet - ‘The Summoning’ - before moving to a hallmark of “Headliner” Sleep Token sets in 2021’s ‘Hypnosis’. Here is the real turning point of the set as they unleashed potentially their heaviest track, being played for the first time in the UK since its release ‘Vore’. With a lyric as cryptic as “I want to go where nobody else will” one would argue that is their intent as a headliner, with this being their first appearance as top name here at Radar.
They keep with their more recent catalogue, performing ‘Like That’, again from 2021’s This Place Will Become Your Tomb. It is an excellent track, with the repeated “Do you like that?” lyric becomes more visceral and guttural as Vessel repeats it live. A true test of peoples’ fandom follows as they visit the Two EP for the track ‘Nazareth’, again only really brought out as a feature in headline sets for the group, but is one that fans posting their excitement for the event have been clamouring for. The obvious purpose for Sleep Token's headline here (aside from a nuclear boom in popularity) is the release of Take Me Back To Eden. They return to this well of material with ‘Granite’ & ‘Aqua Regia’, which seem destined to be a pair of songs played consecutively, especially given they were released just a day apart back in January.
This is the last we hear of the recent album, for now at least, as ‘Aqua Regia’ is the beginning of Vessel’s stint on the keyboard. He moves to the rear of the stage, flanked by drummer II and the group's backup vocalists the internet has dubbed “The Vesselettes”. The lull of guitar and bass is only for the duration of ‘Atlantic’, which again is from This Place Will Become Your Tomb. If the group were ones for verbally addressing the crowd during their “Rituals”, it would likely be the song to request everyone’s phone lights/lighters for. When Vessel recites the line “how it's a pain they know they don't understand”, this is obviously a deeply personal riff of an emotional pain rather than physical, but it is again delivered with that guttural, almost struggled tenor that give this set the intense edge they need to validate a headline slot.
They remain with the This Place Will Become Your Tomb album for another two songs that weave a superb journey of lyrical metaphor between love and loss. The second act of this trio, to play the part of love to ‘Atlantic’’s loss, is the track ‘Alkaline’. While always an outlier in terms of personal go-to tunes for the band, it has endured as a highly popular song within the fan base and admittedly does have an excellent build in intensity as the separate elements of the band join the track. As an aside, this is a personal favourite moment of non-verbal communication from the band as the incredibly eccentric bassist III has a frantic circular gesture to the crowd to instigate a circle pit. If anyone is in search of joy, just watch the little nuances of the bassist throughout the show. For a band with so much mystery, III has an excellent amount of fun.
The final part of a trilogy of songs from their 2021 album is ‘The Love You Want’, which is an incredibly context-dense track, but brings about one of the few lighter pieces in Sleep Token’s arsenal. As the name would suggest, this is a song of love, but also about marrying the two concepts of love and loss, and is excellently performed live with the crowd singing in tow. This makes way for a second track on its UK debut - ‘Rain’. This is the only song that was not a single from the latest album, but seems to have every aspect of the bands talent covered. Beginning with another section of Vessel on keys, and eventually bringing in the soulful talents of the backup vocalists combined with some excellent sampling and the perfect in pocket drumming of member II. This song also featured a frankly spine-chilling live scream from IV on guitar that shows this troop has more than they have fully revealed just yet.
The final song of the main set is where our only visit to 2019’s Sundowning begins with track ‘Higher’. This track in the warehouse venue evokes a heightened sense of suspense if nothing else. Again, some terrific drumming, powerfully droned guitar notes and long and rumbling bass line (with frankly impressive high kicks) accompany Vessels frantic pacing around the stage before it erupts into his harshly performed repeated lyric “the debt that I owe”. The track breaks down beautifully, with an excellent “Blegh” on vocals before casting his arms out wide and letting the music ring out before the band departs the stage. The encore for the show is entirely from the Sundowning album, performing the first track ‘The Night Does Not Belong To God’. The repetition of the lyric “the night comes down like heaven” has this echoing nature to it as though they’re about to send people away and they’re celebrating having reached the end of a major moment in the band's history, though we know this to not be the case.
Final track, featuring second on Sundowning, samples from ‘The Offering’ ring out almost sinisterly as III & IV insist the crowd clap along. This slow descent into the final track of the night has an air of “We will end this on our terms”, as it’s comparatively the most calm they’ve seemed on stage throughout the set. Nothing is restrained anymore. The lyrics are performed in an almost weary fashion until a beautiful high note of “Turn the page”. This is an example of a track that covers all the facets of Sleep Token’s style and is a perfect song for them to end on. The crushing breakdown after the final “Take a bite” has this sense of finality and rockstar feel, and all that is left is bright lights and II’s battering of the drums before each member quietly thanks the crowd and leaves the stage.
Anyone who doubted the absolute necessity of Sleep Token headlining Radar may have just been silenced.
