Bloodstock : 30 Bands Not To Miss - Zeal & Ardor
Zeal & Ardor – Sophie Lancaster stage - Sunday, August 13th - 7.45pm.
Let's leave the downright extraordinary to last. Our final entry, our final band you cannot miss is one that is rewriting heavy metals DNA before our very eyes. Zeal & Ardor sound like nothing else you will hear this weekend. It's metal, but is completely introverted and deconstructed. They take the primal proto-blues sound of the Afro spiritual and meld that with razor-sharp black metal.
The biggest difference between what they are doing and the ponds that everybody else's swimming in, is that Zeal & Ardor are led by the vocal. It is the human voice that is the driving force behind sound and not the electric guitar. They create a rhythmic and haunting circular sound that is full of power and might.
You can try describing them as the cows come home but the only way of experiencing the wonder that is Zeal & Ardor is to witness it live. So get youself down to the Sophie stage. It will be rammed but it will be worth it.
I just love Metal. I love it all. The bombastity of symphonic, the brutality of death, the rousing choruses of power, the nihilistic evil of black, the pounding atmospherics of doom, the whirling time changes of prog, the faithful familiarity of trad, the other worldlyness of post, the sheer unrefined power of thrash. I love it all!