The big review: Louder Than Life 2025

Louder Than Life is absolutely massive. Drawing over 100,000 people to Louisville’s sprawling Kentucky Expo Center, the four-day rager has become one of America’s hottest destination festivals.

Read that either way: the mercury hits 30 degrees every day, and the bill is basically a directory of rock music in 2025. The twin main stages see bill-topping sets from Bring Me The Horizon, Avenged, Deftones, Slayer, Sleep Token, Bad Omens, Evanescence and more. As a supporting cast, how does Spiritbox, Dayseeker, a hometown bonanza from Knocked Loose, the return of Acid Bath, I Prevail, Wage War and more sound?

Across the site, another pair of stages host a wild variety of metal, hardcore, pop-punk, hip-hop and anything else you can think of kicking up a fuss from lunchtime ’til late, while elsewhere a dedicated hardcore stage has an almost non-stop circle-pit all weekend. There’s no end of food and drink options (including Maynard James Keenan’s Caduceus wine in its own garden), even more small stages and, should you actually find time amid the stacked scheduling, an actual theme park.

It’s currently making its name as the best festival in America. Join us as we get our steps in frantically running around it trying to catch it all…

Arriving onstage to Oasis' Morning Glory, and greeting Louder Than Life with a big, Northern "Time to wake oop!", it's almost redundant for Guilt Trip to introduce themselves as being from Manchester. Not when their fierce noise has already introduced them as simply: fucking great. Kicking off the weekend with a size-10 boot of ultra heavy hardcore, this first show on U.S. soil (the start of a trek with Kublai Khan TX, Drain and Gideon) is an absolute rager from start to finish. Early moshers find plenty of reasons to be cheerful as the band tear into Burn, even more as the band bust out a surprise cover of Machine Head's Davidian, as Robb Flynn looks on. A proud showing from one of British hardcore's finest.

"This one's called You're Cut Off. It's for everyone who got day drunk already." In the climbing heat, for the first time ever getting stuck into the suds isn't the first thing on your mind at a Municipal Waste show. You're far more likely to partake of Tony Forresta's "let's all get heatstroke together" offer. Either way, the Virginia thrash terrors are on fire. Playing in front of massive oildrums spilling lurid green gunk, and making full use of the catwalk, though this is a huge stage, the vibe is a backyard keggar. Breathe Grease, Grave Dive and the ever-fun shout-along of Sadistic Magician find the fivesome on particularly formidable form, as a gnarly pit kicks off. "Are you familiar with crowdsurfing?" yells Tony. "Pearl Jam made it famous, we made it cooler." Then he chucks a bin in the crowd. Still fast, still funny, still fucking great, the day Municipal Waste don't fuck you up is the day we should all pack up and go home. But not today.

Two key questions about Carcass today. One: where the hell is everyone? Two: why is guitarist Bill Steer dressed, it seems, as 1971 Steve McQueen in racing movie LeMans? The second question is easily answered with 'because it looks fucking cool'. But bamboozling as the turnout on the main stage is (particularly when later their contempos in fellow ’90s death metal legends Cannibal Corpse will fill the field), they are still snarlingly savage. Jeff Walker's new short hair and white shirt might look more like he's on his way to the IT dept than the mortuary, but his vocals are still straight from a particularly disturbing bit of Hell during Corporal Jigsore Quandary and Incarnated Solvent Abuse. There's serious beef to the riffs as well. Fetid, rotting beef, obvs, but still, the sheer power and crunch is particularly pungent. Exiting, Jeff grins and declares, "There's some utter shit playing today but there's also Exodus and Slayer." And yourselves. And yourselves.

Ahead of this first day of the fest, last night Drain kicked things off with a more intimate, wild guerrilla show in a skate park in the city. People setting off fireworks, that sort of thing. "That's the kind of shit we live for," declares Sammy Ciaramitaro this afternoon to a much, much bigger audience, "This is just a cool fucking byproduct." The California punks are apt for the intense afternoon sun as they rip through Feel The Pressure and Who's Having Fun?, cover Descendents' classic Good Good Things and kicking up one of the funnest pits of the weekend. "Security! Call more back-up! You're gonna fucking need it. In the next two minutes I want 100 people over the barrier," warns Sammy, before California Cursed, woefully underestimating that number. "Do any of you guys know where this band are from?" one wag loudly asks, after the Santa Cruz-shirted Sammy mentions they're from Santa Cruz for the 37th time, but it's a vibe they bring with them, skate park or no.

Usually, the chugging monotony of Sanguisugabogg's swampy, dirgy death is the best bit. But in the heat, it's harder to get into their kill zone. They're still a brutal death metal splatter that cranks everything beyond normal, though – tuned lower, deeper growls, chunkier chunks – and delightfully named newie Abhorrent Contraceptive from imminent new album Hideous Aftermath shows they're not changing that anytime soon. And anyway, there's still a wicked sense of banter at play. Enquiring if everyone's ready to "Dig through some witches" with Rob Zombie later, colourful-shirted frontman Devin Swank announces that he himself is ready to "shit in my britches". Later, he tells everyone to get home safe, and to avoid drinking and driving ("Speaking of death and vehicles, this is a song called Dragged By A Truck"), before shouting out the late Brent Hinds and Ozzy ahead of Dead As Shit. Not as killer as normal, but still nasty enough.

And now for something completely different. The minute Sanguisugabogg end, State Champs bounce onto the adjoining stage. It's like following an autopsy with a birthday cake. "Okay, this party's fucking started," grins Derek DiScanio following an opening duo of Silver Cloud and Mine Is Gold, "Let's keep it going." A decade and a half in, the Albany pop-punks know a lot about such things, and though they still don't have the endearing silliness of some of their peers, they're a fun half-hour of medium power, particularly when Neck Deep's Ben Barlow joins them for a rousing Everybody But You.

There's something rather sweet about Cannibal Corpse currently enjoying such an enormous swell so late into the game. Then Corpsegrinder roars about "Shooting blood from your cock" before they tear into I Cum Blood. It's an enormous crowd who have gathered at the main stage to get turned to mince by the ever-reliable death metal OGs – a sizeable portion of whom are surprisingly young. You can't say they haven't earned it, or that they don't today, ripping through Inhuman Harvest and Unleashing The Bloodthirsty with a well-oiled murderous frenzy. Corpsegrinder manages to come across as nicely jolly and completely deadpan between songs, while during them he still sounds like a feral beast. Ending with the ever-brilliant Hammer Smashed Face sending Louisville bonkers, it's a well-deserved victory for this old, beloved, horrible institution.

"I know when I say 'cheers' it sounds like 'jizz'," announces Ben Barlow. "So… cheers! Loads of cheers! So much fuckin' cheers!" Very good. The accents may mark the Wrexham crew as being not from around here, but Neck Deep are masters of selling sunny pop-punk back to America, ribald toilet humour and all. Today they're on particularly killer form, with Dumbstruck Dumbf**k and a riotous We Need More Bricks sending bodies over the barrier from the off. "The way things are going, we've got two options: world peace, or aliens come," Ben muses before Take Me With You. "World peace would be pretty tight, but I can't wait to get sucked off… sucked up into space by aliens." As two of the finest pop-punk songs of the past 25 years, Can't Kick Up The Roots and In Bloom unsurprisingly bring more mayhem. Once again, cheers very much, Neck Deep…

Matt Honeycutt is one of the coolest frontmen on any stage all weekend. That's 'frontman' and not 'singer', because while that's technically his job, he spends most of Kublai Khan TX's set hyping and rizzing up the enormous crowd that have come out for the Texas terrors. The centre point of a Venn diagram of TV host, gym instructor and shouty hardcore leader, he bops and nods to the chunky riffs, looking suave, barking things like, "I didn't come all the way here from Texas to look at you looking at me, motherfucker – move!" and throwing in more "Baby"s per minute than an Austin Powers marathon. But don't mistake this for taking the piss. When he says "Time to dance, baby," a pit kicks off that's almost certainly a bad idea on asphalt car park like this, while Theory Of None and Ant-Pile are face-slapping credentials for the status as one of the best new-ish hardcore bands on the planet. "Get your fuckin' toolbox," Matt grins, "This is The Hammer." As it strikes, it's complete pandemonium. And still Matt's just there bopping like causing so much chaos ain't no thing. Yeah, baby, yeah.

Lamb Of God are, says Randy Blythe, here to do one thing: "Completely fuck this place up." The frontman is in a particularly good mood as LOG smash through Ditch and Now You've Got Something To Die For. Even his introduction to 11th Hour, a song about "spending 20 years putting a 12-pack of Heineken and a bottle of Jägermeister down your throat" along with whatever drugs are on offer, comes with him winking, "Don't forget to tip your meth dealer." Banter. But it's also a mark of just how comfy LOG are dealing with enormous audiences like this, chuckles one minute, finely-calibrated metal wrecking balls the next. Walk With Me In Hell is particularly effective, as it switches dramatically from unapologetic grinding to its massive, epic ending. Their cover of Sabbath's Children Of The Grave from the Back To The Beginning show in July is still fantastic, while pummelling closer Redneck, dedicated to their late tour buddy Brent Hinds, is sharp and brutal in equal measure. They had one job. And they did it.

You’d be advised to wear welder’s gloves shaking hands with Lorna Shore at the moment. After a summer spent doing big, cocky flexes all over the festivals of Europe, last week they dropped one of 2025’s most anticipated albums, I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me. Their arrival into their headlining slot on their stage under a dark but still roasting Kentucky night – preceded by a video of them in the wings and walking on in real-time – is like taking them out of the oven. Previous sightings were of a good band with the wind in their sails. Tonight, they latch on to true greatness and make it scream their name…

Read the full review: On the ground at Lorna Shore’s Louder Than Life triumph

The very moment Kerrang! crosses the threshold and puts boots on the ground at Kentucky’s massive Louder Than Life festival, someone yells “Slayeeeeeeeer!” Proud, unapologetic, unforgiving. Like the wind in the pines or birds on a bough, tune in through the day and you’ll hear it screamed with an affirmation and throat-hurting tang that still no other band can muster.

After a day of killer showings of extreme aggression from Lamb Of God, Lorna Shore, Carcass, Kublai Khan TX, Cannibal Corpse and Guilt Trip, among others, it’s reassuring that even the raising of Slayer’s curtain as they set incites frenzy. This is what would happen normally for Slayer. Throw in their reunion, and the fact that last year’s assault here was defeated by Hurricane Helene, and you have the sort of atmosphere you normally get from someone lobbing a grenade into a petrol station.

Not age, not a split and curious return without Dave Lombardo smashing the kit, not anything you might bring up is capable of denting the old Slayer magic. As with their banter-free showing at Back To The Beginning, there’s a middle-finger energy as they stroll on, perfectly as it should be, but not showily so. It’s just that, after 40 years and change, Slayer’s bag marked ‘fucks’ remains completely empty. It’s fucking brilliant…

Read the full review: Still reigning: What happened when Slayer returned at Louder Than Life

"Manchester's in the fucking house! Wake the fuck up, you fucking dickheads!" Han Mee is having it particularly large as Hot Milk arrive for their lunchtime slot and belt into Sunburn From Your Bible. Kentucky, probably not being used to getting both barrels of fine Northern energy so early in (or, indeed, at any time of) the day, we are delighted to report, take to Han and partner in crime Jim Shaw immediately. PARTY ON MY DEATHBED gets the pit bouncing, as does Candy Coated Lie$, while the fierce 90 Seconds To Midnight is a absolute rager (although one wonders if 'The gaff's on fire' translates over the pond). When she's not playing guitar, Han barrels around the stage, before heading into the pit and getting a fan to apply some suncream. "G'wan, son," she orders, "get it on me shoulders." Post-show, Jim's disappointed about some technical gremlins. No need for that: this Hot Milk is positively boiling.

Imminence are enjoying an upswing in popularity, and a huge crowd gathers at the main stage for their violin-y metalcore. Somewhere between the electro-edged thump of Bad Omens and the fine-voice moments of Sleep Token, the Swedish quintet manage to create a shadowy vibe, even with the sun illuminating every cranny and all almost certainly slow-cooking in their black suit jackets. Death By A Thousand Cuts and God Fearing Man are yelled back by this enormous throng, while Eddie Berg adds a genuinely interesting slant to their metalcore chug. He's almost outdone, mind, when guitarist Harald Barrett strides up the catwalk, pulls out a bow of his own and goes at his own instrument with it. But then, during banging closer The Black, the singer begins screaming into the soundholes, creating a harsh climax. A lesson in violins not to be overlooked.

Also from Sweden, also having a very good 2025, also dealing in metalcore, but sadly no violin: thrown, who have been thrown onto a throne since the release of suffocatingly intense nu-metalcore debut album EXCESSIVE GUILT a year go. The absence of guitarist Andreas Malm due to visa issues could have put them on the back foot, but the bottom-end slam and sunburn-harsh electronic glitches of backfire and new low pack as hefty a punch as ever. "This one's for the moshers," announces Marcus Lundqvist ahead of a scathing parasite, getting a whirl of action going. By the time they scream to a finish with a double-whammy of mega-hit on the verge ("If you've listened to this band more than two minutes, you know this one") and grayout, thrown have tossed out another winner.

Those looking for a moment of chill are well served by PVRIS. Lynn Gunn is in a particularly laid-back mood, even if they are playing one body down as a two-piece today, and the glossy atmospheric pop-rock of ANIMAL, GOOD ENEMY and the slightly more upbeat Dead Weight all sound blissful. Meanwhile, early cuts Monsters, with its nocturnal synths, and big guitars of My House, are a welcome change of pace in the middle, before closing out with BURN THE WITCH and the brilliant GODDESS. "Are we good?" enquires Lynn. You're not sure if she means the band, or the general populace. Either way, a resounding yes.

"It's 2025 and ICP still up in this bitch!" boasts Shaggy 2 Dope. Quite. When Insane Clown Posse broke through in the late ’90s, the idea of Shaggy and fellow Dark Carnival buffoon Violent J still clowning it up over a quarter of a century into the future was as ludicrous as the idea of rapping the line 'Fuck the Berlin Wall – both sides of it' on a song that was released in 1999. And yet… Though not as wild as one might expect, there's plenty of painted-up Juggalos here to get a faceful of Faygo and bop along to Hocus Pocus, the macabre fun of My Axe and the genuinely great horror-rap of Boogie Woogie Wu. Mostly, though, this is about the bants. The front rows are soaked almost continuously in Faygo squirted by the two lead clowns (and, it must be said, their skill in firing whole bottles off their fingers wayyyy into the crows is expert-level). When that's not enough, there's mid-set Faygo breaks, when half a dozen more clown invade the stage to simply dump buckets of the stuff into the pit. Somehow, ICP made it to 2025. But given how mad everything else is going, they've earned a big woop woop.

Though Dayseeker have blossomed quickly over the past 18 months or so, one would do well to remember that the Orange County post-hardcore quartet aren't exactly overnight sensations. "We've been a band for 13 years and we thought it'd never come to fruition, playing to very few people every single night," says Rory Rodriguez, as he touchingly thanks the enormous number who have come out to see them over "hundreds of other bands you could have". Modest, certainly, but having waited so long for this, Dayseeker are grabbing opportunities like this by the throat. With tons of pyro and Rory looking like a full-bore rock star in his snazzy leather trousers, what's great about watching them rip through Shapeshift and Dreamstate is how clear their delight that it's finally happening is. Mega-hit Sleeptalk is greeted with near frenzy, its massive chorus feeling nuclear-powered, while closer Neon Grave ends things on an enormous high. It's been a long time coming, but now Dayseeker are making big waves, they're eagerly riding them.

By this point, shows of this magnitude, on a huge stage, directly under Sleep Token's theatrical extravaganza, are a walk in the park for Spiritbox. Having secured their position as one of the hottest bands on the planet with March's second album Tsunami Sea, their show today is a galvanised exhibition of sheer confidence, even if it's been almost three months since they played live. It helps that the entire field is heaving, but within the band themselves there's a powerful aura behind a slightly, and intriguing, inscrutable quality. "You guys like to mosh?" asks Courtney LaPlante somewhat unnecessarily, as the crowd who aren't singing along rapturously knock seven bells out of one another. Holy Roller is brilliant, but as has become the norm since its release, it's Soft Spine (dedicated to "All the people that I fucking hate") that's the highlight. With another couple of months before they hit the stage again, this could have been about simply blowing off the cobwebs. But, with a chance of a breather either side, it actually becomes an enormous statement of power. That's the spirit…

This summer, European festival goers have been treated to the sight of Sleep Token finally arriving on a stage that can adequately handle them. First, there was Germany’s Rock im Park and Rock am Ring fests, where they unveiled their enormous Even In Arcadia stage set in all its rocky, multi-level, water pouring glory for the first time. A week later, they stood as colleagues to Green Day and Korn when they headlined Download. Though Vessel continued to say fuck-all, it all said a lot. Mostly: nice slot, we’ll keep it.

Even so, seeing them here – headlining one of Kentucky mega-fest Louder Than Life’s two equally-pegged, alternating main stages, with only Avenged Sevenfold up next – makes these previous rituals feel like a warm-up. All day, other bands on the bill – Spiritbox, Dayseeker, PVRIS – have had to play toward the front third of the space, with an enormous, ominous black curtain hiding the main event, as the green flags of House Veridian hang from the rafters. By the time the eerie wind sounds and spooky chimes that signal Sleep Token’s arrival begin playing out, the enormous crowd who have sold today out for the first time in the fest’s history is spilling over onto its sister stage. Having seen online what’s in store, expectation is high. But equally, now Vessel has his eye in for this chapter, what’s delivered puts previous showings firmly in the shade…

Read the full review: Even in America! What happened when Sleep Token brought Vesselmania to Louder Than Life

“I’ve never felt more free in my entire life,” declares a beaming M. Shadows. “Sometimes setlists can get a bit predictable. You play a deep cut and people are like, ‘What the fuuuuck?’”

Except, weirdly, they’re not. Not anymore. The usual plan of attack for closing out one of the two neighbouring main stages at a fest like Louder Than Life, on the biggest day it’s ever had in its history, and following the rapture of Sleep Token’s colossal set, would be to go for the ol’ reliables, some easy slam dunks. It’s to Avenged Sevenfold’s enormous credit that they’ve chosen this point in their career, when they could cruise into easy wins, to say, ‘Yeah, nah, fuck that.’ Especially when, actually, and against usual gravity, it’s turned out to be a far more successful strategy.

They open with the unhinged, pinballing art-metal of Game Over, with Shadows seated in a chair and sporting a balaclava as he yells his scattergun, Serj Tankian-ish vocals. The liberation of which he speaks echoes through what follows. There’s lesser-spotted cut Gunslinger from 2007’s self-titled ‘White’ album. There’s mad psychedelic projections and Vocoder-ed vocals on the trippy, near-eight minute Cosmic that blossoms blissfully at the halfway point to hit on a mood that once would have been unthinkable from this band. Meanwhile, the weird, soundtrack-y mid-section of Life Is But A Dream… feels positively cinematic here. When it was released, A Little Piece Of Heaven was shot down by one critic as “Danny Elfman panto bullshit”. Tonight, backed by bloody cartoon visuals, its Sweeney Todd vibes makes it a completely appropriate way to tie a bow at the end of the set…

Read the full review: How Avenged Sevenfold got weird and still won at Louder Than Life

Black Veil Brides could only be more 'goths in hot weather' today if somehow it was the moon sending out melting rays and not the sun. Arriving to the epic, spooky organs of Bach's Toccata and Fugue only gilds the point, as does the fact that head vampire Andy Biersack apparently does not sweat under any circumstances. Opening with favourite Knives And Pens is a knockout, and Devil ("About a real piece of shit") is packed with Luciferian spite, but it's new cuts Bleeders and Hallelujah that sound mightiest. Never a band short on confidence, there's something fighty about how they roll them out, echoing the scrappy, take-on-the-world fire of old. The biggest sing-along is saved for a massive finale of In The End, natch, but it's heartening to see BVB on such fiery, in-it-to-win-it form as well.

It's strange but brilliant to see the unexpected rebirth of underground heroes Acid Bath. Like Virginia doom legends Pentagram before them (who got a new wind after going viral on TikTok), Dax Riggs' Louisiana sludge veterans have found a new audience since announcing their reformation last year, many of whom weren't even born when the band came to an abrupt halt following the death of bassist Audie Pitre in 1997. They're greeted with an enormous cheer and a thick cloud of weed smoke from a crowd far bigger than would have been imaginable back then. Somewhere between the low-end nihilism of EyeHateGod and the brooding, dark rock of Alice In Chains, their music is fried-brain heaviness, wandering where it may, but always keeping it sludgy, with Bleed Me An Ocean and Graveflower hitting a perfect groove. As he surveys the non-stop crowdsurfers, Dax looks cool as shit, casually pacing behind his mic stand with one hand in his pocket, but delivering a deep, impassioned performance. "What a trip," he drawls gratefully. As a noisy chant of the band's name picks up, guitarist Sammy Duet interrupts them with a loud, "Shut up! I got something to say… Thank you for remembering." Ending with the brilliantly warped sludge-and-speed of Dr. Seuss Is Dead, you can't help but feel grateful this is happening at all. Worth the price of System Of A Down tickets next summer on their own.

"Are you alive, Louder Than Life?" asks Chris Motionless. "I hope so, or we have a major branding issue." Like Black Veil Brides, there's something idiosyncratic about seeing Motionless In White's spooky metalcore out in the sun, but the weather is nothing next to the singer's bright mood. "Daaaaaamn, you're looking fine, Louder Than Life. Did you do something new with your hair?" Charmer. With plenty of pyro going off, Thoughts & Prayers, Scoring The End Of The World and Slaughterhouse are equal to the singer's smooth talk, and it's impressive just what a steamroller this band have become over the years. "Who's been enduring the heat all weekend?" Chris grins at one point. "Have you ever thought about how psychotic that is, putting yourself through that to watch bands? It's awesome." Brains may be starting to malfunction a bit after three days baking, but he's got a point. Happily, Motionless In White add to the fun reasons to do it.

There's probably nobody more delighted by the enthusiasm for Kittie's reunion than Kittie themselves. Morgan Lander looks like she's having a whale of a time, boosted by the big turnout over in this corner of the massive festival grounds. Brackish and Spit still pack plenty of venom, grinding away nastily as she roars heartily, sounding hellish even if she can't help grinning her head off. "I wanna see those penises bopping and bananas crowdsurfing," she laughs, observing the array of non-human entities getting down in the pit. In fact, it's this endearing enthusiasm that gives it all an extra kick up the arse, adding extra beef to Eyes Wide Open and We Are The Lamb. They've still got their claws.

Though not exactly struggling in the UK, it's not until you see them in America that you realise quite how huge I Prevail actually are. There's an enviable crowd at the main stage, but the scale of the Michigan heavyists' show is absolutely staggering – surrounded by industrial-looking chain-link fencing, fire popping off every two seconds, a massive video wall. New album title-track Violent Nature is more a declaration than a name, kicking off a brutal pit, with Eric Vanlerberghe looking like he's ready to knock someone out, ably rising to the role of the band's sole singer. Other new cuts Rain and Into Hell are imposing set-pieces already, while the closing one-two of Hurricane and Gasoline are deafening statements of just how hard they can hit, and how big their blast radius can be. Having had to recalibrate slightly, it's only made I Prevail's focus more sharp.

After a summer witnessing Machine Head dominate their headline slots at Wacken and Bloodstock with massive, multi-level production (and, at the end of the Bloodstock show, a comical amount of fire), it's actually rather welcome seeing them do a (relatively) stripped back smash and grab today. A smaller stage, maybe, but in sheer fire and power, they lose nothing. In fact, it's reassuring to get such a straight-up punch in the face from them, starting with the deadly opening haymaker of Ten Ton Hammer. Compressed into 40 minutes, it really is a whirlwind, as they tear through CHØKE ØN THE ASHES ØF YØUR HATE and the anthemic Is There Anybody Out There? with a fighty intensity. As ever, Robb is a drill-instructor of a frontman, even when he's grinning his head off. "I'll tell you what, my friends, it's time for the biggest circle-pits of the weekend," he bellows, and you're almost scared not to comply. This crash to an end with a thunderous Davidian, and it's a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Namely that MH can do a lot of things in a lot of places, but they'll always be trying to tear your head off. Job done.

From the moment Matt Heafy bellows the two titular opening words to In Waves, Trivium are unstoppable. Headlining stages like this is now so drilled into the Florida metal titans that they make such domination look deceptively easy, especially when they manage to pull together a greatest hits set without anything off recently toured breakthrough album Ascendancy. And it's particularly impressive that, in a set built of massive bangers like The Heart From Your Hate, Until The World Goes Cold and Strife, new rager Bury Me With My Screams arrives as a highlight, ably duking it out with the much more established ragers around it. Like Machine Head, in a tighter space than their epic, mate-filled, Metallica-covering headline gig at Bloodstock, it's a much leaner, adrenalised rush of a show. With new music in the works, if they take this energy into their aircraft hangar studio with them, they'll have something particularly special on their hands.

Get this for a simile of Bad Omens’ current position: picture a stunt rider picking up speed as they prepare to jump a load of double-decker buses. Except they’ve kind of already done that, so the buses are a mile high and the speed is Mach 4. Such has been the ascent of the Richmond quartet over the past couple of years. Tonight, as they headline one of Louder Than Life’s two massive main stages, the next couple of years come into quite remarkable focus, and the promise they’ve already been delivering on properly kicks in like a cartoon fruit machine paying out.

Over recent weeks, the band have dropped new songs with no warning or comment, much less confirmation that their eagerly-awaited fourth album is next in the pipeline. Duh, that’s only made things more excitable around them. At Louder Than Life, duking it out with Deftones immediately after them, to a frankly impenetrable crowd, it would take an extreme and focused effort to fuck it up.

Never the most forthcoming of bands, the show is based more on atmosphere and ambience than personal showmanship. This is fine, because Noah Sebastian is an enigmatic fellow. While he does talk to the crowd, his main dispatches are done via arty videos between songs, in which he communicates via poetic prose. As a frontman, he’s not exactly cut from the same fast-talking, showboating fabric as Corey Taylor. But what Bad Omens deliver and deliver well is a more all-encompassing vibe, light and shade done to chonky electronic metalcore…

Read the full review: Inside Bad Omens’ mysterious but magnetic Louder Than Life mega-show

Deftones aren’t fucking around tonight. Dropping a banger as big as Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) as an opening throw is a hell of a display of power. To immediately follow it with My Own Summer (Shove It) shows not only a fondness for bracketed subtitles, but also a knowledge that on their current form, it’s not necessarily what they’re playing, but how hard they go at it.

Which was the case when they hit the UK recently. The difference here is, Steph Carpenter is playing guitar, and they’ve got a new album, Private Music, out and ready to slink its way into the set. Lead single my mind is a mountain slots next to their two biggest hits early on like an old lover, its big, shiny riff a classic of Deftones’ sonic landscaping, while the live debut of ecdysis – backed by weird visuals of enormous psychedelic eyes – sizzles with raw, visceral energy.

It's already been remarked many times over the past year or so how match-fit Deftones are these days, but it’s worth mentioning again. Chino Moreno has the energy of a man 20 years his junior. Thirty, actually. He also has the same hunger as well, making it all count, it all mean something, His massive, almost constant smile is a welcome sight of someone truly invigorated by what he’s doing…

Read the full review: What happened when Deftones closed out day three of Louder Than Life

The final day of Louder Than Life begins distinctly differently from the preceding three. It's raining, inclement to such a degree, in fact, that a severe weather warning is announced (to the snickers of the British contingent here) and opening time is delayed. By the time Sebastian Bach arrives just after lunch, things have improved. "Here comes the sun!" yelps the irrepressible former Skid Row singer, a human smile with a mane and leather chaps. More than once, he excitedly reminds us he's here to selebrate "36 years of rock and fuckin' roll!" Not a proper milestone, but he does bust out a load of classics in a set made mostly of Skid Row bangers like Monkey Business, an ultra-fast Slave To The Grind and massive power ballad 18 And Life. Dedicating I Remember You to Pantera's Abbott brothers, he brings out Dimebag's wife Rita Haney for a twirl, while his cover of Ozzy's I Don't Know is soaked in fanboy love. Timetable rearrangements mean he's cut before he can do Youth Gone Wild, but you don't feel cheated.

"Get those bodies up! Get those bodies up!" Dying Wish aren't fucking around today. Not that they ever do, but Portland's finest are feeling especially up for it as they hit the stage, demanding more crowdsurfing, despite there being plenty. Having already shown up as one of the most promising hardcore bands of recent times, then bulked up going on massive tours with Spiritbox and Limp Bizkit, they're now a finely-tuned wrecking machine. Emma Boster's anger at a dark world and a system that "wants us to hate each other" is writ large in Cowards Feed, Cowards Bleed and Watch My Promise Die, but there's moments to breathe among the fury, like in the more melodic Torn From Your Silhouette, and the soaring middle of the chugging Lost In The Fall. What was already a really good band are blossoming into something brilliant. Between their killer new album Flesh Stays Together, from which they drop fantastic closer I'll Know You're Not Around, and performances that go as hard as this, they're set for a hell of a 12 months.

As with I Prevail yesterday, it is an entirely different thing seeing Wage War at Louder Than Life than in the UK. Their powerful metalcore and massive, radio-tastic choruses have room to properly breathe and flex, perfectly tuned for a massive crowd on this main stage. Case in point: Circle The Drain, which has a sea of arms waving like a Queen video, or thunderous finisher Maniac, with its electronic beats and barbed-wire riff, taking a huge, violent swing at this rammed house. You've seen a punch-up, maybe even a battle from this lot, but this is the full war. And it's a great one.

The backdrop says it all: KNOCKED LOOSE’S LOUISVILLE. “We’re fucking home!” yells Bryan Garris as he arrives, proudly decked out in his home city’s baseball jersey. “I wanna see a circle-pit. If you’re from Louisville, show these motherfuckers how it’s done.”

As local boys made very good, tonight’s show – directly under Bring Me The Horizon on one of Louder Than Life’s two main stages – was always going to be a special occasion. But what the Louisville sluggers deliver from the moment Blinding Faith drops is a jaw-breaking statement of just how powerful a band this heavy can be on a stage this big.

Brilliantly, the shift up hasn’t come at the expense of their feral bite, having managed to pull the vein-popping intensity of a small hardcore show with them. “Are you feeling crazy?” asks Bryan somewhat unnecessarily for anyone who can see the enormous amount of crazy happening in front of him. Isaac Hale’s thousand-yard stare as he surveys the carnage is actually even more intimidating than it would be up close, with even those faaaar at the back feeling like he’s personally getting up in their faces. Then he does a mosh call by simply barking “mosh-pits” and things get even crazier. There’s big production – pyro, trees onstage – but these are mere baubles next to the boiling, gnashing energy they generate on their own, and which hits like a truck being dropped on your head…

Read the full review: It’s a knockout: Inside Knocked Loose’s devastating, massive homecoming at Louder Than Life

It's a surprisingly less-than-rammed turnout for The Dillinger Escape Plan. Baffling, since the band have only just got back together since splitting in 2017, and with original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis at that, a man whose presence onstage was called for by some ever since he left in 2004. No matter, focusing on early material from their landmark Calculating Infinity debut and Under The Running Board EP, they absolutely rip, with The Mullet Burden and Sugar Coated Sour boiling with the intensity that's all Dillinger's own. True, being older than they once were, the physical carnage of old isn't quite as present or as unhinged, but Ben Weinman still looks like his feet are on fire, and scales a speaker to jump off, while Dimitri could very easy makes things literal as he spits fire using a flaming torch during 43% Burnt. Still one of the best bands ever to try to tie metal and hardcore in a weird knot, whoever wasn't here missed out.

Evanescence seem to be in a celebratory mood tonight. Amy Lee herself is in a buoyant mood, radiating good vibes as the band arrive and open with Afterlife, and, being their last show for almost two months, there's a feeling of something special throughout. It lifts already big bangers like Going Under, Yeah Right and What You Want and puts even more energy into them. Fight Like A Girl, from the Ballerina soundtrack, is given a chance to show its stuff among such heavy hitters and does a fine job, while the gentle My Immortal casts a gothic chill over proceedings. The main event comes, though, when they wrap things up with Bring Me To Life, featuring 12 Stones' Paul McCoy who rapped on the original for the first time in almost a decade. Like we say, a celebratory mood. And with good reason.

“That,” spits Oli Sykes, “is fookin’ shite.”

You’ve almost definitely heard the Bring Me The Horizon singer goad audiences like this before, going for bigger pits. But in America, as the opening kick of their biggest U.S. tour to date, starting with their first-ever festival headline show here, there’s a hunger. It matters not that all of three people in Kentucky know what a Sheffield is, or that Oli’s almost certainly the first person south of America’s Mason-Dixon Line to use the word “Knob-’ed”, at this point BMTH are Britain’s greatest metal export not called Iron Maiden or fellow Yorkshiremen Def Leppard. Brit or European, you’ve probably seen this show already this summer. But not like this. Not like this.

Following the computerised E.V.E.’s by now standard disembodied warnings that the pits are “weak as fuck”, the band arrive and kick into DArkSide. From the very start, it’s a sensory overload of music, lights, incredible videos and a magic touch that leaves you incapable of turning away. Just like at Reading & Leeds and Germany’s Rock im Park and Rock am Ring, the massive screens that make up their set, starting as a cathedral, is dominating. The usual fallen angel threatens to shake the stage apart as she bangs her mighty fists on it during a rapturous Kool-Aid, while throughout BMTH are rendered in cod-futuristic, Matrix colours, or else illustrated as wolves…

Read the full review: Conquering all: What happened when Bring Me The Horizon took NeX GEn to Louder Than Life