ARCTANGENT 2026: Our Top Picks

While most festivals will soften their edges over time, chasing bigger crowds with safer bills, ArcTanGent has done the complete opposite doubling down on the outer limits of alternative music and refusing to platform anything that smells like radio-friendly filler. This approach could have kept the festival niche, but it has instead turned into one of the most vital fixtures on the UK festival calendar. This year’s lineup is the biggest and baddest to date, and the festival is now sold out, so if you’re lucky enough to be going here are our top twelve picks:

Sans Froid - Wednesday, PX3 - 16:15-16:50

If you’re on site early, Bristol’s Sans Froid are not one to miss. Their second album Back into the Womb has just landed on Church Road Records and it’s a prog masterpiece set apart by strong and considered songwriting paired with a passionate vocal performance. There’s a folk influence running through their music, but don’t mistake that for gentleness as this will be a set full of head-twisting riffs that turn on a dime.

Svalbard - Wednesday, Yohkai - 18:25-19:10

Svalbard are playing their final ever show at ArcTanGent. Formed in Bristol back in 2010, the band spent fifteen years building one of the most flawless back catalogues in British underground metal, each album more essential than the last until 2023’s masterpiece The Weight of the Mask. Driven by blunt political rage and raw authenticity, Svalbard gave it their all every time and this is the last chance to see them on a stage that always felt like home. Svalbard were always gut-wrenching, but this show is going to be on another level. Bring tissues, there will be tears.

Cardiacs - Wednesday, Yohkai - 20:05-21:05

Of every band on the bill, Cardiacs have the most impressive story. After decades on the fringes, frontman and bandleader Tim Smith suffered a heart attack and stroke back in 2008 which robbed him of the ability to play or even speak. He passed away in 2020, and last year the final Cardiacs’ album LSD was released having been completed by his brother Jim and longtime collaborators, built around every scrap of Tim’s own ideas they could salvage and put out into the world as a final triumphant tribute. Somewhere between prog, punk and pop, and never making a scrap of sense, go and watch Cardiacs to witness one of the most impressive, ridiculous and unhinged bands you’ll ever see.

Alcest - Thursday, Arc - 17:40-18:30

Alcest may be the most beautiful metal band in the world. Taking the structural building blocks of black metal, but reworking them around uplifting and gorgeous melodies completely separate from the genre, Alcest were blending black metal’s intensity with shoegaze’s washed melodies years before “blackgaze” was a phrase. Two decades on, nobody does this sound as cleanly as Alcest, with every album somehow getting more powerful and confident than the last. Extraordinarily well composed music, go and see the band that everyone today is now copying.

Zu - Thursday, PX3 - 21:45-23:00

If ArcTanGent prides itself on giving a platform to bands that were never going to appeal to everyone, then Zu are one of their best bookings this year. Defiantly not music for the masses, if Zu’s music clicks with you then it will really click. A three-piece built around drums, bass and saxophone, sitting somewhere between jazz and metal, Zu are three virtuosos who found each other decades ago and have spent that time carving out a sound that resembles nothing anywhere else in music. Having collaborated with Mike Patton extensively over the years, their newest record Ferrum Sidereum is an 80-minute genre-shredding journey that’s easily one of our top releases this year.

Witch Fever - Friday, PX3 - 19:40-20:30

Manchester four-piece Witch Fever don’t sound quite like anyone else at the moment. With gothic weight running through everything they do, the anger and snarl of punk fuses with the crushing ceremonial heaviness of doom with huge riffs and a visceral vocal performance from Amy Walpole. With lyrics that return again and again to religious trauma, music this grand and confrontational is the perfect vehicle for pointing the finger at the institutions that have done so much damage. Across two terrific albums, Witch Fever have been sharpening their vision, becoming an unmissable live act along the way.

Napalm Death - Friday, Yokhai - 20:35-21:25

The ever-legendary Napalm Death. If you’ve not seen them live yet, we can promise they absolutely still deliver in every way you would want them to. Formed in 1981 and widely credited as the founders of grindcore, Napalm Death remain one of the heaviest bands on the planet decades into their career with pure rage channelled through endlessly creative riffs. Their consistency across four decades has been remarkable, and this will be an absolute highlight of the weekend.

Primus - Friday, Yokhai - 21:30-23:00

We couldn’t not include Primus. Les Claypool and co headlining ArcTanGent is a massive deal, as part of their first run of UK shows in ten years. We can’t imagine how hard the crowd are going to be bouncing to Jerry Was A Race Car Driver, Tommy The Cat, and all the hits. Completely inimitable, nobody has ever successfully ripped off Primus because there’s no bass player on earth that compares to Claypool. An amazing booking.

Erotic Secrets of Pompeii - Saturday, Bixler - 11:35-12:05

Kicking off the final day are one of our favourite Bristol bands, Erotic Secrets of Pompeii. If you’ve overdosed on doom and gloom over the previous three days of heaviness that ArcTanGent has thrown at you, this band are the perfect antidote. Fun, theatrical, completely bizarre and off the wall with terrific musicians underneath the chaos, the extravagant Thomas Hawtin is one of our favourite frontmen. Expect terrific costumes and a sweaty, impassioned, full-throttle performance to start the final day off in exactly the right spirit.

Pupil Slicer - Saturday, PX3 - 20:00-20:50

Pupil Slicer put out on of the best extreme metal albums of last year. A consistently excellent band already, Fleshwork was a massive impressive compositional triumph layering mathcore complexity with disgusting ferocity whilst thematically tackling dehumanisation with weight behind every scream. This is a chance to see one of the best bands in extreme metal firing on all cylinders on sonic home turf. Pupil Slicer sound like a band raised on ArcTanGent, pulling threads from the festival’s own headliners over the years into their own sound, and this should be a phenomenal homecoming.

High On Fire - Saturday, Yokhai - 21:00-21:50

There’s been a lot of noise lately around Sleep continuing to release music without Matt Pike, but why not set that aside and just rock out to a band with what might be the best heavy metal back catalogue of the twenty-first century. High On Fire have covered a huge range of tempos and styles across nine studio albums, from the heaviest doom and sludge to blisteringly fast ragers, sometimes within the same song. Pike’s voice keeps getting more ragged with age, which only adds to the dirt and grit. They deserve to be much bigger than they are, and this will be an easy highlight of the weekend.

A.A. Williams - Saturday, Bixler - 21:00-21:50

If by this point of the weekend you’re just too worn out to take any more screaming and moshing, we cannot recommend A.A. Williams enough. Gothic piano ballads for doom metal fans, this is still heavy music, but it’s also intimate, tender and beautiful. Built on the same simplicity that underpins doom metal, but with far more focus on space, A.A. Williams new album Solstice is brilliant, and this will be a set that you won’t forget for a long time.