From The Grey’s opening set to Cult of Luna’s closing ritual, our last ever ArcTanGent at Fernhill Farm delivered farewell shows, festival debuts, and (finally) some decent chips…

Words by by Maya Rutherford, photos by Day Rutherford | Sep 3, 2026

---

After 52 weeks of anticipation, ArcTanGent 2026 was finally here, and as we entered Fernhill Farm for what would be the last time, it dawned on us that this year would be a very emotional farewell to what had been an incredible home away from home.

Set up in our usual spot, we raced to catch The Grey for their PX3 stage opening set. Sounding even tighter compared to when they blessed our ears last year, drawing an impressively large crowd for so early on Wednesday. I’ll be honest, largely instrumental live sets have to work hard to keep me hooked; without a voice to hang onto, my attention tends to wander off and start thinking about chip vans. The Grey gave it nothing to wander for. Every riff felt like it was saying something, and I stayed locked in from start to finish without once needing a lyric to hold my hand, although when those lyrics did appear, they were akin to sprinkles on a cake. When David Duxbury from Hundred Year Old Man wandered on stage to join them for CHVRCH, the reaction was less “polite applause” and more “collective, gleeful disbelief”, like spotting a mate unexpectedly at your own party. The crowd lit up instantly, that particular kind of happy noise a few hundred people make when they realise they’re about to get a bonus they didn’t know they’d paid for.

A belter of a set that left the tent rearranged came from returning Dimscûa. Last year, I remember people practically queuing up to thank the ArcTanGent team for putting Dimscûa in front of them in the first place, like they’d been handed a brilliant secret. This year, that secret got out properly. Their sound has this way of slicing clean through canvas and chatter alike, reeling in anyone within earshot until the tent’s a good deal fuller than it was five minutes prior. Crushing, mournful tracks, screams that grab you by the collar, lyrics soaked in sorrow- somehow the whole thing is captivating rather than just heavy. Dimscûa aren’t just having a good run, they’re clearly building something, and I’d put money on them creeping steadily up the bill in years to come.

The farewell set from Svalbard was the kind that gets you right in the chest before you’ve even clocked what’s happening. Their final performance came wrapped in tears, walls of punishing noise, and the day’s first crowd surfers, bodies going airborne as if the tent itself couldn’t hold the feeling any longer. Choosing ArcTanGent as the place to say goodbye felt like being let in on something genuinely personal, not just another stop on a tour. They have left behind a legacy that ArcTanGent, and everyone in that tent, will be talking about for years to come.

IAN had the honour, or possibly the mercy, of opening the main stage on Thursday, and their sound swung between full-force noise and a cello so tender it practically rocked you to sleep, which, for those of us who’d spent the night losing a fight against biblical rain and roughly zero hours of sleep, was a slightly dangerous game to play at 11 am. I loved every minute of it, drowsy eyelids notwithstanding. And considering their debut record’s not even a year old, it says a lot that they still dragged a properly respectable crowd out for the first slot of the day, bleary-eyed, weather-beaten, and there anyway.

A whistlestop sprint with Psychonaut leapt between melodic sounds and a heavier noise that made the time pass surprisingly quickly. Nailing that live is a highly technical sport, and Psychonaut played it as if they invented it. The set swung between haze and flashes so forceful you found yourself recklessly head-banging.

The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza were highly anticipated by me, and they did not disappoint. In fact, they broke through the tent roof in terms of exceeding all expectations, giving us one of the best festival sets I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The Yokhai tent was practically electric, thank goodness too, as the second the Tennessee mathcore professionals announced a crowd-surfing competition for a future show’s guest list, those surfers needed all the energy they could muster. A shout-out here for Vespian Security, who once again went above and beyond for the safety of the crowd. Catching flying bodies is an art form, and they provided safe landings with military precision. This security group truly knows and appreciates the scene.

The main stage hosted a spectacle of sound from Igorrr. On record, the genre-hopping is dizzying (yet enjoyable) enough, but live it becomes almost theatrical. The two singers play off each other beautifully, one snarling and guttural, sounding like something trying to claw its way out of the amp stack, the other soaring and clean, almost like it wandered in from an opera house by mistake. Watching them trade off, sometimes within the same line, gave the whole set a push-pull tension that never let up. On leaving the tent, I overheard one slightly pickled but awe-struck festival-goer state, “I have no idea what that was, but it was great”, which, in my view, summed up Igorrr’s set perfectly.

Chelsea Wolfe’s headline set at ArcTanGent might not initially seem like the most ArcTanGent choice but on the eve of the release of her latest album “The Dark” this was probably the most ATG booking, with the main stage front few rows being given light up candles, the mood was set for what was a much slower paced, emotive performance compared to the rest of the weekends headliners, however this somber set really pulled you in and captivated you carrying you deep into the night.

Friday morning, we were graced with Worn Out’s turn to blow our minds. Their onslaught of supercharged vocals and riffs gained them a lot of new fans that day, myself included. There was no mercy throughout the entire set. The second they hit the stage, the room just detonated. No slow build, no polite opening number, just straight into the deep end. A very high-energy start to the day. For the first slot, it was impressive to see the crowd going so wild already, even going so far as to create a surprisingly fast circle pit. Xander leaping into the crowd to surf and scream was incredibly fun to watch, and Brian, not to be left out of the crowd, almost waltzed into the thick of it with his bass. On stage, musically, they were tight. A very pleasing start to Friday.

Sam Chetan-Walsh of Ithaca fame returned to Fernhill with some friends in the form of his new self-described ‘spiritual post-rock’ project Moksha. The name Moksha comes from Sanskrit and means liberation and/or transcendence, a pretty appropriate name for the sound that this collective of musicians makes. When interviewing Sam with Ithaca last year, he spoke fondly of this new project he had just started, and knowing that they don’t tour full-time, with only the odd intimate show here and there, I had been looking forward to hearing how their sound translates on stage. Starting with some group breathing exercises to help us all get into the right space to receive, we were then taken on a sound-guided meditation, a surprisingly well-stitched, dynamic and varied texture of post-rock tones that carried the crowd in its reassuring arms.

A mid-afternoon wake-up was delivered by Conjurer on the main stage, a prime slot for a band that has earned it. Hailing from Rugby and slinging the kind of sludge-soaked post-metal that makes you reconsider your life choices in the best way, they walked out and started dismantling the tent riff by riff. Given their touring history and the sheer number of bands they’ve shared stages and split releases with over the years, the tightness on display felt almost rude at a festival full of acts playing in 17/8 for fun. This is clearly a band that’s levelled up, and it shows. At points, a sea of swaying hair and crowd surfers blanketed the tent, and those of us who weren’t looking like we had walked out of a L’Oréal advert or soaring on a waterslide were left having our chests grabbed and shaken by a roaring audio landscape. I have no doubt that next time we see them at ArcTanGent, they could well be even further up the bill.

An absolute treat from Japan was Mass of the Fermenting Dregs. Devastatingly, I was only able to catch the first couple of songs due to an interview clash (Although I was still over the moon to chat to a couple of members of Conjurer!). For those two songs, though, I witnessed how and why they had gained such a cult following in the UK, which, as they have spoken about in interviews and a documentary, completely took them by surprise. Their melodic and almost anime opening theme-sounding vocals blended with some heaviness delivered a sensory feast that had the crowd bopping and smiling instantly. Their stage presence was so personable and humble, it drew in wanderers and stragglers from the nearby food vendors. Admittedly, I had to convince my press friends to check them out, but I’m so glad they did, as I know I saw some smiles on their faces before I had to run to the press tent. They had been due to play their first UK festival performance at ArcTanGent 2020, however, the festival was cancelled due to the COVID lockdowns. They eventually debuted at ArcTanGent 2022, and as the tent slowly filled for their set, I could hear a hand-in-hand couple pridefully say they had been there and how excited they were to see them again.

Speaking of food vendors, I’m acutely aware that I upset some people with my honest opinion on the Bunnychow last year, but I make no apologies. It is a crime against both chilli and bread, with a price tag that suggests the bread had been handcrafted by monks. Less a meal, more a cry for help served in a hollowed-out loaf. My thoughts on the Bunnychow were, in fact, cemented this year, as I had some of the best food I had ever eaten at any festival.

Notably, Sea Salted, a chippy on wheels, is a little gem of a vendor. I went in with the expectations you’re legally required to have for festival food: low, defeated, resigned to whatever regret was about to be handed to me in exchange for £15. What I got back was, frankly, a miracle. The batter had the audacity to be crispy. Not “technically not soggy,” not “structurally sound if you squint”, genuinely, shatteringly crispy. The fish inside was stunningly flaky and hot, which after a day of lukewarm everything felt less like a meal and more like a personal triumph. And the chips, fresh and crispy on the outside, hot and fluffy on the inside. I stood there, mid-bite, several feet from a man clearly regretting a hot dog, feeling like I’d stumbled into some kind of underground fine dining operation disguised as a food truck. I finished the whole tray standing up, in a field, waiting for Napalm Death, and had a brief moment of genuine spiritual clarity. 10 out of 10. No notes. I would fight someone for this fish and chip vendor’s location, and I would do it happily.

Napalm Death’s brilliant barrage of noise was the perfect digestif. They drew a crowd so large it would have easily filled a tent double the capacity of the Yokhai stage, packed like sardines in places reaching beyond the neighbouring PX3 stage. The songs are, and I say this with love, extremely short. Blink, and you’ve missed three of them. Frontman Barney, between songs, would calmly explain in a normal, measured, almost soothing voice, exactly which societal ill the last thirty seconds of noise had been about. It was like being briefed by your most well-read uncle, if your uncle also had the ability to summon a pit of complete strangers into shoving each other with genuine enthusiasm. They are proof that, musically, age doesn’t always slow you down, instead becoming even more polished over time and able to deliver a masterclass in pioneering grindcore.

A band that was always going to be an interesting addition to a bill built on math rock and post-metal precision was Primus, and that novelty was very much the story of their set. The band’s loose, funk-inflected weirdness is clearly beloved by a huge fanbase, and the crowd they pulled in reflected that. A noticeably different energy from the rest of the weekend, with plenty of day-ticket holders clearly there for this and nothing else. Musically, it’s hard to fault the chops on display, but as a live spectacle it felt curiously static. A band content to let the music speak for itself rather than engage with the moment, which made for a strange contrast against everything else on the ArcTanGent bill this year. A very ‘Marmite’ set from beginning to end that struggled to click with seasoned ArcTanGent goers who had wandered over to see what all the fuss was about.

Saturday came around all too quickly, as it seems to do every year. Kicking the last day off, we had the sludgey punk duo Pleb, who were utterly brilliant. The political themes in their tracks are not lost amongst the surprisingly locked-in and crushing sound they create, and you’d be forgiven for assuming there were more members on the stage. Their crowd interaction created razor-sharp focus, not that it was needed with the ferocious and deceptively tight sound.

Erotic Secrets of Pompeii delighted us with a fun blast of a show. The charismatic frontman commanded the crowd, some of whom were genuinely surprised at how much fun they found themselves having. I went in expecting a novelty act and instead got pulled into something closer to a fever dream staged by people who’d clearly thought about every second of it. The singer barely let the room breathe, prowling the stage like he owned it and daring everyone to keep up, and somehow, by the last song, we all were.

Daniel P Carter’s fresh project, Reclus.É, had a very warm welcome from the numbers in the Yokhai tent. Soren’s vocals swung from hushed and melodic to full-throated in a heartbeat, keeping the whole room slightly off-balance in the best way. The guitar and rhythm work underneath does a lot of quiet heavy lifting, building tension and release without ever overplaying its hand, so the noisier moments land like a real gut-punch rather than empty aggression. For a project barely out of the gate, they carry themselves with the kind of composure that makes you want to remember exactly where you were standing when you first saw them.

I’ve never wondered what it would be like to be fed through a wood chipper set to ‘Technical’, yet Pupil Slicer provided that surprisingly positive feeling regardless. Kate Davies commanded the stage with a kind of unhinged precision, snapping between serrated screams and eerily controlled melody without ever losing the thread, while the rest of the band locked into rhythms so jagged they should’ve been structurally impossible to headbang to, and yet somehow, the whole tent found a way. By the midpoint, the crowd had turned into a single writhing mass, equal parts confused and thrilled by whatever time signature had just happened to them. I look forward to catching them again in the future.

The term ‘Grand Finale’ doesn’t do headliners Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas justice. There’s a particular kind of silence that falls over a crowd right before something enormous happens, and it settled over that field the second the lights dropped. Thousands of people who’d spent four days slightly damp, sleep-deprived, and aching suddenly went completely still, like the farm itself knew to hold its breath. Then it began, and the sound didn’t so much play as arrive, this slow-building tide of guitars that felt less like a band warming up and more like tectonic plates deciding to have a conversation. When Julie Christmas finally tore into her first pitch-perfect cry, I watched a grown man beside me visibly flinch and then immediately turn to his friend with the biggest smile I’d seen all weekend, the universal festival language for “did you feel that in your ribcage too?” There’s something almost absurd about paying good money to stand in a field in Somerset just to have your soul quietly rearranged, and yet by the time the closing swell hit, nobody around me seemed to be thinking about their aching feet or the queues for the portaloos. We were somewhere else entirely, and getting to watch a whole field make that journey together, one final time on that farm, felt like witnessing something genuinely rare. As the final note dissolved into feedback and then into nothing, nobody moved for a second, like the whole field needed a moment to remember how to be regular people again before the applause finally broke the spell.

By the time we trudged out of Fernhill Farm for the last time, it was hard not to feel a bit sentimental about the place. This field that somehow became four days of complete strangers headbanging next to each other like old friends, holding each other up in pits, and cheerfully arguing about whether James will ever book The Mars Volta over beer. Nobody here cared what you looked like, who you loved, or whether you knew every word or none at all, you were just handed a spot in the crowd and a nod of solidarity, and that was enough. Fernhill Farm is done now, gone the way of all good farms that have briefly hosted several thousand people for some core-memory making music events, but if this send-off proved anything, it’s that wherever ArcTanGent lands next, the field might change, but the love of farm cats and the sense that everyone showed up to look out for each other will follow it there completely intact. See you in the Cotswolds. (Hopefully with more farm cats).