Bloodstock Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025: Interview With The Ginger Lizards (Swansea Heat #1)

Bloodstock Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025 Interview With The Ginger Lizards



1. Please introduce yourself for anyone who may not know you. Tell us a little bit more about you as a band.

We are The Ginger Lizards, a 5 piece blues driven thrash band, or as we have come to call it Boomer metal. We're a hammer made of 80s metal nostalgia, bringing music full of driving power and crushing riffs that are “heavier than an incel's ball sack.”

2. What made you want to participate in the Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025 campaign? Have you had previous experience? Or is this your first time?

We participated last year and didn't get through the first round, but we said we would be back and here we are bringing a years worth of development as a band and some new songs from our up coming album. Last year was a great night, we caught up with some guys we haven't played with in a while, and met and saw some awesome new (to us) bands.

3. M2TM is all about supporting your local scene. How important is the local scene to you as a band?

No Local scene, no new bands its that simple. The guys who play the main stage at Bloodstock didn't get there by going to the organisers saying “were really good honest” the local scene is the starting blocks where a band cuts its teeth and gathers the experience and builds the reputation needed to get to that point.

4. What are your expectations from being a part of M2TM?

Its a chance to get out and meet new people within our area, see new bands, and another opportunity to get up on the stage and show everyone who we are and what we do. There are going to be people in that crowd who haven't heard of us and we cant wait to show them what we have got.

5. What would playing a Sold Out Bloodstock Festival mean to you?

We played to a venue of 100+ people a few months ago, granted yes they were there for the headliners but still we haven't felt that kind of energy from a crowd before, would love to know what that feeling is like for a sold out festival.

6. We encourage all the bands in M2TM to try and check out the other bands, who are you most looking forward to? Who should your fans also try to catch?

Our group looks incredible, we just hope were on before Struggler because our bassist will be in a pit and we need him not to knacker himself out, cant wait to see them though. Mudlarker too, there sound is just massive and we cant wait to hear it live. I haven't been able to find out much about Words of Affirmation but they have played with some awesome bands, so looking forward to seeing them.

Outside our group we have Bleed the Fifth in Heat 3 who we played with last year and just absolutely stomped, probably be back down for that one, heat 3 looks like an absolute banger.

Over in the Bristol M2TM we have 2 bands that we are good friends with in Pyrogaric and Buried in Bermuda who if your over that way you should definitely go check out that heat, two different bands but excellent at what they do.

Bloodstock Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025: Interview With Beyond Sorrow (Cardiff Heat #1)

Bloodstock Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025 Interview With Beyond Sorrow






1. Please introduce yourself for anyone who may not know you?

We’re Beyond Sorrow, a 5-piece metalcore band who love crushing riffs, beautiful melodies, filthy breakdowns, and cats.

2. What made you want to participate in the Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025 campaign? Have you had previous experience? Or is this your first time?

We participated last year, got the semi-finals, and had a blast! We hoping to have an even bigger blast this year.

3. M2TM is all about supporting your local scene. How important is the local scene to you as a band?

It's vital; without this scene we wouldn’t have such an amazing community of bands to perform with, or audiences to deafen. This scene keeps us and our fellow bands going.

4. What are your expectations from being a part of M2TM?

We want to make new friends and fans, express our music to as many people as possible, and most importantly get further than last year and play the big stages! If that fails, we’ll settle for starting a pit so large it destroys Fuel and maybe half of Womanby street…

5. What would playing a Sold Out Bloodstock Festival mean to you?

I think we’d cry happy tears.

6. We encourage all the bands in M2TM to try and check out the other bands, who are you most looking forward to? Who should your fans also try to catch?

M2TM always brings awesome bands so we’re looking forward to hearing them all! Akuma and Paradox To Stay kick lots of arse, so make sure to check them out (while voting for us, ofc).

Reviews: Everon, Airforce, Dirkschneider, Vigilhunter (Matt Bladen)

Everon - Shells (Music Theories Recordings)

I consider myself a bit of prog geek but I've not heard of Everon before. They're a neo-progressive band formed in the 90's and their influences are Marillion, latter-Rush and bands such a IQ, Pallas and Pendragon. The traits of neo-prog are keyboard/guitar driven songs which have shifting musical moments and intelligent, witty and emotional lyrical content.

They released their last album North in 2008 and from there they went on hiatus, well main man Oliver Philipps basically stopped writing music for a bit and as he is the composer of everything Everon were in stasis. That's not to say they haven't been busy Philipps has worked as a producer alongside Everon drummer Moschus, they have worked with Delain, Ad Infinitum, LEAH and Imperia.

These collaborations have paid dividends on Shells, as LEAH lends her Celtic lilting to Pinocchio's Nose and Imperia singer Helena Iren Michaelsen adds excellent vocals to a number of the tracks here, helpful as she also happens to be Philipps' wife. 

Like many bands who are in the Neo- Prog scene, the vocals are often idiosyncratic to the music, here at times they're almost spoken on Broken Angels and elsewhere in opposition to the cinematic music which has baroque elements, electronic elements, AOR, folk and bags of emotion.

The most resonant part of the album is the euphoric, Until We Meet Again, written in tribute to drummer Moschus who passed away during recording. The eight tracks he recorded here are his lasting legacy, and the triumphant return from Everon. 8/10

Airforce - Acts Of Madness (ROAR-RPM)

It's been five years since Airforce released and album. Now in 2025 they bring us another load of NWOBHM in the 21th Century. The hook of Airforce is that they feature Doug Sampson behind the kit. If you know your metal history then you'll know Doug was the original drummer of Iron Maiden before Nicko took over the throne. They double down on their Maiden connection with a cover of Strange World from the Iron Maiden debut album.

Musically too it's pretty close to the British metal legends sounded for the first two albums on tracks such as The Fury, though this also shows the evolution Airforce has had over the years with a tonne of keyboards. Cursed Moon, Sniper and Heroes meanwhile bring a bit more of what Airforce are known for. They lost a lot of the album after producer Pete Franklin passed away but Jezz Coad stepped up and rescued the old sessions to finalise this release.

So Acts Of Madness is another heavy rocking record from these British veterans, still packing the vim and vigour of the 80's NWOBHM sound but with their years of experience honing it into a slicker style they have now. 7/10

Dirkschneider - Balls To The Wall RELOADED (Reigning Phoenix Music)

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Accept's most famous album, their fifth record, Balls To The Wall, former original Accept singer Udo Dirkschneider has re-recorded the album alongside some famous friends.

Now there are a few issues, Balls To The Wall was released in 1983, Udo hasn't been the singer of Accept since 2005 (but really 1997), at least Dirkschneider's bassist Peter Baltes played in Accept until 2018, as well as playing in the original version of the band.

Does anyone really need a new version of this album? Other than say Dirkschneider himself, who can now lay claim to royalties from these songs again so long as these versions are played. I suppose the hook for this record are the guest vocalists, Udo's vocals aren't the same as they were, snarling like an angry pitbull now, which suits his own material but not the classics he already defined.

The guests do well to add interest, be it Biff Byford (Saxon), Joakim Brodén (Sabaton), Mille Petrozza (Kreator), Michael Kiske (Helloween), Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) and Doro Pesch, they're chosen to add their unique vocals to these songs but let's be honest a lot of them sound similar to Dirkschneider's snarl.

Balls To The Wall Reloaded shows how well most of these songs from 1983 stand up in 2025, (maybe not Losers And Winners, who writes letters any more?) but really it's a piece of cash-in nostalgia with a few guest stars. 5/10

Vigilhunter - Vigilhunter (High Roller Records)

Trad/power metal from the USA with Vigilhunter being the vehicle for Alexx Panza, he has sung for Hitten and Jack Starr's Burning Starr and now he sings and plays guitars on this album alongside Mirko Negrino on bass, Mattia Itala on guitar and Marcello “Cell” Leocani on drums.

This debut album has drawn comparisons to Queensryche (early), Crimson Glory and Fates Warning, and they're all clear as day, Shadow Rider (Vigilante) having that fist-in-the-air chug, Curse Of The Street is Queensryche all over while Sacrifice For Love sits as a ballad with more Tate-like emotion in the middle of the record.

While US power metal these days takes from thrash, Vigilhunter are inspired by the bands who took from NWOBHM and also were part of the early days of 'prog metal'. Vigilhunter's debut is a welcome throwback to when US power metal was in its infancy, it bristles with boisterous electricity, plenty of air guitar moments and great vocals hooks. 7/10

A View From The Back Of The Room: Touché Amoré (Alex Swift)

Touché Amoré, Trauma Ray & Buds, The Globe, Cardiff, 21.02.2025

Tonight’s show almost didn’t happen. After Touché Amoré cancelled their show the night before at the Joiners in Southampton, that left a doubt hanging over proceedings in the Globe. 

Would they perform a shorter set? Would they take to the stage at all? Jeremy Bolm’s raspy vocal style, whereby every word is delivered as a cry of anguish and anger means that as the band approach twenty years on the road, his voice is an occasional casualty of playing back-to-back concerts.

That’s why it gives me great pleasure to say that Touché Amoré don’t just play a full set tonight but sound brilliant doing so! Despite his voice sounding noticeably frail in the moments of crowd interaction between songs, the only real difference is rather than attempt to scream every word, for much of the set our frontman uses his enormous stage presence to compel the crowd to scream the words at him. 

 Thrusting the mic stand towards different sections of the audience during sections of the songs, the sheer volume of the crowd compensates for any barely recognisable weakness in the singer’s voice.

Before we get to the main act though, there are two supports. Buds are probably the most melodic of the three acts tonight, playing a raw style of punk that’s hook laden whilst also being animated, and exciting. 

Following them, Trauma Ray command with a menacing, distortion laden performance that treads the line between metal and punk in a way that’s both detailed and immersive. Both acts brilliantly set the tone for the shared experience of melancholy and anger that’s about to ensue.

I hate to begin this section by discussing an aspect of the show that I couldn’t stand, especially as it had nothing to do with the band’s performance, which, as previously alluded to, is brilliant. However, as Touché Amoré take to the stage and tear into Nobody’s, utter carnage ensues. 

I’m thrown against the monitors repeatedly, crowd surfers are lifted over my head or else dive on top of me, people around me grab me around my neck or by my arms, and that’s for a song from their new album, Spiral In A Straight Line, which – by the standards of this band’s discography as a whole – is on the subdued side.

As you can imagine, the atmosphere summoned by the brutality of anthems in the vein of Art Official, is too much for someone with sensory issues. Here’s where this story gets amusing - I root around on the floor for my rucksack which I’d put on the floor in front of me. I look up to see an audience member lifting it on to the stage. 

Reaching out my arm for the strap, its grabbed first by Jeremy Bolm, who in a striking display of on-stage improvisation tosses it backstage, with one clean throw. Thankfully, after an exaggerated but successful attempt to get his attention, he hands my rucksack back to me, and I head to the venue balcony to observe the rest of the show in comfort. I must say, on reflection, I feel somewhat honoured by the interaction.

Indeed, the concert as a whole is brilliant! Drawing on the band’s entire discography, they tear through a lot of shorter tracks from Praise/Love To Reminders, making for a quickfire juxtaposition of sounds and moods, that nevertheless maintains the intensity of the performance. 

Meanwhile, longer pieces like the beautiful Rapture or the absolutely heartbreaking Flowers & You, lend an ability to absorb the emotional weight of a performance by this act, even if you are someone who, like me, likes to simply observe.

Watching the show from the balcony is a different experience from being stood at the front and not just because of the different physical environments. In fact, watching the chaos ensue below me was enrapturing as performers and audience members alike seemed to feed off each other’s dynamism. 

Again, it’s hard to believe that this is the same band that cancelled a show a day previously. Perhaps that’s the marker of great musicians – the ability to look after themselves, whilst rebounding from those difficult experiences with the same amount of vibrancy they had before. 

There’s a determination at that heart of everything Touché Amoré does – one that allows them to be vulnerable whilst making all their work, including tonight show, vivacious and entrancing 8/10