Part of being a good journalist is recognising your limitations. Sometimes, you’re just not equipped with the knowledge about something to fairly criticise it, or you can get too far up your own bum and lose touch with the tastes and values of other people. This is why it’s important to keep in close distance to a fresh pair of eyes and stay open to new perspectives.
None of this is why I took my mum to an extreme metal festival last weekend, but it’s the best excuse I can come up with.
Shockingly not against her will, my 53-year-old joined me in attending Bloodstock Open Air from August 7 to 10, headlined by Trivium, Machine Head and Gojira in a remote Derbyshire field before 20,000 baying metalheads. With the likes of Emperor, Mastodon and Obituary rounding out the bill, it was set to be one of the heaviest and most stacked weekends of the 2025 calendar. So, naturally, I handed the job of reviewing it to her.
In the end, Mum and I caught 11 bands together, ranging from the headliners to death/doom up-and-comers Konvent and soon-to-be-retiring hard rock scallywags Orange Goblin. Her opinions ended up being just as broad as the bill.
You can see all of Mum’s reviews via the TikTok video we’ve embedded below, but safe to say the highlight of her weekend were Gojira, who received the kind of score we mere journalists can’t possibly award without facing some kind of slap on the wrist: a whopping 12 out of 10! “It doesn’t get better than this,” she wrote – and, yeah, I can’t argue with that.
Machine Head broke the scale, too, achieving a mathematically impossible 11 out of 10 and being declared “fucking awesome”. Trivium received full marks, although I can’t be certain how much of that came from the fact that singer/guitarist gave her a hug backstage earlier in the day. Legally I don’t think I can say that that swayed it, but I can definitely imply it.
Anyway, check out the full round-up below. Then make sure you follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Shpormf and whatever other social networks exist.