"They have a fanbase so ardent that one fella has rocked up in a band-branded suit of armour." Heriot battle technical issues but eventually win big at Bloodstock

Want evidence of Heriot being amongst the fastest-rising bands in UK metal? The last time the Bristol/Birmingham crushers played Bloodstock, they were tucked away in the Sophie Lancaster tent. Just three years later, they’ve graduated to the 20,000-capacity weekender’s main stage – and they have a fanbase so ardent that one fella has rocked up in a band-branded suit of armour.

This four-piece’s music is all about short blasts of fury, and it was that directness that made their 2022 EP Profound Morality such a buzz-building release. These 40 minutes, however, are going to be a slow burn. And that’s not by design.

The band suffer a stall due to technical difficulties, which quickly breaks the screaming gremlin aura that singer/guitarist Debbie Gough usually embodies. As a result, they find themselves waging an uphill battle, and the start-stop nature of such songs as Enter The Flesh, which worked wonders on-record, becomes their undoing. Just when the momentum seems to be back on their side and the pit starts whirling at full force, that song is over and the next one needs to try and rebuild that energy yet again.

The good news is that that rebuilding does eventually come, and it’s thanks to material from last year’s debut album Devoured By The Mouth Of Hell. Longer and at times more atmospheric, the likes of At The Fortress Gate let the crowd lock in and rightfully spin around à la a top in a hurricane.

Heriot likely wouldn’t rank their main-stage Bloodstock debut as one of the best sets of their lives, but at least the problems they faced were out of their hands. The members themselves should take pride in their ability to overcome in a short space of time and still look like they were having a blast doing it. This certainly shouldn’t damage their standing as one of Britain’s brightest hopes.