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"Now is forever! IN THIS REALM!"
So goes the battle cry for Castle Rat, the New York group who've leveraged high fantasy themes and roaring riffs into becoming doom metal's hottest new band.
They've played barely a dozen gigs in the UK so far - their first was at Desertfest last year - but already the buzz around Castle Rat is obvious. It's a little after mid-day but the crowd swells under the brutal sun ahead of the band's Bloodstock debut and we'd wager by the time they finish they've pulled a bigger crowd than any main stage act from Saturday save perhaps Bleed From Within or Slaughter To Prevail.
It's not hard to see why. They might not have any proper anthems just yet - though Wizard, Wolf I and Dragon from last year's The Bestiary are absolute belters - but it's impossible not to get caught up in Castle Rat's spell. The high-camp theatrics feel like something heavy metal has neglected over the past 30 years, even the likes of Ice Nine Kills or GWAR going more for tongue-in-cheek meta-jokes than for a genuine sense of the fantastic.
Castle Rat aren't playing up their fantasy elements for jokes. Vocalist Riley Pinkerton inhabits the role of the Rat Queen with a seriousness that'd do Arthur Brown or Hawkwind proud, narrating the lore of her band's fantasy realm with irresistible earnestness. The "sword battle" between Pinkerton and "The Rat Reaperess" might be the set's most TikTokable moment, but the music itself doesn't suffer for all their live antics, delivering a baseline of defiant, chest-beating heavy metal.
Chunky, fuzzy riffs and keening guitar solos help build the sense that Castle Rat are well on the way to becoming something massive, somehow tapping the vein for trad metal whilst feeling fresh and vibrant. If this is what they can do in a 40-minute afternoon slot, imagine what they could do as a headliner.
