From spacey shoegaze to neon nostalgia: Your guide to the Kerrang! Presents Download stage at The Great Escape

Who says black band tees and the beach don’t mix? Not us. Turns out, we do like to be beside the seaside, especially when there’s good music, and Brighton has given us stacks of great bands over the years. From Architects to Lambrini Girls, plus bright emerging names like Snayx, KNIFE BRIDE and CLT DRP, the city a hive of great talent that also is home to some of the country’s most beloved grassroots venues. Perhaps it’s a contender for one of the UK’s great music cities.

And as we cut the ribbon on a stacked festival season, Kerrang! are pulling up to the Brighton seafront to add a heavier slant to The Great Escape’s huge celebration of new music. Linking up with our pals at Download Festival, we’re showcasing some of the most exciting new artists in alternative music at Daltons between May 13 and 15. There’s a reason that footage from Sleep Token’s set there from 2018 went viral years later – you might get to say you were there and you knew the legends of tomorrow before anyone else…

At the rate he’s going, Native James might have to defeat the laws of physics and work out how to be in two places at once. One minute he’s summoning the moshers at Glastonbury, the next he’s putting letlive. fans through their paces with the same chaotic aura as Jason Aalon Butler. His furious collision of metallic grit and grimy swagger is as refreshing as it is energising, justifying every iota of hype. This set will be incendiary.

Rap and rock have long been frequent bedfellows, but Frozemode are straddling these two dimensions like nobody else. Drenched in a grimy sensibility with bags of confidence and lithe, guitar-driven grit, the London trio have courted favour from all over, winning admirers at Reading and 2000trees in recent times. They even landed a co-sign from Denzel Curry through opening for him at Brixton O2 Academy last summer, priming them for greatness when they hit up Daltons.

When he takes the mic, it’s impossible to escape just how deeply and viscerally Mudrat reacts to the ever-growing heap of the world’s injustices. The Australian artist is spitting his fury in the faces of racists, billionaires and performative allies across a slew of urgent, galvanising anthems that blend punk aggression with the bravado of hip-hop and choruses to chant at protests. Join for a display of catharsis, solidarity and collective rage.

It takes audacity to cover a song as iconic as Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’, but EMNW do it fearlessly, and with a playful, nudge-wink attitude that’s all their own. Flying over from Japan for the first time, a factory full of Haribos couldn’t match the sugary energy of the duo’s zany stamp on nu-metal. Ready to have your brain crushed by both riffs and sass? They’ll do both.

Why stick to one sound when you can juggle all of them? Comastatic are a brilliantly chameleonic bunch, morphing through summery pop-punk and fizzing electro-rock with splashes of rap and metal along the way. Above all, they take total glee in being as huge and as catchy as possible, and with that approach, they’re bound to make the ideal party-starters in Daltons.

After their raucous take on Basement Jaxx’s Where’s Your Head At jet-fuelled their rise last year, Eurotripp are here to make good on their momentum at Daltons. Their neon-splattered sound represents a high-five between nostalgia and modernity, cruising through influences as varied as the dopamine rush of ‘90s pop, the swagger of rap-rock and thunderous metal riffs. Buckle up, this lot are pulling the best bit of the noughties into the present and what a fun time it is.

For those who like their riffs filthy and their hoodies baggy enough to drown in, Overgrown will be a tonic. There’s something distressed and raw about the Geordie quartet’s songs, which bring grit and angst, plus a metallic tang, to their particular flavour of grunge. They’ll be supporting YONAKA and Dead Pony on tour later in the year, so get acquainted with them quick.

Loathe alumnus Connor Sweeney only has two songs out in the world as TheBoyShadow, yet they’re poles apart – Bliss Being is a swirling, shapeshifting mid-tempo number, while Give Me A Seam & I’ll Show You The Meaning burned with lava-like intensity. With this veil of mystery, it’s not surprising he got to open for PRESIDENT. What other sides are there to him? This is the place to delve deeper into his mysterious world.

Listening to OVERSIZE feels like bathing in rich emotion. The Salisbury quintet craft all-consuming landscapes of spiralling, shoegaze-inflected sound with a darker, heavier undertone. Boston Manor are fans, having taken them on tour, while they also landed a coveted slot opening for While She Sleeps last year. Which is a pretty great endorsement if you ask us.

With a dramatic, gothic aesthetic, Ally Nicholas weaves midnight-black magic through her diaristic songwriting. Grungy and cinematic with a deep, atmospheric darkness suggesting she’s been knee-deep in shoegaze at one point or another, this is music made for marinating in your feelings late at night as the rain lashes down outside. Although it will hopefully be sunny.

Sonically fluid yet simmering with tension, the music of Heave Blood & Die brings a heavier, weirder slant to the programme at Daltons. The Norwegians’ alloy of metal and post-hardcore, swathed in the thick atmospheres of doom metal, neatly bridges the gap between The Great Escape and ArcTanGent (where they’ll also be performing this summer). This is a band to stretch your brain in the best possible way.

Enter Shikari fans who got down early to their tiny show in Manchester recently might have witnessed a slice of the fuzzy, melancholia-drenched vibes of East Exchange. Wearing an unabashed love of the ‘90s on their oversized flannel sleeves but with shades of modern alternative, the Liverpudlians are primed for a massive year, with some shows with letlive. pencilled in for the summer, but it all starts here.

The Kerrang! Presents Download Festival stage comes to Daltons in Brighton on May 13–15 for The Great Escape festival.

Read this next:

• “If young people stop having an interest in music, the scene’s cooked”: How Brit shoegaze crew OVERSIZE are fighting against musical boredom
• Meet Native James: A fireball waiting to burn a hole in the UK rock scene
  
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