Swing your horn
After the thirty minutes of half assed AC/DC covers from Chris Slade and Exploder, the festival really kicked into gear with Bloodstock's unsigned contest winners Sight Of Emptiness. Hailing from Costa Rica the band apparently bring their own slant on the melodic death metal genre but are influenced by acts such as 'At the Gates', 'Dark Tranquillity' and 'Amon Amarth'. One could be fooled into thinking Costa Rican metal has its own sound but far from it. Sight Of Emptiness sound like a mix of the aforementioned bands however they have one aspect that makes them stand out from all the other unsigned bands at Bloodstock, and that is quality tunes.
It was a warmish start to the Thursday and Sight Of Emptiness began to play to a fairly sparse crowd due to many metal heads still arriving or pitching camp. Those who weren't in attendance for this Central American quintet missed a treat as the band impressed against the usual early festival obstacles. An appalling mush washed out of the speakers for the first couple of songs however the band fought through it with a very convincing performance. Songs such as 'Shot of Hatred' and the excellent 'Desolation Whispers' won the respect of an ever growing attentive crowd to the point where the guy behind me started to swing his beer filled horn of plenty from side to side.
Vocalist Eduardo did his best to encourage head bobbing and movement but it was too early in the festival for that kind of behaviour and the fans didn't respond. The guy has a great death metal voice with an impressive range of low grunts to high-pitched screams (although some compression to make them all the same volume would have helped a little). They finished their 30-minute set and looked comfortable on the large stage. They won over a cold crowd and even impressed me enough to hunt them down over the internet. A good band and a good start to the Thursday.