Reviews
Moon Reaper/Lacerta/Zycie/Death Brigade
The King Arthur, Glastonbury 19th June 2026
Words : Richard Hayward
Photographs : Keith Conlin Photography
PAINT IT BLACK!
As you may remember, The King Arthur pub in Glastonbury is one of From the Pit’s favourite venues, but tonight, we’re wondering if we should have worn flack vests and steel helmets instead of hoodies
because they’re really rolling out the big guns!
Moon Reaper, Lacerta, Życie and Death Brigade are all here, and none of them are interested in taking prisoners.
If you’re looking for a blend of black metal, hardcore, death and doom, all wrapped up in one band,
you just found it! Bristol's Moon Reaper are unleashing the beast in Glastonbury tonight. This superb band won Bristol's Metal 2 The Masses final for a place on the New Blood stage at Bloodstock in 2023, then returned by invitation in 2024 to play a slot on the Sophie Lancaster stage. Add to this already
impressive achievement, an upcoming appearance at Bloodstock’s Winter Gathering in December 2026, and there can be little doubt that Moon Reaper are firmly stamping their mark on the UK metal scene. Tonight’s gig follows the May release of their latest single “Dirge of the Moons” and comes just ahead of their July tour with Nottingham-based Kryptess.
Moon Reaper boasts the incredible dual-vocalist lineup of Şirin Ann Bozkurt and guitarist Morgan Cradick, a truly formidable pairing that can blow you clean out of your boots at fifty yards.
Within a single breath, Bozkurt has the amazing ability to ramp an incredibly deep satanic growl up to something that sounds like a big cat threatening to tear your head off.
Cradick has similar abilities, which is not at all surprising, since he actually taught Bozkurt how to master these vocal techniques during lockdown. Between the two of them, they have something suitably mind-blowing up their sleeve for every possible occasion. At times, it sounds as though two demons have been locked in a cage with a dozen lions at feeding time.
Cradick is joined on guitar by Jarrad Fisher and between them, they stack a pile of hundred-ton riffs on the unbreakable foundation provided by drummer Sam Harbridge and bassist Chris Reynolds.
As you’ll have noticed from the first line of this review, there is a certain “metal genre fluidity” about Moon Reaper which makes for an even more interesting experience. Basically, anything you’ve ever seen
happening in a mosh pit before, has a better than 50:50 chance of happening again during one of their sets.
There are plenty of doom-nodding, moshing and two-stepping moments, along with large helpings of full-on headbanging and bone-crunching hardcore slamming.
Take your pick!
Unless you are blessed with super-human abilities, you probably won’t be singing along any time soon, but just in case you were wondering, Moon Reaper’s lyrics focus on deep-space horrors and the awesome power of mighty astronomical objects such as black holes and pulsars.
If you’re absolutely hell-bent on joining in though, maybe try a spoonful of neutron star twice a day for a week before attempting just one verse.
A highly dynamic band on stage, Moon Reaper are not just great to listen to, but also great to watch.
They can strut, they can fill the air with hair, and they can set up a wall of death with a breakdown that ticks and explodes like a thousand-pound bomb.
In a nutshell, they are everything you would expect from a top-class, festival-hardened act.
If you’re not already familiar with Lacerta, it’s certainly not for lack of effort on my part. Obviously I don’t want to keep repeating myself, so if you fancy a deep dive into my ravings about these guys, check out two of our previous reviews titled “Southwest Heavyfest 2026 Day 2” and “Hursan 31st May”.
Both of those gigs featured a set from this superb band.
So what else can I possibly tell you? Well, how about the fact that it’s already about a hundred degrees in here, but that’s not stopping the crowd from going completely nuts as Lacerta crank it up by another fifty!
Vocalist Charlie Salter is definitely feeling the heat as he tears of his shirt, pours a bottle of water over his head, and threatens a temperamental piece of stage hardware with sudden death if it doesn’t immediately start working. It does, and the crowd goes wild!
With classic Lacerta shock and awe, the band power through a set that completely blows the assembled masses away, bouncing some of them off the walls and reducing others to little puddles of sweat which then slowly evaporate in the mind-numbing heat. As the thunderous assault on our senses rages, my sadly distorted brain reaches for a line from Apocalypse Now and comes up with, “I love the smell of mosh pit in the morning.” Close enough I guess – it’s morning somewhere!
By the time we reach “Red Cap”, we’re beyond the melting point of steel, and the crowd are dousing themselves with any liquid they can find to avoid spontaneously combusting. I’m starting to hallucinate lines of camels walking slowly through the pit, and that fire extinguisher over there is looking more and more attractive! Beer sales must surely be through the roof at this point.
Even the heat can’t detract from the impact of another stunning set from Lacerta. I’m just glad it’s not me who has to mop up afterwards!
However as this was being put together the band posted this announcement.
We here at the Pit have been taken aback a bit by this news, but Lacerta have faced many challenges, line up changes and self doubt and they will hopefully they will do so again.
ŻYCIE
This is the first time I’ve seen this band, and sadly, it will be the last, as they are disbanding immediately after tonight’s gig... well… almost!
Yes, this is Życie’s last gig in their current form, but a brand-new band is all set to rise from the ashes in the very near future so don’t bother searching E-Bay for used guitars just yet.
Focussing our minds on this particular thirty or forty minutes though, if sludge / doom metal is your thing, this is definitely where you should be. Życie’s musical themes include medieval times, science fiction and horror, so think “dark”.
Somewhat ironically, for a band that sound as though they are playing from the deepest crypt in the graveyard, Życie means “life” in Polish. Well that’s as may be, but with a doom outfit playing their final gig, I’m now mentally fighting images of a funeral procession on a dull and rainy day, as I listen to these guys slowly burying their own band.
Farewell gigs are always sad affairs, and I find myself wondering what the musos are really thinking up there on the stage. The show, however, must go on!
Alex Radzio, who is actually on the roster as a guitarist, tells me that he's not really supposed to be playing bass tonight, but he is, and he’s whipping up one hell of a storm on those four strings.
Whatever he has them plugged into produces incredible amounts of attack and sustain, making it pretty much the lead instrument of this three-piece outfit.
As they rip into “The Behemoth Sleeps” with Radzio’s earth-shaking bass leading from the front, Lawrence Bacon’s drumming has anything that’s not firmly bolted down, bouncing around the room.
Not content with that, vocalist / guitarist Lewis Temby’s deep, snarling growls shred the air, accompanied by a nice bit of ear-shattering “chainsaw” guitar that really cleans out your tubes.
As the band moves on to “Sacred Grounds”, a song that appropriately grinds along at about the pace of a funeral march, the growling vocals get deeper and even more threatening. This seems like a good time for me to practice my “zombie stagger” and I’m starting to think we may have inadvertently
summoned some sort of crouched supernatural being from the depths of Hell. Thankfully though, it’s just the sound tech adjusting the kick drum mic.
Saving their longest song until last, Życie end their last ever set with “Slugs of Amalthea”, and as sludge goes, it’s almost a disco number. If this was the song playing as we carried the coffin to the grave, we would probably arrive there before they’d finished digging the hole! The vocals are now full on demon growls and I’m expecting cracks to appear in the ground and fountains of fire to erupt at any moment.
This will be a tough act to follow, but we look forward to seeing a phoenix rise from the ashes of Życie very soon.
Did you ever stop to wonder what World War I would have been like if a rogue faction of Knights Templar had discovered demonic artifacts during the First Crusade in 1099, and inadvertently opened a gateway to Hell?
You didn’t? Well, to be honest, neither did I, but thankfully, Death Brigade, who only formed a few months ago, are here to educate us.
Their music combines the horrors of World War I trench warfare with elements of dark and mysterious medieval fantasy. Mystical and supernatural entities engage in battle against tanks and heavy armour, with machine guns pitted against demons and witches. Yes I know, I can hear you thinking, “What the hell is he on about now?”
Well, by way of a brief explainer, this all apparently stems from a fascination with the tabletop skirmish wargame “Trench Crusade”, set in an alternate, and highly dystopian 1914,
and resulting in song titles such as “Trench Bastard”, “Blood Guts Glory” and “Restless Agony”.
The band dress in hooded cloaks and cloth masks, creating a look that screams “medieval crusading monk”, with rhythm guitarist Paul Hanlon also wearing a gas mask which somehow fits right in. I’m quietly wondering how I’m supposed to recognise these guys out in the courtyard after the gig!
Perhaps I’ll just shout a few lines from The Holy Grail and see who turns around.
Anthony Gill’s doom-laden vocals reflect the dread-filled cries of a war-weary crusader, soaked in the blood and horrors of the battlefield, and probably wishing he had one of those newfangled tank things instead of just a broadsword.
Gill remains in character throughout the set, announcing the songs and talking to the crowd in a voice that sounds like he was recently exhumed or maybe just donated his larynx to someone in greater need.
The relentless, pounding drums of Kieran Hall and crashing bass of Matt Brass combine to rattle the swords, bows and bullet-belts of the combatants, while lead guitarist Charlie Cozza fires off sawblade riffs that fly out into no man's land and decapitate any
approaching demons.
It really makes you wonder how anyone at a Death Brigade gig ever gets out of the pit alive!
One thing is for sure, this is blackened death metal in its purest form, and I’m now considering buying a field gun and a golden chalice, just in case any of tonight’s demons try to follow me home!
STOP PRESS: Only 24 hours after playing this gig, Death Brigade won the final of Somerset’s Metal 2 The Masses, securing themselves a place on the New Blood Stage at Bloodstock in August. We wish them every success for the future!