Bloodstock 2024 – Band Feature: Goblinsmoker

Bloodstock Open Air 2024 is right around the corner. Taking place August 8th to August 11th, the UK’s premier metal festival has, once again, delivered a stellar line-up. Featuring four stages of music and a litany of bands from within the rock and metal world, alongside numerous other forms of entertainment (such as official bin jousting)! You don’t want to miss out, so get off that fence, and pick up your tickets now!

Buy Bloodstock Open Air 2024 tickets here.

There are a lot of bands on the bill, and some you may not be that familiar with, which is where we come in. As is our yearly custom, we will be running features on many of the bands playing, aiming to give you some insight into who they are, what they do, and why they are a must see at the festival.

Goblinsmoker

All hail the Toad King.

Active since around 2016, and originally just a Durham-based one-person project, Goblinsmoker has grown into a living and croaking entity that combines the bleak atmosphere of black metal with the fuzz-soaked riff worship of doom. All while having a fun and fascinating mythology around the story of the Toad King. A mythology that is fully entwined in the band’s sound, lyrical content and art.

Who or what is the Toad King? The discontented ruler of the goblins. Their forest home is a place where goblin subjects willingly sacrifice themselves to be smoked by their King.

This concept grew, the band turned into a two-person project, and led to the first release in a planned trilogy, an EP called ‘Toad King’.

Imagine walking through a thick mist on a cold night. You’re lost and the light from the moon is giving the fog around you an ethereal feel. You’re scared but have no choice but to continue onward in the hope that your salvation lies somewhere beyond. Toad King is the soundtrack to your fear and discomfort. Tripped out doom with impossibly bleak heaviness that weighs you down, this EP is every bit as dark and cold as death.

The EP, released by Sludgelord Records, was very successful and while the duo never planned to play live, that changed soon after and the Goblinsmoker live experience was born. Bringing in a bass player to become a three-piece, it didn’t take long for the band to solidify their live credentials.

A three-track live release called ‘Toad. Toked. Live.’ came in 2019, before the second part of the trilogy was released in 2020. Called ‘A Throne in Haze, A World Ablaze‘, the story saw the Toad King and his army of goblins ride to war against his own kind, manipulated by the goblin shaman.

A fantastic release and fans were more than happy to re-enter the world of the Toad King. A world that has no qualms with making the soundtrack as deep, dark and fuzzy as possible. After all Goblinsmoker are a maddening amalgamation of black, doom and stoner and if that terrifies, then be warned, it is exactly as described.

The praise just kept coming in, their shows were getting bigger, and even though the COVID period halted most of what they could do, that didn’t stop them releasing the ‘Sweet Paravoid’ EP in 2022 via APF Records, which featured the title track and three live recordings.

2024 has been a huge year for Goblinsmoker already, and them playing Bloodstock this year feels apt. Not just because the Toad King has well and truly risen, but because the third part of the Toad King trilogy is on its way. An instalment that picks up further down the line from where the last ended, with a world now ruled by goblins. We discover what that world has in store for the Toad King, with every move that has gone before revealed for what it really was.

All hail the Toad King, and you can join in on the worship on the Sunday of the festival on the EMP stage. It’s going to be very special, but don’t take our word for it though. We spoke to Goblinsmoker about what it means to play Bloodstock 2024, what the festival means overall, and what attendees can expect from their show.

Playing Bloodstock means a huge amount of us. As a band who were never meant to play live, to find ourselves playing such a big festival is incredibly humbling and special. People coming to check us out can expect big, slow, fuzzy riffs, with a sprinkling of black metal bleakness, all wrapped up in a fantastical tale of a goblin smoking toad.

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