Let's look back at Stonehenge festival 2026

 My personal favourite festival of the year has to be the Stonehenge festival in Steenwijk. It's a small festival that's centered around extreme metal. What I love about this festival is that they have always stayed exactly who they are. And they do exactly what they're good at. Just one long day of non stop loud music with a great atmosphere to back it up. 
There is no desire for endless growth or biting off more than the organization can chew or any of that type of malarkey (looking at you, Dynamo Metalfest). They know who they are, they know where they stand and they just stay exactly there. Which is a huge part of why this is my favourite festival. Well that, plus the bands that play this festival are always fantastic as well. I love the mix of more well known extreme metal bands and local names that fill the bill here. And with that, let's have a look at some of my personal highlights this year in terms of the bands I've seen! (By the way, the picture below is actually of my hand! Shoutout to RTV Oost for using it as the thumbnail for their article on Stonehenge 2026.)

Caedere
This is a band who I've been following for a very long time. Though for some reason it had been almost 10 years since I last saw them live. That was in the Willemeen all the way back in 2017. So I was very excited to see them again. I'm kind of surprised it took me this long to be honest, given that they have a pretty good reputation in the local death metal scene. 
In any case, their set was really enjoyable. I stood in the front row and let's just say my neck definitely felt the impact afterwards. Their style has gotten a bit more modern since the last time I saw them which I personally really liked. Though I must say I like their old school music as well. You should check out their most recent album "Eighty Years' War" by the way. It's really good! 
A week later I ended up seeing them again at a venue called DBs in Utrecht, where they were just as good. Hopefully in the next few years I'll get the chance to see them a lot more often than I've been able to in the past 10 years.

Severe Torture
I have to say, Severe Torture has kind of been the MVP of my festival season. I have now seen them three times throughout this festival season starting at South of Heaven in Maastricht, then Into The Grave in Leeuwarden and now here at Stonehenge.
All three of these sets were highlights at their respective events. Severe Torture has really grown a lot on me throughout these last few months. It has gotten to the point where I'm considering going to Eindhoven Metal Meeting this year as well because I know they're playing a set there too. 
They also play a style of simply pure death metal. And they're really good at it. The crowd is also always really into their set and rightfully so because the wall of sound that they produce simply can't be ignored. I'm personally a big fan of their album "Torn From The Jaws of Death". Hopefully I can find a CD of it soon because I would love to add it to my collection.

Party Cannon
It has been a long time since I last saw Party Cannon as well. I love a good slam band and Party Cannon is always near the top of my list when I think of this genre. It seems they have changed singers since the last time I saw them but I have to say that this was probably for the better because their current vocalist Daryl Boyce put on a great performance. 
Their whole thing is that, as the name would suggest, they are a party slam band. And they love showing it on stage by using all kinds of props and even a mascot. This added a lot to the entertainment value I have to say. The music is always good because I can never resist a good slam riff. And I know I've already mentioned it but the vocals were lovely. 
The crowd was really into them as well. At one point they were doing a circle pit around an inflatable pool. That's the kind of stuff that turns Party Cannon from a good slam band into legends if you ask me.

Cryptopsy
I've already dedicated a whole seperate blog post to Cryptopsy before which was prompted by their set at Stonehenge. So you know that they have made a great impact.
I don't want to repeat myself too much so I'll keep it short here for now as I already talked about this set extensively there. But Cryptopsy put on the best performance of the day for me. I was stood a bit on the side during their set and had a great time banging my head to their music. I do really hope they will come to The Netherlands again soon because I would love to see them play again.

Asphyx
If you ask me, Asphyx is the greatest Dutch death metal band of all time. And at Stonehenge they once again showed exactly why that is. There's a very distinct sound to their music that helps them stand out at a festival where all the bands are basically within the same realm of extreme metal. Some would describe their style as "death doom". I would simply call it the Asphyx style because no one does that style as well as they do for me. 
They played a great set here, which is what I'm used to from them at this point. The crowd were very into them as well. Though that is not surprising given this is basically a home turf match for them. I hope that they still have a lot left in the tank because I don't think I will ever get tired of their music. I will say though, they skipped my favourite song of theirs "M.S. Bismark". Hopefully next time I see them it's on the setlist again. 

So those were some of my favourite sets at Stonehenge this year. Some more comments on the festival itself, as I already said Stonehenge has always been a highlight of the festival season and will continue to be. One small pointer I have to give though is with the new festival layout. Most of it works pretty well but they placed the stages and the main bar pretty close to each other with the only bathroom area right in between them. This caused a pretty huge bottleneck and made it a bit of a pain whenever you needed to go to the bathroom or wanted to go grab a drink.
All in all I had a fantastic time at Stonehenge again this year as I always do. I was able to score an early bird ticket for next year as well which is good because by now the entire thing has already sold out! There are already some really nice bands confirmed for next year as well. I look forward to seeing Scordatura, Extermination Dismemberment, Krisiun and a bunch more. 

With that I'm going to call it a post. I hope to see more band announcements for next year soon. If I may put some suggestions, I would love it if Guttural Slug or Raised By Owls could play here one day. And for the bigger names, wouldn't it be great if you could book Cannibal Corpse or Dying Fetus for the headlining spot?

Bring 'em to the pit!