Babymetal

Most metal-head parents raising their children the right way, will be aware of Babymetal’s brand of Hello Kitty meets Slipknot with power metal flourishes and the occasional techno freak-out thrown in!

For the rest of you, you may be aware of (and possibly disgusted by) a couple of ridiculously young-looking Japanese girls throwing shapes in the mainstream rock press.

Whatever you feel about Babymetal’s rapid fire, super-helium powered vocals and songs about….God only knows what, you cannot deny that tunes such as “Gimme Chocolate” and “Karate” are heavy enough and catchy enough to induce tectonic shifts and change a few minds on the day.

Disturbed

It’s been good to hear Disturbed back from hiatus, sounding reinvigorated and ready to set the world to rights once more. They’ve always split opinion but Disturbed are made for the big stage, armed with huge songs perfect for group participation and a pissed up sea of Download festival goers should be primed to ‘ooh-wha-ah-ah-ah’ along with David Draiman and co.

Last year’s Immortalized was a great record propped up by Dan Donegan’s ever expanding guitar vocabulary, more world class song writing and the kind of vocal gymnastics we’ve come to expect from the Phil Collins of heavy metal.

Disturbed’s Sunday evening slot should give Nightwish a little incentive to pull out the stops!