“We were surrounded by bands like Animals As Leaders, Meshuggah, Plini… and the crowd could clap in time over a 7/8 time signature, too!” From a virtuoso Tool support to Rabea Massaad’s new supergroup, meet the next generation of progressive guitar heroes
In 2013, in the heart of rural Somerset, UK, a new kind of music festival was born – one that played host to some of the boldest, most adventurous and downright noisiest alternative guitar music the world had to offer.
Named after an album by cult Nottingham alt-metallers earthtone9, ArcTanGent wasn’t for casual music fans; with headliners like 65daysofstatic, Public Service Broadcasting and Maybeshewill, it was laser-targeted at post-rock, math-rock and prog obsessives.
Now into its 10th year, 2024’s festival played host to ATG’s most sprawling lineup yet, headlined by post-rock gods Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky, and bolstered by metal guitar juggernauts Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders and Plini.
But perhaps more than any other festival, ArcTanGent is a breeding ground for fresh guitar talent, and 2024’s bill was bursting at the seams with inventive playing.
This year, GuitarWorld.com Editor-in-Chief and Total Guitar contributor Michael Astley-Brown was there to perform with his band Maebe, but he was also there as a punter – and these are the players who blew his mind…
Nick DePirro (Night Verses)
Night Verses are already tipped as prog-metal’s Next Big Thing – the LA trio’s larger-than-life sonics even saw them land a blockbuster support slot with Tool on their recent European tour.
Which might go some way to explain why the crowd for their late-afternoon ATG set was overflowing with fans eager to get a glimpse of Nick DePirro’s awe-inspiring chops.
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Fortunately, anyone who couldn’t get a look-in could still hear his dizzying effects prowess, which makes highly inventive use of the DigiTech Whammy and lights the fuse on explosive riffs like the opening of standout single Arrival.
“In the beginning, I would pretty much just rip Tom Morello, as far as going up and down. I didn’t fully understand how much control you can actually have over shaping each note,” DePirro says of his approach. “Then I started realising I could manoeuvre notes, harmonics, and chords. I can do some weird stuff with the Whammy.”
DePirro is always looking to get more out of the instrument, which he regularly demonstrates on Instagram.
One of his secret weapons is alternate tunings, which he tweaks on his Music Man six-strings and Abasi Concepts eights to maximise glittering harmonics. “I always try to think about which keys lend themselves best… I try to use them as often as I can,” he says. “I feel like harmonics always sound cool.”
Taran Plouzané (Bicurious)
If you think you’ve heard everything a guitar/drums duo can do, Dublin/Leipzig-based rockers Bicurious will run those preconceptions through an industrial shredder, then steamroller over the remains.
Guitarist Taran Plouzané drops riffs that are technical, heavy and bouncy in equal measure, and it’s won the band an extremely loyal fanbase – so much so that they crowdfunded over €9,000 to help make new record Your Life is Over Now…
This was the band’s third time playing ATG, and as Plouzané proudly says, “every year more and more people are singing the riffs back to us”. His new material has taken those singalongs to their logical conclusion, employing – gasp – vocals. Yet whether his larynx is muscling in or not, his playing is built around making his two-piece sound as big as possible.
“I have to cover all melodic frequencies myself, so I’ve developed a way to write riffs that often jump between the low E string, where I keep the low-end/root of each chord going, and the higher strings, which provide the melody on top,” he explains. “Those riffs can be a bitch sometimes, though…”
Infectious hooks are bolstered by a rehearsal room’s worth of gear, which gives them gut-punching rumble and the kind of clarity that can get a festival singing along with even the most finger-twistingly complex runs.
Plouzané says the secret to his sound is “the right combination of pedals, the right signal-splitting, and the right amps”.
“It’s mainly distortion, octaves, two guitar amps and a bass amp,” he reveals. “I went through a lot of different combinations… I do currently have my eye on a new piece of gear which is way too expensive for me, and would be a big change in the way I do things. But it would save me a lot of hassle, too… *cough* Quad Cortex *cough*!”
Tommy Meehan (Squid Pisser)
As you might expect from a band called Squid Pisser, their guitarist serves up some of the most unspeakably disgusting guitar tones in hardcore or any other genre. “I try to create textures that I haven’t heard before,” says deviant six-stringer Tommy Meehan. “I love
using tons of effects and atypical melodies to keep things interesting.”
Interesting is an understatement. Performing in creepy alien masks, Squid Pisser don’t so much play their instruments as assault them. Their debut album, Dreams of Puke, doesn’t have a single song over three minutes. Some are as short as 40 seconds. It’s a breathless, brutal assault on the senses.
All the while, Meehan is conjuring as many festering tones as he can from his pedalboard, including Bananana Effects’ glitchy Mandala, Death by Audio’s Apocalypse fuzz and a number of early-noughties nu-metal faves from the Ibanez Tone-Lok series.
All that’s paired with an all-aluminium Jazzmaster-style electric from Electrical Guitar Company that’s probably suffering from PTSD. “It’s covered in fake blood and sweat and it’s all dinged up,” Meehan says. “It’s supposed to look shiny and beautiful.”
The guitarist will soon be pulling double duty as Squid Pisser are lined up to support shock-rock mainstays Gwar, who he also joined this year. “I’m excited to infuse some nasty, dirty, effects-laden stuff,” he says. “I like the potential of bringing that stuff to Gwar and making it sound disgusting sonically.” Brace yourselves…
Rabea Massaad and Joe Gosney (Vower)
The band may be new, but Vower unites two of UK alt-rock’s brightest guitar talents in Rabea Massaad (he of Toska, Dorje and Music Man signature model fame) and Black Peaks’ Joe Gosney. But don’t expect it to sound like their past projects.
“Technique and technical playing I feel is more for my other material,” says Massaad. “In this band, we want to focus on songs and vibes over anything technical.”
Vower’s music is crammed with the kind of choruses that make you want to close your eyes and scream at the sky, before a crushing riff forces you to adopt the most unholy of stank faces. It’s a welcome mashup of heavy alt-rock, textural post-rock and djent riffery – or “melodic, heavy and sometimes hopeful,” as Gosney puts it.
To deliver the wealth of moods on display, the guitarists switch between D-standard tuned guitars and baritones (Music Man Sabre and Axis for Massaad, Tele Deluxe and Gretsch G5260 for Gosney), and lean on the Quad Cortex – at least for now.
“We’ve just needed to work fast and get something that gets us the tones for the different songs quickly that we can travel with easily,” says Massaad. “When we’re doing bigger productions, I think we’ll be moving to a hybrid rig of amps, pedals and QC.”
The band already have plans to that end. “That’s always been a goal for me: to write songs that connect with people on a deep level, and I’m so thankful to finally be in a band where I feel that’s possible on a bigger scale than I’ve ever been in before,” says Massaad.
“That’s not a slight on previous bands I’ve been in, but more that I feel Vower has the potential to reach more people and connect that way.”
Federico and Nicolò Vese (Asymmetric Universe)
In terms of pure technicality, Italian prog-metal fusion brothers Federico and Nicolò Vese – aka Asymmetric Universe – were this year’s guitar standout.
But this ain’t your dad’s Pat Metheny set at the Jazz Café; the Super Vese Bros deliver a sense of groove and otherworldly licks that nod to Polyphia and Chon, coupled with djent beatdowns inspired by Periphery and Meshuggah.
“Our sound aims to incorporate many genres together, not creating compositions that have a ‘jazzy’ section then a ‘metal’ section… but rather mixing them at the same time,” explains bassist Nicolò.
Deploying that diversity within a single song means both brothers ask a lot of their instruments. Federico plays a custom-built eight-string from SIC Instruments fitted with Bare Knuckle Trilogy pickups and cunning custom wiring that delivers a fake humbucker sound in the bridge position.
Slap-happy Nicolò, meanwhile, plays a six-string Mayones Comodous, giving the pair an awful lot of octaves to play around with.
Recently signed to powerhouse prog label InsideOutMusic, the band are knuckling down on their next opus, but taking time out to play ATG was well worth it.
“It was our first big festival and we felt great to be surrounded by such amazing bands like Animals As Leaders, Meshuggah, Plini, Night Verses,” says Federico. “The welcome we received from the crowd was so warm… and they were able to clap in time over a 7/8 time signature, too!”
- Learn more about the festival at ArcTanGent.
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