Mastodon Along With Bloodywood To Play At Mystic Festival In 2026

Mastodon, Bloodywood, Today Is The Day and Kanonenfieber all represent different continents, generations and aesthetics, but they’ll all find a place at Mystic Festival, as it celebrates all that’s heavy.

Mastodon

Mastodon is a beast, ruthlessly spitting out the sceptics who claim that all the best that metal has to offer was done and delivered in the 20th century. From the very first recordings, they’ve had their own sound. On Lifesblood and Remission, there was still a lot of hardcore rage, which in time mellowed out in favour of a more progressive vision. On Leviathan, the band’s sophomore album, their current style crystallised to then reach its full potential on Crack the Skye from 2009. They are absolutely modern, but they also pay their respects to the rock tradition. You can hear that the metal gods themselves bestowed this fire to them and it’s impossible to confuse them with anyone. They’re both American to the bone and absolutely universal. Mastodon are coming back to Mystic Festival, and you better be ready.

Bloodywood

“Gonna bridge the gap between west and east,” as Bloodywood proclaimed in the lyrics of “Ari Ari (Indian Street Metal),” a song that brought them out of the corners of New Delhi into the spotlight worldwide. They kept their word. On the one hand, they’ve built their style on American sounds, nu-metal and metalcore specifically, on the other hand, they’ve balanced it with the musical – or broadly, cultural – heritage of the Orient. Bloodywood have developed an absolutely original artistic identity, brought to the fore this year with the mature and original album Nu Delhi.

Today Is The Day

Those who know Today Is The Day need not any words of recommendation. They are a legend of the American scene, led by the tireless Steve Austin. A band of mediocre popularity, for they are absolutely unrelenting, traversing uncharted territories of metal, industrial, hardcore and noise rock. Their latest album, Never Give In, says it all – they never do give in. For Today Is The Day, it’s not just a title, it’s their modus operandi. Those unfamiliar with the band should know that just before the formation of another subject of today’s announcement, Mastodon, Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher played together in Today Is The Day, which you can clearly hear in the early output of the later band…

Kanonenfieber

Kanonenfieber is a European project through and through – in their sound and in their reverence for the bloody history of the Old Continent. They have remained anonymous, a tribute of the musicians to the unknown soldiers whose graves populate the Continent. The Bavarian group was formed over a hundred years after the conclusion of the First World War, the events of which the band references, perfectly channelling the absolute terror of that period. Already with their debut Menschenmühle, Kanonenfieber drew attention to themselves, and they doubled down with last year’s Die Urkatastrophe. Will it be a faux pas, given the content of their work, to say they take no prisoners during their concerts?

Mystic Festival will take place in Gdansk, Poland at the Gdansk Shipyard on June 3rd through 6th, 2026.

Tickets are available now on the Mystic Festival homepage here