It’s that time of year again where we talk to as many bands as we can who are raring to blow you away at Bloodstock! Imbrium will be rocking the New Blood stage on the Saturday…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We’re all quite spread out across England, I [Alex- Keys] live in Manchester, Luke [Vocals] and Ben [Guitars] live in Leeds, we’re the resident northerners. Anthony [Bass] currently lives in London (He is originally from Newcastle but has abandoned the north – traitor). James [Drums] is almost as far away as you can get, and lives in the rolling fields of Surrey.
How long have you been playing together as a band?
For some of us, namely myself, Luke and Ben, we’ve been playing metal music together in various bands for most of our adult lives, one of which actually-played Bloodstock quite some time ago. Anthony has been a music collaborator of mine in other bands for quite some time as well, not to mention Anthony and James played together long before any of us met them.
As an entity ourselves though, as Imbrium, the full five-piece has been playing together since this time last year in summer 2025, so it’s been a quick sequence of events for us to get to this point!
Where does the name of the band come from?
The name was suggested by our guitarist Ben – it’s the name of one of the largest craters on the moon. The word sounds good an its chant-able. When you’re picking a metal band you just need something that sounds vaguely cool when you first hear it, and that did the job!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Well, to keep things simple, we could say ‘Heavy Progressive Metal’ even though for now we’re not pushing the boat out ‘prog’ wise too hard but we’re definitely working on that for the next record. For-now; the title ‘progressive’ leaves the door open for us to write without too many boundaries on ourselves creatively.
What’s your live show like? Why are people going to watch you instead of another band?
Looking at the line up for Saturday, Imbrium is the only progressive metal band on the entire day besides Leprous (who are on much later than we are) so if prog metal is your thing, then we’re your show to catch!
Have you been to Bloodstock before? What did you think?
BOA has been a part of all our personal histories. A lot us were at the second ever Bloodstock Open Air in 2006 and we’ve been regularly attending since. That first BOA festival in 2006 was a huge formative experience for those of us who were there and solidified our love of the kind of metal we play and listen to. Since then, fest has always championed grassroots and underground metal so we’re honoured to be a part of that.
Which M2tM region did you win, or did you come through other channels?
We were lucky enough to come in through alternative means [other than the M2TM competition] to get our slot at this year’s Bloodstock Open Air, something we’re all extremely proud and grateful for!
Can you put into 10 words or fewer how it felt when you realised you were heading to Bloodstock?
We love it when a plan comes together!
What sort of setlist can we expect?
The setlist is going to be a special front-to-back live run through of our debut EP, Singularity, as you would hear it playing the record. We’re all quite proud of the flow of the record and we’re excited to bring that into a live context!
Stage times haven’t been announced yet, so which other band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?
Well, we’re all extremely stoked to see Leprous and there’s very little chance of any clash with them since they’re headlining the Sophie Lancaster Stage and the last New Blood Stage band goes on 3 hours before that slot! But I know a few others in the band are also hoping to catch Nevermore so we’re hoping for no clash with them as well!
What are you working on at the moment?
For those who don’t know yet we have a full length EP currently out called Singularity which we’re very proud of. Right now we’re gearing up for the Bloodstock show to give it everything we’ve got, but alongside all this we’re currently setting our goals and targets for this ‘next-phase’ of Imbrium. Getting to play BOA was always the first goal/marker of success when starting this band and now we’re there, its all about deciding what the next marker is going to be! And of course, we’re in the continuous process of writing material for the next Imbrium record.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Wildest thing myself and Luke have ever seen was the Gorgoroth show at Wacken 2008 which involved buckets of blood, and upside- down, decapitated, impaled humans [fake ones!], four of them, at the front of the stage whilst they played.
What drink do you throw back to get yourself fired up before going on stage?
Usually Luke will be being a good boy and be chugging water by the bottle-full, to look after the pipes.
For the rest of it’s a bit less strict and maybe a light beer or two, playing progressive metal demands at least a little sobriety, but after the BOA set this year, there’s a wide variety of alcohol taste in Imbrium. Without speaking to everyone, we can still make a pretty good guess that the immediate-post-set-pourings of drink will look like the following: Anthony and James will immediately be on the cask ale, think whatever medieval knights and squires would be drinking, likely in the Hobgoblin tent! Myself and Luke will be cracking open a bottle of dark spiced rum – Kraken or the classic Captain Morgans, and Ben will be continuing on with his 24-pack-crate of Pepsi Max.
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