There’s only one metal headliner at Download 2024 - and as a dedicated metalhead, I think that can be a good thing for the genre

M Shadows, Josh Homme and Patrick Stump on stage
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Five months after Bring Me The Horizon, Slipknot and a double dose of Metallica rocked Download’s 20th edition, we finally know who’s going to be topping the bill at Donington in 2024. Fall Out Boy, Queens Of The Stone Age and Avenged Sevenfold are the holy trinity topping UK rock ’n’ roll’s most sacred spot next year – and the response to that news has been, let’s say, “mixed”. However, to complain about pop-punks and stoner rockers being the main event of a “metal” festival is to actually miss the full picture.

Cards on the table: I am as fierce a metalhead as you can get. Ever since I saw Metallica headline at Donington in 2012, I’ve been a devoted acolyte in the cult of heavy music. Try as I may to broaden my palate and dabble in sugary pop or snooty jazz, I always end up returning to the face-scrunching riffery of Gojira or Cult Of Luna within minutes. And the freak metalhead in me (which is all of me) is actually incredibly satisfied with the lineup for Download 2024.

Do I listen to much Fall Out Boy or Queens Of The Stone Age in my downtime? No. I’m also someone who does not enjoy the new Avenged album, Life Is But A Dream…, despite respecting the ambition of what they’re attempting. However, I know Download has not forgotten me – nor the many hard-as-nails metalheads that return every year.

You may like

If you want your metal hard and your guitars distorted as fuck, there will be so much for you next year. Urne’s new album A Feast On Sorrow has the densest riffs-per-capita quota I’ve heard of any UK metal album this year, while Heriot are pure, discordant, brash metalcore and The Callous Daoboys promise to be the maddest set of the whole thing, thanks to their mashups of twitching mathcore and baroque pop. The likes of Bleed From Within, Alien Weaponry and Machine Head, meanwhile, are all returning metal juggernauts who absolutely levelled the festival last time they played their respective slots.

This is still only half the picture, though. When I first attended Download 11 years back, I was a naive 15-year-old who had a fascination with heavy music, but absolutely no idea who or what to begin with. My mum bought me a day ticket to the Saturday as a Christmas present purely because I’d heard of Metallica and was curious. Outside of that, what I considered skull-crushingly heavy was Disturbed or Adelitas Way. These were dark times.

But, after I entered Download with just a recognition of one headliner’s name and an enjoyment of the softest of heavy music, I emerged changed. I discovered Trivium (they were sick), Saxon (they rocked) and As I Lay Dying (they’re less fun to talk about nowadays), and this young lad with a curiosity changed.

It really is not a stretch to suggest that, in 2024, the same thing will happen to countless other people. How many will rock up just because they know that one Queens Of The Stone Age song, or because they listened to Fall Out Boy 18 years ago, and maybe – just maybe – experience the excitement of Urne and become drawn in?

If there’s one talking point that’s kept coming up again and again in recent years, it’s that heavy metal needs to extend its horizons to survive. It’s been discussed this year with the ascents of Scene Queen (also at Download 2024) and Sleep Token among demographics otherwise unfamiliar with the genre. It came up when Babymetal exposed the J-pop crowd to nasty riffs, and when nu metal came back, and it’ll damn sure be argued over again whenever the next big thing hits. This is just another example of that. 

No, Fall Out Boy and Queens Of The Stone are not metal bands. However, if their inclusion at Download means just one of their fans experiences metal live (the best way to experience metal) and falls in love, I’m all for it. 

Matt Mills
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

Read more
Composite featuring members of Gojira, Sleep Token, Mastodon, Animals As Leaders and Spiritbox
I used to feel like a geek for loving prog metal. In 2025, it’s taking over the world – and I couldn’t be happier!
Chino Moreno, M Shadows, Amy Lee and Vessel singing on stage
Avenged Sevenfold, Deftones, Bring Me The Horizon, Sleep Token, Bad Omens, Evanescence and more announced for Louder Than Life 2025
Linkin Park/Bruce Dickinson/Bring Me The Horizon/Poppy/Zeal & Ardor
The 20 best metal albums of 2024 - as voted by the readers of Metal Hammer
Conquer Divide/Avoid/Defences/Faetooth press shots
4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine perform at the O2 Arena in London in 2025
Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine promised “the metal tour of 2025” – and The Poisoned Ascendancy may well have delivered
Mystic Festival poster
Mystic Festival is boasting one of 2025's best lineups and one of the most unique and great value metal festival experiences in the world
Latest in
Linkin Park 2024
Linkin Park launch "the best song we've ever made" Up From The Bottom
Vera Farmiga in 2021
The Conjuring star Vera Farmiga announces debut album with her heavy metal band The Yagas
'Emo' Ed Sheeran busking
Watch Ed Sheeran cover Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club on the New York subway while disguised as an emo busker
A close-up shot of the Marshall Major IV on-ear headphones on a turquoise, blue and black background.
I’ve never seen the Marshall Major IV headphones this cheap before - get them for half price in Amazon’s big spring sale
Evanescence in 2025
Evanescence release new song Afterlife from Devil May Cry TV series soundtrack, have their next album in the works
Tony Banks
“You only have to hear the opening sweep to reach for your lighter and wave it in the air”: Tony Banks' greatest Genesis moments
Latest in Features
Tony Banks
“You only have to hear the opening sweep to reach for your lighter and wave it in the air”: Tony Banks' greatest Genesis moments
Rick Astley and Rick Wakeman
“Rick Wakeman’s solo albums were just brilliant… when I heard he was doing Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace, I bought 12 tickets”: Prog is the reason Rick Astley became a singer
Ozzy Osbourne, Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, Jim Morrison and Joe Strummer onstage
The greatest gig I've ever seen: 24 writers pick the most memorable live show of their lives
Marillion in 1984
From debauched prog revivalists to pioneers of the internet age: The Marillion albums you should definitely listen to
Mogwai
“The concept of cool and uncool is completely gone, which is good and bad… people are unashamedly listening to Rick Astley. You’ve got to draw a line somewhere!” Mogwai and the making of prog-curious album The Bad Fire
The Mars Volta
“My totalitarian rule might not be cool, but at least we’ve made interesting records. At least we polarise people”: It took The Mars Volta three years and several arguments to make Noctourniquet