Reviews / Ritual Union
Review: Ritual Union – ‘Embraced contrast and chaos’
Ritual Union festival returned to Bristol on March 28, and it captured everything that makes the city’s music scene so vibrant, turning the centre into a network of discovery, noise and near-constant movement.
The setting for the first festival of the season was three of Bristol’s most celebrated venues: Electric, Rough Trade and Strange Brew, all side-by-side making stumbling between sets and new music discovery easier than ever.
New for 2026 was the addition of the Lanes, serving as a hub for festival-goers to recharge and connect over their highlights of the day. Throughout, the bar was bustling with fellow music-lovers, the atmosphere buzzing.
View this post on Instagram
Kicking off the day was Tenderness at Rough Trade’s newly refurbished live events space. Despite the slower pace, the stripped back set and Katy Beth Young’s delicate, ethereal vocals set the bar for the talent across the festival’s eclectic line-up.
Telling stories behind her songs, taken from her debut album True released a couple of weeks ago, it’s an intimate half an hour easing the audience into a day of music discovery and more chaotic acts.
Tenderness eased people in gently to the day of rowdy chaos to come
Enter Another Country $$$$ over at Strange Brew. Pushing the sonics into more jagged, stranger territory, with a sense of unpredictability to sharpen the mood, the Manchester-based experimental duo brought their electronic audio-visual set, keeping the festival from settling into anything too comfortable.
Strange Brew was packed full of head bopping festival-goers, whilst others couldn’t fight the urge to have a proper dance at 2pm. This push and pull between familiarity and abrasion quickly became one of the defining pleasures of the festival, highlighting what made this year’s line-up unique.
Another Country $$$$ presented a more disorienting musical experience with their electronic AV set
Next door, SLAG had taken to the stage at Electric, their band logo plastered across the back of the stage reminiscent of bubblegum-pink teen mags of the early 2000s.
The band’s sound is a high energy, danceable blend of angular riffs, sharp dynamics, and sudden shifts between tender and explosive sections, as well as mid-song rhythmic switch-ups, keeping the audience on their toes.
Delivered with a strong stage presence and charismatic audience engagement, SLAG were easily one of the highlights of the day and a band destined for big things.
Destined for big things: SLAG are high energy, tender and explosive
Keeping the energy high was local punks Knives with their explosive and relentless Electric main room set, bringing a different kind of force altogether. With raucous, chaotic energy and fast-pacing, as well as the accompaniment of saxophone and occasional melodies, they create a much more distinctive sound than just another noisy punk outfit.
Where SLAG’s set was reliant on tension and release, Knives played with force and precision, an unfaltering moshpit happening down the front for the majority of the set while the band threw themselves around the stage with abandon.
The crowd were encouraged to jump, which they did, leaning intuitively into the intensity. Heaviness doesn’t feel out of place at this festival, but rather part of the emotional architecture.
Local punks Knives did what they do best and the crowd responded in kind
Upstairs at Electric is a smaller capacity room with a bar and seating area, where the majority of the evening is spent. Bands like Opal Mag deliver a set adding more playful, off-kilter texture to the day, whilst others such as Lemonsuckr brought a rowdy and mischievous vibe to the smaller room.
The latter encouraged the crowd to be part of the action rather than bystanders, members of the band leaping around, getting into the moshpit, and climbing onto the bar while playing a cowbell.
The smaller room upstairs at Electric gets packed out but is the best place to see up-and-coming acts
Similarly, Manchester indie-rock band The Guest List presented a hook-heavy, anthemic and emotionally direct live set to a crowd who knew all the words.
The stage in Electric 2 is much lower down than one would want, making it near impossible to see anything that’s going on onstage if you’re anywhere further back than the third row, which made the set feel slightly disconnected.
However, numbers such as 161, a slower moment with vivid storytelling which wouldn’t feel out of place at an early Arctic Monkeys gig or on a Fontaines D.C. album, and set closer Weatherman encourage audience members to singalong, almost everyone’s phones in the air, revealing the goings on of the stage for those towards the back.
The Guest List appear to be on the rise
Having released their debut album back in January, Dead Dads Club brought a visceral energy and soaring indie hooks with a gritty edge, drawing from themes of grief and personal loss.
Frontman Chilli Jesson leans into the front rows and moves around the stage with both a sense of intensity and the dance moves of Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker.
Tracks such as It’s Only Just Begun and Volatile present grungy sonics which feel nostalgic, with similar vibes to the Strokes and MGMT. Another highlight of the festival.
Dead Dads Club vocalist Chilli Jesson has got the moves
In the main room, Working Men’s Club made their return to Bristol for the first time since 2022.
With their blend of post-punk, synth-pop and dance music, they have the audience captivated from the beginning.
Frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant is the most animated onstage, strutting about and moving with purpose and urgency, adding to the potency of the sonics, whilst the other members remain stoic. The stark lighting and pulsating graphics behind the band adds a club-like atmosphere.
The crowd is captivated by Working Men’s Club’s dance/synth-pop fusion
Closing out this year’s festival was rising grunge quartet Keo. Almost a year to the day since they were playing a support slot up the road at Thekla, and they have Electric’s main room in their palm.
Half an hour prior to their scheduled set time, young fans are tightly packed into the standing area, desperate to get as close to the front as possible.
With the emotional resonance of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead, paired with contemporary sonics reminiscent of Wunderhorse and Fontaines D.C., their status as the next big thing and headliner for this year’s instalment of the festival is indisputable.
View this post on Instagram
Opening with Hands, the energy was high from the get-go, arms flailing frantically as drinks spilled in excitement. It’s an exhilarating tour-de-force, the crowd singing along to almost every song despite less than half of the set being officially released material.
Chants of “Keo” filled every pause between songs, and the brief moments where frontman Finn Keogh took the time to address the audience directly. Pints were raised, fans elevated on shoulders throughout the hour set; it felt like Keo is already an established, cult-favourite act.
Keo didn’t just close Ritual Union — they made the moment feel like we’d been building up to it all day.
Keo: “an exhilarating tour-de-force”
Ultimately, what Ritual Union did so well was resist the temptation for cohesion and tidiness.
This year’s line-up embraced contrast and chaos, making for a memorable multi-venue festival where new music discovery is inevitable, and where the second or third set can shift your sense of the entire day.
While potentially a risk, going with an emerging band garnering hype across the indie scene, fated for success and much bigger rooms in the future, ended up being the perfect closing set for a day stacked with the most exciting underground talent.
With the backdrop of some of Bristol’s most loved grassroots venues, Ritual Union was a vibrant festival reminding its audience just why local events are culturally essential.
All images: Katie Hillier
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
