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We are extremely honoured to announce a special performance by Frente Abierto at Roadburn 2025. When Roadburn’s artistic director, Walter, saw the Spanish group at Le Guess Who? in Utrecht last November and also later had the opportunity of hearing their forthcoming debut album in advance, he knew their fiery mix between heavy rock and flamenco was perfect for Roadburn.

Frente Abierto are a collective of Andalusian musicians, led by Marco Serrato (Orthodox, Altair) and featuring ambient musician David Cordero and lauded guitarist Raúl Cantizano. Accompanying them for their incandescent live shows is a varying cast of the most inspiring voices of contemporary flamenco – at Roadburn, we will have the pleasure of hosting Sebastián Cruz and Lela Soto. Together, they become living proof that even today there are still unexplored connections between musical worlds, just waiting for someone with the right talent and courage to brave those unknown territories.

Though flamenco and the metal and heavy rock that have been the backbone of Roadburn might seem to be completely separate universes, they can merge seamlessly. Marco previously performed at Roadburn back in 2007 with Orthodox; Walter comments:
“I have always kept Marco Serrato and his music on my radar. The moment I realized he was involved in Frente Abierto and it became clear that the project and Roadburn had so much in common, artistically and creatively – it was a no brainer to invite them to play the festival.”

Marco adds:

“It is a privilege to be able to return to Roadburn after 18 years, with this new project where we have been able to take some of the essential elements of Orthodox to a level that at that time we had not even been able to conceive.”

Flamenco has always been an artistic expression of the underprivileged and oppressed. Its origins lie within the Gitano subculture of the Spanish region of Andalusia, itself a place with a unique identity influenced by Moorish and Jewish communities. Its themes have historically manifested the difficulties of lives led in poverty, typically associated with the Gitanos, becoming a crucial tool of cultural dissent for many outcasts and misfits for over two centuries. Traditionally, lyrics showcase not only the common themes of love and death but also the hardships of life led as an outcast. The roots of such struggles are well documented in music across many genres but within Frente Abierto’s work they’re presented in a unique way.

At its core, Frente Abierto embodies everything we imagine when we use the phrase “redefining heaviness”. They’ve found a way to capture the emotional weight we’ve always known and loved in our established genres and embellish it with something that is distinctively theirs. We are looking forward to welcoming Frente Abierto as a decisive centrepiece of this year’s festival.

It’s getting close! With less than 80 days to go until Roadburn 2025 kicks off, we can sense the anticipation all around us and we love seeing everyone getting really excited. We have added the last inspirational and essential artists that have made the bill feel complete, and now with almost all of the puzzle pieces in place, we are extremely happy to see our hard work coming to fruition. We hope that you will have a lot of fun discovering all the gems in the lineup and start getting those pre-Roadburn butterflies in your stomach already.

P.S. Fear not! Paradox, the renowned jazz club, will once again be a part of Roadburn. The lineup for Friday and Saturday will be announced a few weeks from now.

The latest additions to Roadburn 2025 are as follows:

• Alora Crucible will perform a set of their classical-meets-new age sonic explorations
• Bo Ningen return to Roadburn for a main stage performance of their 2012 album Line The Wall
• Bacht’n de Vulle Moane bring their raw black metal and analog synths to Roadburn
• Genital Shame will make their maiden voyage to Europe for their Roadburn debut
• Grey Aura return to present their new album Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk, in full.
• Kuunatic introduce Japanese tribal psych to Tilburg
• Mong Tong weave together sounds from South-East Asia with more traditional psych motifs from the 60s and 70s creating something fresh and otherworldly
• Morvigor combine the cinematic possibilities of prog and post-metal with expressive black metal.
• Penelope Trappes delivers atmospheric soundscapes and evocative poetry
• Silver Knife are a mysterious entity delivering full-force underground black metal
• Throwing Bricks and Ontaard join forces for a commissioned project that showcases the best of the Dutch underground.
• Toby Driver will perform his lush and voluminous solo material.

We’re over the moon to announce a collaborative performance between Sumac and Moor Mother at Roadburn 2025. Today they announced the album, ‘The Film’, which will land on April 25 via Thrill Jockey, and we already know it’s going to have a huge – and deserved – impact in the Roadburn world.

To say that it sounds like what you might expect if you put one of the most intense current heavy bands in a studio with one of the most captivating modern orators, simply doesn’t do it justice. Whilst the two elements both retain their own distinctive hallmarks, there is a new frisson of electricity present where the two paths cross. We’re counting down the days until we can witness this union on stage at Roadburn.

For many years now Roadburn has offered artists an opportunity to showcase the multi-faceted nature of their work when we invite them to be our artists in residence. In these instances, the artists will perform multiple times over the course of a Roadburn edition – sometimes with collaborators, sometimes performing full album sets, always pushing the boundaries of their creativity. For the 2025 edition – and beyond – we are adding a new kind of residency to Roadburn, one that stretches over three editions of the festival. 

Our very first triennium residency will commence in 2025 and run through until the 2027 edition. Each year of this elongated showcase will highlight different elements, different possibilities within a particular artist’s skillset. Within this structure, we hope to be able to support and nourish the development of a particular artist, enjoy watching them flourish in new ways and of course, as always, provide them with a stage to do their best work. 

The artist that we are collaborating with for our very first three-year residency is Lane Shi. She performs most often under the moniker Otay:Onii, but she is a frequent collaborator, and an artist in the truest sense of the word. Her imagination knows no limits and her dedication to creativity is inspiring. 

Lane’s first performance at Roadburn, in 2023, was with her former band, Elizabeth Colour Wheel, who also participated in a collaborative commissioned project with Ethan Lee McCarthy. That same year she performed a spell-binding solo set of her Otay:Onii material that left the audience enraptured, and us as her biggest fans. Having moved to Europe in early 2024, Lane has already made her presence felt working with musicians across multiple genres and performing in the headline-grabbing opera by Florentina Holzinger, Sancta.

For the first installment of her residency, Lane will perform her latest album, True Faith Ain’t Blind, in its entirety. With the spotlight trained on her piano playing and her distinctive voice, this is an opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in Lane’s work in its rawest, most vulnerable form. 

Of her invitation to be Roadburn’s very first triennium artist in residence, Lane said:

“Roadburn is my favorite festival on earth, I am honored and grateful. Now I put my excitement for the engine of passion: 2025! Allow me to unleash fingers to dance on the piano keys like tiptoe steps on pebble stones of a lifetime – and there’s a throat to sing for love, a hymn for joy, to mourn in grief, to weep for the wounds of an opening portal to a brave new world. For the next three years I would like to introduce you to the multimedia performance pieces that I always wanted to bring to light. From the never-ending ouroboros we diverge to a new moon, and tell a tale that was never told.”

We always want to take Roadburn attendees on a journey; every edition is different. But this time around we’re inviting you to join us to witness a special, one-of-a-kind artist develop in real time, a wholehearted journey of discovery that we’ll embark upon together.