Summer Bash 2025: 5 Albums I Want To Be Buried With #3: Mercury’s Well!

The thing about summer in England is… either its raining or its so damn hot you wonder who put an extra 50p in the sun meter. You just can’t win. Unless you head to The Facebar in Reading of course. There you can be kept cool by the air conditioning and protected from the rain by the roof and all whilst enjoying a beverage of choice and enjoying a collection of incredible bands. You’ll find no less than eleven taking to the stage for this years incarnation of Summer Bash on 26th July at that very venue, making it a Hawaiian themed beach party not to be missed! So do yourself a favour. Grab a ticket for you and yours because not only will you not regret it but you might actually make someone else’s day too. When was the last time that happened? Getting flowers from a petrol station or a Biscoff McFlurry on the way home from work for someone doesn’t count. Need more convincing? Read on Macduff…

Here’s the line up in full:

Hidden Mothers
Masquerader
Black Skull Ritual
Buds.
Tape It Shut
Turning Point
Skin Reaper
Mercury’s Well
Gutlocker
Remnant
Killswitch Enchambers (Killswitch Engage Tribute featuring former members of Kill Chambers)

Now you’ve read the back of the VHS tape sleeve, so now it’s time to get to the main event.

The premise is simple: “Back in ancient Egypt they believed that the items their Kings were buried with would travel with them into the afterlife and so part of the burial ritual would see the mummified bodies surrounded by chariots, gold and more. Fast forward to now. If there were five albums that you’d want buried in the coffin with you to take to the afterlife, what would you choose?”

After letting Hidden Mothers and Remnant loose, for the third of edition of this new feature, we spoke to Summer Bash hosts Mercury’s Well and the Reading Progressive Death Metal trio had some impressive choices up their collective Hawaiian shirt sleeves to talk about…

Simon: “The Beyond” by Cult of Luna – “It’s difficult for me to pick just one album. Anybody who knows me well enough, knows that my favourite band are Cult of Luna, and I rarely pick favourite albums from among their discography. Discovering them, must be around 20 years ago now, had a huge impact on informing the style of music that I wanted to create. I’ll highlight this one as it recently had an anniversary, and I’ve been vibing with it a lot. It’s quite early in their discography, but it still has a sound that feels so locked in and iconically Cult of Luna”

Tiffin: “Take to the Skies” by Enter Shikari – “Growing up in the 90s, house and trance music dominated the uk charts so when I was 12 and was just getting into metal, hearing an album that blended dance music and metal blew my mind and nearly 20 years later TTTS is still the most inspiring and incredible album I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s also a bonus it was recorded in our home town, Reading”

Simon: “Sacrament” by Lamb of God – “This album was hugely influential for us as a whole, in particular, Chris Adler’s drumming for Liam has been an inspiration for a long time. We even used a signature snare on our own album, and it sounds unreal, so we can’t fault it. Randy Blythe’s vocals and the guitar work on this album are also phenomenal, I spent so much time growing up practicing vocals along to this album and riffing through “redneck” in particular. It’s part of our DNA. While I usually disagree with Liam about whether this album is better than “Ashes of the Wake”, I couldn’t be disappointed in taking this one to the afterlife with us.”

Simon: “Crack the Skye” by Mastodon – “Safe to say that if you unearth MW in a tomb this album is there, because firstly, it’s a paragon of an album. It’s one we reference back to time and again, it might be hard to see how we’d gel as a band without Mastodon and this album in particular. We’d be nothing like what we are without them. Even on the newer material, one song I’ve been working on felt like something was missing and as I hummed it through I realised I needed a guitar solo that sounds like it was almost lifted off my album. Which is a challenge and a half, to be sure. Time will tell I guess.”

Simon: “Master of Puppets” by Metallica – “Honestly, you can’t beat some of the classics. It’s iconic, it was instrumental in a lot of ways to us getting into metal in the first place. I’d like to think that there’s something of an homage to our roots in this album with tracks like ‘Mercury’s Well’ and ‘Nadir’, particularly in some of the themes and the imagery of the lyric video for the latter. Tiffin pushed me to emulate Hetfield’s eponymous down picking style for some of the heavier sections and it’s a lot clearer and heavier for it. When I turned 30, I found Metallica gaining a bit of a renaissance in my music rotation and this album in particular taking pride of place. Personally, and I think Tiffin will probably agree, it’s Metallica at their best. And at their best, Metallica are pretty much unbeatable.”

We’re proud confirm that Metal Noise dot Net is returning for a third consecutive year as the Media Partner for Summer Bash! Mercury’s Well will be hosting the seventh incarnation of their annual Hawaiian beach party themed event on 26th July 2025 at The Facebar in Reading.

Get your tickets -> here