AMBUSH – Time To Rock 2025 (Festival Blog)

**This is my story. My personal journal account of time at the festival, my thoughts and feelings. This is not a technical review of gigs, but more of a story telling my experiences and activities of attending Time To Rock Festival 2025. Hopefully, this will help inspire your attendance in 2026. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions.**

Ever hear an album that basically changes your life? One that sticks with you years later, that you keep going back to like an old standby?

For me, one of those albums is titled Desecrator and was delivered by a Swedish band called Ambush back in 2015. I knew nothing about them when I first decided to sample the album, but afterwards, I sure did some research! Desecrator placed in my best albums of the year list in 2015 and still sees rotation today. The band had one before that and one after, with a brand new collection on the way before the end of 2025. I have found friends who are aware of the band, but to be honest, not a lot. One describes them as Sweden’s best-kept metal secret. I’ve showcased songs on my radio live stream, introducing the band to Swedish listeners who had never before heard of them even!

For ten years now, I have been waiting to witness this next band on a stage and thanks to Time To Rock 2025, I finally got my opportunity. **Though I did see the band on stage at Muskelrock 2024, a Swedish festival. They were playing under the name Swedish Steel there and covering the classic Judas Priest album British Steel.

AMBUSH AT TIME TO ROCK 2025

The stage times for Ambush clashed with Laura Cox on one of the larger stages. Normally, for these instances, photographers are given songs 1,2,3 on the larger stage and then 4,5,6 on the smaller for their photo pit time. I completely ignored the large stage, even though I did also want to see what Laura Cox was all about. For me, it was Ambush from start to finish, I would not be missing one second of this gig. Upon arrival at the Pirate Rock stage several minutes ahead of the gig’s start time, I learned that for this show, no photographers were allowed into the stage front pit. This was because there was too much pyro during the set and safety first. I knew that Hampus Klang from Bullet (another awesome Swedish band) was the orchestrator of said fireworks. Atta boy, Hampus, gonna blow a ton of shit up here!

The show began with the title track from the first Ambush record, 2012’s Firestorm. And the pyro was, as expected, in full force. Next up was “Possessed By Evil” off Desecrator and I was in my glory! Fist high in the air, singing along. “Night Of Defilers” came next, keeping my fist up and vocal cords strained. **Sorry to those nearby who had to endure my horrific singing abilities.** Fireballs, flash bangs and fog machines everywhere while the band issued choreographed guitar KISS-type moves.

EVIL IN ALL DIMENSIONS IS COMING…

Five years now since the last Ambush offering of 2020’s Infidel record and the band is prepared to unleash a new album on September 5, 2025. The collection is titled Evil In All Dimensions and that title track was the first single unveiled. It was presented here as the 4th of the set and I have to say, I’m looking forward to September! Back to Firestorm now for “Heading East” before serving up the first representation of Infidel with “Hellbiter“. The uniformed code featuring black leather studded vests helped ram down the true heavy metal offerings Ambush delivered.

With “The Demon Within” up next, the second composition lifted from the forthcoming album, Evil In All Dimensions, “Maskirovka” followed. “Desecrator” was a highlight for me as one of my favourite songs from that 2015 titled album discovery that paved the way for Ambush in my musical library. I once misheard (even though I knew it was wrong, my brain is just warped) the lyric line in the song. Now I can’t help but sing it this way EVERY time. Those around must have cast some questioning stares hearing a weird Canadian sing the line “…suck my magic ass…“….lol. Supporting the thirst of his bandmates, the vocalist took turns pouring beer into the mouths of the others as they played their ass off in solos. All the while, the fireballs and flashbangs raged on!

“Natural Born Killers” came with a crowd sing-along (hopefully drowning out my horrific vocal tones. Very “Balls To The Wall“-ish overall and that’s not a bad thing! The band departed the stage and I knew the end of one of the best gigs I’ve seen was drawing to a close. But coming out from behind the kit, the drummer took the mic. “Swedish, Swedish, Swedish” and kept the crowd pumped and chanting as the flames burned. The band returned and blasted into a cover of the Judas Priest classic “Metal Gods“. He must have said something about Swedish Steel, which was awesome at Muskerock last year!

BEST OF THE FEST

Ambush finished up their Time To Rock stage experience with “Don’t Shoot (Let ‘Em Burn)“. At the end, as the band met stage front with backs facing the crowd for the ending photo, it was the drummer who captured the moment through a lens. Don’t they have a roadie or something so he could also be in the photo?

What a performance! I was so happy as I walked away, this set would be hard to top for me today at Time To Rock 2025. I head banged, fist pumped, and screamed along with every song, my photos absolutely suck though. The lens I had on is not good for distances and I’m also too damn short to see over a crowd of tall Scandis….lol. Best gig of the festival!