In 1921, D.H. Lawrence went to Sardinia. An intended homage to the Italian novelist Grazia Deledda, Lawrence’s trip to Italy – with wife Frieda Lawrence – began with a journey to the island from Sicily and took in Mandas, Sorgono and Nuoro, forming the backbone of that year’s Sea And Sardinia. The highlight for Lawrence, though, was Cagliari. Then and now one of the largest industrial hubs in the Mediterranean – something today visible in its busy harbour populated by oil tankers and cruise liners – was “a naked town rising steep, golden-looking, piled naked to the sky from the head at the formless hollow bay.” In 2025, Cagliari is a working city that, whilst never one of the region’s resorts, is bustling without being overly busy, a sweet spot at the height of summer. The “corkscrew stairways” and “fine, yellowish sandstone” of Lawrence’s day are still intact in the historic Castello district, but looking down from there you will see a modern city around the Marina district of waterside bars and shops.
Beginning in the 2010s, Siren festival initially took place annually in the Adriatic coastal town of Vasto, but since its last edition in 2021 has been on pause. In 2025, Siren makes its debut at its new home of Cagliari, taking place at the MusiCA Arena at Fiera, a vast – possibly too vast – concrete outdoor space mere minutes from the harbour, whilst there are also free events including panels and workshops up on the road on the beach.
Friday night’s set by Calibro 35 is one of the biggest draws of the weekend. The band, who formed in Milan in 2007, began as a project reworking golden age Italian film soundtracks and library music, and have now evolved into what they are tonight, split roughly equal parts between older cuts and their own compositions. Their set is terrific, as thrilling working through taut, tightly controlled funk pieces as they are their more elegiac and expansive compositions, and the best points of their set reach a kind of shimmering post rock, transcending their post-war reference points. In Calibro 35’s retrofuturism, heavy use of organ textures and sincere update of 1960s and 70s cinematic sounds, they share an obvious DNA with tonight’s headliner, Stereolab. After a strong performance by Ron Gallo – the Philadelphia songwriter whose current set, accompanied grandly by a cellist, is pitched somewhere around a more darkly satirical early Leonard Cohen – Stereolab take to the stage, preceded by the one minute, gurgling analogue synth tone that introduces their new album, 2025’s Instant Holograms on Metal Film. ‘Aerial Troubles’, from that album, is the first song performed tonight, with vocalist Laetitia Sadier sounding strident and impassioned on a track that introduces Stereolab’s most consistently and unflinchingly political album to date.
The joy of second phase Stereolab in concert is their ability to dip into what is by now a vast archive of work, and find new resonances. ‘Motoroller Scalatron’, from 1996’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup, is one example in tonight’s set, its repeated refrain about society being “built on bluff” finding new meanings against Tim Gane’s chiming guitars. Even better is ‘Peng! 33’ from their 1992 debut, almost power pop in its syrup-sweet melodic simplicity and propulsive arrangement. This is my first time seeing Stereolab since the release of Instant Holograms, and it is impressive to watch its grander arrangements take flight, with Sadier performing trombone on stage during two tracks, to much applause. As the singer speaks to celebrate the vast, full moon now rising above the concrete auditorium, ahead of a gorgeous ‘Cybele’s Reverie’, it is a fitting finale to Friday night.
On Saturday, it is deathly hot. In 2025, outdoor shows in central Europe are taking place against a backdrop of escalating temperatures, and festivals should really be doing as much as possible to encourage and facilitate attendees’ individual water use. It feels frustrating and counter-intuitative to have to hand over bottles on entrance to an arena that has no free access hydration points, only water for sale. No matter: an early evening set by Desert Sharks is electric. The Brooklyn four piece punk band make splenetic but melodically rich guitar pop about womanhood, the end of the world and quotidian New York life, and their set is easily the most spirited and exciting of the weekend, with sweaty and blistering classic rock riffs brought down to earth by volleying harmonies and the band’s obvious sense of humour. And whilst Rome act Big Mountain County offer a fairly straightforward, organ-led garage rock, their performance manages to be confrontational enough to be winning.
Later, a performance by New York’s The Messthetics is one of the most anticipated sets of the weekend. Though containing members of Fugazi – its wire tight rhythm section being former drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally – anyone looking for obvious sonic references to that band’s pioneering hardcore will not find it here. Instead, The Messthetics’ jazz fusion is precise and dextrous. Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis is a lyrical and bold voice, and the set’s first half allows his playing to take centre stage. This is good, but better once they up the stakes, with motorik drums giving way to eventual cacophony. At the end, a 10 minute, near psychedelic piece lets loose in a way that the material before had only slightly threatened, guitarist Anthony Pirog and Lewis twinning melodies in a frenetic finale to the set.
As with Friday night’s headliners, Saturday’s climactic set by the Horrors sees a psychedelic British mainstay who has returned in 2025 with new music. After making one of the best British albums of the 2000s with Primary Colours, The Horrors spent the 2010s producing records that perennially pitched to shift them into a bigger league, arguably constraining their edge with arena rock generalities. In the 2020s, a slimmed down iteration of the group – with original members Faris Badwan, Joshua Hayward and Rhys Webb augmented by new recruits Amelia Kidd and Jordan Cook – are reclaiming the try-this-for-size experimentalism that powered their early phase, following up two EPs of visceral industrial sonics – 2021’s Lout and Against The Blade – with this year’s Night Life.
Tonight’s opening track ‘The Silence That Remains’ is emblematic of the new album: an itchy, noir beat frames Badwan’s now deeper croon. As a festival headline set, the band’s comfort zone remains its Primary Colours material. In 2019, I watched them perform that album in full at the Royal Albert Hall, and its shoegaze and krautrock textures risked sounding like a bit of a mulch. Tonight, happily, this sounds far better: Hayward’s guitars are as direct as a drill and no less thunderous, sounding detailed and expansive. Badwan remains a completely magnetic frontman, stomping around the stage, jerking either side of a still microphone stand. ‘Sea Within A Sea, the centrepiece of that 2009 album, is introduced as being “from the river to the sea,” and has arguably never sounded better, the band patiently emphasising its rises and falls. Late in the set, a glowing and luminescent ‘Something To Remember Me By’ reaches to the back of the large concrete auditorium.
This has been an assured and solid opening to Siren’s Cagliari era. Beyond 2025, the hope is that for future editions they’ll continue to get to grips with its large and sometimes unweildy arena space, and more confidently operate out of this unique location on Sardinia’s southern coast.
