(Andy Synn shares a few thoughts, and photos, about this year’s edition of Damnation Festival)
Those of you who know anything about me will probably remember that I used to be a regular at Damnation, going year after year after year, when it was still based in Leeds.
But, for a variety of reasons – sometimes I was out of the country, sometimes I was committed to attending a wedding or other formal occasion I couldn’t get out of, and sometimes I just wasn’t entirely into the line-up – I had yet to attend an edition of the fest after it moved back to Manchester.
This year, however, it was almost like the line-up was tailor-made for me specifically, including several major favourites, some returning legends (FYI – the announcement of Walls of Jericho was ultimately what convinced me to buy a ticket at last), and a bunch of bands I’d been keen (or, at least, curious) to see live for quite a while.
Now, to be clear, this isn’t necessarily, a full and proper “review” of the weekend’s festivities – think of it more like a journal of my thoughts as they came to me (and as much as I can remember them) over the last two days.
DAY 1: THE BEGINNING (OF THE END)
Opening a festival like this was always going to be a lot of pressure, but the sprightly young fogeys in Hundred Year Old Man make it look easy with a performance that reminds you that while they were always a good band, these days they’re a great band, and deserve to be even bigger and more widely known than they already are.
Unfortunately this made them a very hard act for the usually sublime Holy Fawn to follow, and while the band still did a good job – and certainly impressed a good chunk of the assembled audience – their more ambient and ethereal sound got a little lost in the cavernous confines of the BEC main stage, robbing them of some of their impact.
“Impact”, however, was not something that the always explosive Car Bomb were lacking when they hit the main stage next, immediately raising the bar once again as they detonated each concussive cut of pure sonic force (plus the occasional moody melodic moment) like a band living on borrowed time and determined to make the most of it.
As someone who’s been a fan of the band for a long time, was lucky enough to see their first ever UK headline show, and has been happy to see them finally getting the attention and acclaim they’ve always deserved, it really was satisfying to see them go down so well on such a big stage, and let’s hope it leads to ever bigger and better things for them going forwards.
Rwake were one of my most pleasant discoveries at this year’s edition of MDF (yes, I know I’m late to the party on this one, but we all have our blind spots, don’t we?) so I was excited to catch them again at Damnation, and while some of their proggier and/or more psychedelic moments were swallowed up by the wide expanse of the second stage environment, the band still brought the same raw intensity as they did back in Baltimore.
Eyehategod, by comparison, aren’t quite as intense as they used to be… but, honestly, I’d rather have Jimmy and Mike still with us, cranking out those ugly, sludgy grooves than falling prey to their demons and burning out, and today’s set was as much a celebration of their surprising longevity as it was a chance to see a couple of living legends in the flesh.
Of course, the word “intense” is one that can’t help but be applied to Dödsrit, whose attempt to cram as many heart-racing riffs, hell-for-leather blastbeats, and heroically hooky leads into their all-too-limited set time practically epitomised the term, every single track of their triple-guitar attack practically pulsing with pure, elemental energy.
If there’s one band that almost every attendee could agree on this year, it was the one and only Crowbar, and the rapturous reception they received from an absolutely rammed main stage crowd frequently left everyone’s favourite grey-bearded groove-slinger Kirk Windstein with tears glistening in his soulful eyes.
In contrast to this HEALTH were a potentially much more divisive booking, but in practice the band’s throbbing Industrial Rock quickly turned the entire venue into one massive cyberpunk rave, making for both an effective (and welcome) palette cleanser and one of the most unexpected highlights of the entire day.
And as if that mind-bending mental recalibration wasn’t enough, it was followed by the maddening technical complexity of Krallice, whose entire set – drawn mostly (if not entirely, sorry, I should have made better notes) from their new album – was basically one collective case of “follow that… if you dare!”
Thankfully, the band following them were the always reliable, ever-legendary Carcass, who delivered all the hits (including a number of nostalgic classics) with the confidence of a band enjoying a well-deserved victory lap going into what may well be the twilight of their career.
That being said, while Walker, Steer, and co. put in a solid, if largely unremarkable, set, Frontierer delivered one for the ages, that only just fell short of the ridiculously high bar set by Car Bomb earlier in the day. That’s how good they were.
Up next, however, were a band who never fall short, or come in second, to anyone, and the mighty Cult of Luna once again delivered a truly stunning show – every humongous wave of sound causing massive, involuntary ripples of motion amongt the assembed masses – that drew heavily on both their seminal Vertikal and their recently-released In the Shadow of Your Shadow (their best since Vertikal in my opinion) to reinforce the band’s position as true headliners, par excellence.
After which it fell to the impressive instrumental abilities of Pelican -to deliver one of the heaviest sounding sets that the third stage would see all weekend and put the day to bed in style.
DAY 2: THE END (OF THE BEGINNING)
Following the unfortunate news that neither LIK nor EYES would be making their slots, it fell to Damnation Forum favourites Swamp Coffin to give the start of the day the boost it needed, and they… were fine. Neither terrible, nor particularly outstanding, the band put in a decent enough performance, and that’s about all I have to say about that.
Belgian Prog-Metal maestros Hippotraktor fared better over on the main stage – despite some niggling technical issues – but it wasn’t until around about the halfway point of their set the band and the audience seemed to finally find an equal footing and start to groove off one another properly.
It was the twelve-legged sonic terror machine that is Mastiff, however, that really got Day 2 going… and boy, did those boys go hard with a performance whose extra bite and bark felt like the band had stepped up their game and expanded (and not just because there’s six of them) to fill the bigger stage like they really belonged there.
One of the early main-stage highlights came from the one and only Ultha, a band who I’ve been fortunate to see on several occasions prior to this and who never put on a bad show. And today was no exception, with the simple opening introduction of “we will play four songs, this will take forty-five minutes” essentially summing up the band’s all business, no bullshit approach to dark, doom-laden Black Metal.
By contrast, while there’s definitely a doomy element to the sound of eclectic multi-genre misfits Sugar Horse, there’s so much more to their sound than that, as epitomised by their vibrant performance this wekend, equal parts quiet and loud, aggressive and introspective, poignant, pensive and provocative. Sure, some of the subtlers dynamics were lost a little bit, but they’re still one of the most distinctive bands on the UK scene.
Following a short break to eat and rest my aching feet (sorry Benediction, I’m sure you were good) it was time for the big run of the day – for me, at least – beginning with an absolutely spellbinding performance from German/Ukranian Post-Black powerhouse Machukha who performed their debut album, Mochari (one of my favourite releases of 2024) in all its hauntingly atmospheric, harrowingly cathartic, glory to an absolutely packed house, all of whom (myself included) remained utterly enthralled from the first note to the very last.
As good as that performance was, though – and it really was, so if you get the chance to see them while they’re on tour you definitely should – up next was the band that ultimately sold me on the whole weekend… immortal Hardcore icons Walls of Jericho who made their triumphant return to the UK for the first time in almost eight years and practically (or, in the case of firebrand frontwoman Candace Buckingham, pretty much literally) hit the ground running right from the go, dropping killer cut after killer cut from across their back-catalogue (including their upcoming new album, which I’ll be reviewing very soon) in a hard-hitting, heartfelt display of anthemic, in-your-face Hardcore that had the assembled audience responding with ever increasing energy and enthusiasm to every thrilling, thrash-tastic riff, every raucous, insistent encitement to circle pit harder and every rage-fulled refrain of “Fuck the American Dream!“.
With the electric energy of the last set still thrumming in the air it fell to scorching Screamo-Crust quartet Lagrimas to keep the intensity going, and that they most certainly accomplished, pouring every ounce of their blood and sweat, heart and soul, into every single song, punctuated by an occasional cathartic declamation of divisive politics and corrupt policing – plus the band’s earnest appreciation for every single person who’d turned out to watch them – in what was easily one of the realest, rawest, performances of the day.
Back over on the main stage it was then time for the one and only Triptykon to make some gargantuan noise, and the main question on everyone’s lips was… exactly how much Triptykon were we actually going to get in our Triptykon set today?
Well, as it turned out, not much, as Tom G. Warrior would quickly let us know that today’s set was going to be a special “old school” one, with only two actual Triptykon songs (“Demon Pact” and the stunning “Aurorae”) making the cut.
Obviously I shouldn’t complain, as it’s always cool to hear the band Monotheist-up the likes of “Circe of the Tyrants”, “Into the Crypts of Rays”, and “Messiah” – making them bigger and darker and heavier in the way that, perhaps, they always should have been – so I’m not going to (it helps, of course, that the quartet sounded absolutely massive as always), it just sure would be nice to hear another Triptykon set (like the one at this year’s MDF) focussed purely on material from Eparistera Daimones and Melana Chasmata, as there’s just so much good stuff to choose from that isn’t being played often enough!
After another much-needed break (which, unfortunately, necessitated missing both Black Sheep Wall and Worm… though if you know my feels on the latter band you’ll know it’s not much of a sacrifice) me and my little crew grabbed a spot to see what the undefinable, indefatogable Igorr would bring to the stage.
Quite unlike anything else out there, the band’s inspired – some might say insane, but then there’s always been a thin line between genius and madness – blend of Black Metal, Death Meta, Industrial, Techno, Classical, Opera, and more – approach to music, obliterating genre boundaries while also putting on one hell of a show (vocalist Gerda Iguchi is a true star) that made them one of the most iconic acts of the entire festival, after which I decided that, having seen Weekend Nachos at Northwest Terror Fest in 2024 (and loving them, don’t get me wrong) I would finally break my Blackjazz cherry by checking out Shining and their saxophonic sounds over on the third stage (a band who, somehow, I’d always managed to miss until now).
The home stretch began with a titanic headline show from Black Metal legends Satyricon, and I must admit that when they were first announced I wasn’t entirely sure how they’d go down.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big fan (and you can find all my various reviews for them here with a pretty quick search) but I didn’t know how much their popularity had waxed or waned in recent years (after all, their last proper album was released way back in 2017).
Going by the sheer size of the crowd, and the rapturous reception that songs like “Midnight Serpent”, “Black Crow On A Tombstone”, and “The Pentagram Burns” received – with the set, unsurprisingly, focussing almost entirely on their post-Volcano era material, notwithstanding the traditional exception for the classic “Mother North” – I shouldn’t have been worried, and by the time a climactic “K.I.N.G.” brought things to a close (though I still think “To The Mountains” would be a better closer) the band practically had the entire building eating out of their hands.
Which left it to Wolves in the Throne Room to bring the proceedings to a close with a performance that practically oozed confidence and class and which – despite the fact that I don’t think their latest album is their best work (there’s a few too many moments where the “hypnotic” gets a little “soporific”) – reaffirmed them as a band with very few equals in the realm of immersive, atmosphere heavy Black Metal.
So there you have it… what a weekend. And with some of next year’s line-up already announced – including friends of Northwest Terror Fest like Black Breath, Bell Witch, and Panopticon, plus similarly awesome announcements of the likes of Cult Leader and The Red Chord – here’s hoping that 2027 turns out just as good as 2026.