FESTIVAL PREVIEW: Damnation Festival 2024
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
With the summer now firmly behind us and the dark autumn nights having well and truly settled in, there’s just one more throw of the years’ festival dice to go. So, it’s all off to Manchester and the Bowler’s Exhibition Centre, for a day and a half of extremity that will see 2024 pass into history with the greatest of send-offs.
The Friday loosener - also known as A Night of Salvation - has certainly grown to mammoth proportions over the past couple of years and Gavin and co have gone all out to top even last year’s fifteen-band extravaganza.
But before I start to think about A Night of Salvation, let’s spare a thought for Lou Koller as he faces his health issues, wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see Sick of It All ripping up the Bowler’s as soon as is humanly possible.
Having Lou Koller on the Lou’s Brews Stage would have been easy pickings as a writer, sort of writes itself really; but to have Polish death metal royalty, Decapitated, returning to the Bowler’s a mere two years on from headlining the Holy Goat Stage, and for them to be playing The Negation in its entirety – for its twentieth anniversary - is more than my aged ticker can stand.
Following in the heals of the Winds of Creation and Nihility, The Negation saw the band stretching their creative wings and introducing slower grooves and a myriad time switches across the tight, half-hour runtime. From The Fury onwards, Decapitated took the death metal genre and gave it a fresh injection of intent and down-right aggression; through Lying and Weak, Sensual Sickness and The Negation itself, this is a masterpiece of extreme music, sounding as vital today as it did back in 2004.
It must be a bitter-sweet moment for guitarist Waclaw, whose brother Witold drummed on the record, but sadly lost his life in a road traffic accident while the band were on tour in Russia, at the same time of the year, back in 2007. Feels like this will be a fitting way to remember Witold, and a powerful way to close out the Night of Salvation.
German post metal collective The Ocean, themselves no strangers to the Damnation occasion, are all set to bamboozle and mesmerize with one final rendition of their 2013 album, Pelagial. An eleven-movement decent into the depths of the ocean – or the inner aspects of the human psyche – this journey is a multi-layered voyage through dense slabs of heavy post metal, offset by lighter moments, where soaring guitars are freed from their bounds to take on an angelic life of their own. Bossk set the benchmark last year with their amazing rendition of Audio Noir; there’s no reason to think The Ocean would not be giving them a run for their money this time around.
Justine and Sammy will be taking a well-deserved break from their Church Road Records duties and bring Employed to Serve back to Damnation for a complete outing of 2021’s Conquering. Their combination of metalcore and NWOAHM had put the band on the industries radar through the first three studio albums, but it was Conquering that moved the band into the upper echelons, drawing comparisons with other female-fronted UK outfits such as Svalbard, Venom Prison at al.
From the very start, Conquering is out to make a point: opener Universal Chokehold might start with a softly-softly approach, but soon revert into hard hitting riffs and screamed vocals; and World Ender all-but slams its way through its whole five minutes. By the time Stand Alone comes around, it’ll be a miracle anyone’s still standing.
UK82 legends Discharge have picked up the hardcore baton unfortunately relinquished by Sick of It All and make a second appearance at the festival after their 2010 slot. This time around, we’re going to get the debut Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing in its fourteen song, twenty-seven minute glory. From the title track, through The Nightmare Continues, A Hell on Earth, to The End (literally), many of this album’s tunes are permanent fixtures in Discharge’s set list, but it’ll be great to hear some deep cuts like I Won’t Subscribe and the Metallica-covered Free Speech for the Dumb. But, at the end of the day, it’s Discharge and they’re brilliant everywhere and every time.
Another band returning from the 2022 show is Insanity Alert who’re promising a crazy opening to the evening with a combined Speak English or Die / Moshemian Thrashody set. SOD classics and irreverent reworkings of Queen, GNR, and George Michael, and a sacrilegious – and highly entertaining – version of Maiden’s Fear of the Dark (Beer in the Park) could well set the tone for the whole damn weekend.
For those with darker leanings, there’s always the Cult Never Dies Stage whose roster features five of Christendom’s most blasphemous bands. From Prague come headliners, Cult of Fire with their epic and unusual focus being more aligned to esotericism, Buddhism and Hinduism, rather than the tried and tested shots across Christianity’s bows. Blending blasts with soaring synths, expect more of a ritual than a full-blown assault of the senses.
Solo artist Mizmor takes the elements of Black Metal and blends in Doom and Drone, offering a devilish concoction of the soul sucking with the nihilistic and morose. His latest album, 2023’s Prosaic, is four tracks bleak and doomy darkness, perfect for the night before Damnation.
Shipping out of Boston, MA is Morne, bringing their 2023 record, Engraved with Pain to the Bowler’s in its entirety. Four tracks of crushingly dark atmospheric music, sure to enrapture and unsettle in equal measure. Part of the UKBM scene back in the late noughts/ early teens, a movement that birthed the likes of Winterfylleth, Wodesthrone and Old Corpse Road to name but a few, Fen thrive on building atmosphere through long compositions, exploring all corners of their craft, taking the listener from crushing lows to dizzying heights and back again, all within the same song. Nottingham’s Underdark take the black metal blueprint and infuse it with influences as diverse as Deftones, Mogwai and Deafheaven, incorporating blackgaze and post-hardcore into their unlimited range.
Of the many great things about the Damnation weekend, one is the profusion of post metal and post rock bands that seem absent at other UK events. It’s as though Gav and co have cornered the market on the genre and hook the best on offer year after year. Sponsored by one of the premier genre labels, the Pelagic Records Stage plays host to five of the company’s best and brightest.
I last caught up with Danes, LLNN a couple of years back when they played main tour support to The Ocean, where they bludgeoned and battered – and occasionally caressed – their way through an set of uncompromising heaviness and despair. Their post metal hellscapes can challenge anything on the Cult Never Dies Stage for sheer nihilistic terror. Looking forward to this one.
Recently released forth album, An Empire, finds Swedes A Swarm of the Sun straddling the gap between post metal and post rock with a brooding melancholy and haunting refrains. The near twenty-minute The Pyre is enough to reduce all to tears of emotional ruin.
Britol’s Sugar Horse have already lain waste to one UK festival this year, with their set at Uprising being one of the highlights of that show, and, with new album, The Grand Scheme of Things, just hitting the racks, the band will be buoyed and ready to take on anything A Night of Salvation might send their way. Having recently review the new record, it’s a racing certainty Sugar Horse will be one of the show’s highlights. Also sporting a new record is Belguim’s post rock pioneers, Hippotraktor, with Stasis hitting the racks back in the summer. Progressive and complex, without losing the accessibility, the quartet promise the choice between themselves and Fen will be a difficult one. Opening the stage is Norna, whose self-titled has hardly had time to get settled on the shelves after a late-August release. The Swedish trio certainly won’t be skimping on the weight and battering affects when they take to the stage; only worry is that anyone will still be standing after they’re done.
And so to the main event. Now in its nineteenth iteration – damn that pesky plague – Damnation has long been a highlight of the musical year, bringing curtain down with an annual celebration of the heavier side of things. I go back to October 2005 and the first show at Jilly’s Rock World, Raging Speedhorn headlined a bill that included Gorerotted, Gutworm, Sikth and – yes, you are reading this right – Entombed as second stage headliners!
The recent announcement of a full weekend event for 2025 in honour of the twentieth anniversary suggests we at The Razor’s Edge will be doing a full retrospective piece on Damnation’s history and it’s move from Manchester to Leeds and back again.
But that’s for another time (watch this space). For now, Damnation 2024 is offering its most eclectic bill yet – which is certainly saying something – brining on a headliner who haven’t played here before, despite being one of the country’s most iconic metal acts.
Something of a Marmite band, Cradle of Filth have spent the last thirty-years provoking a reaction of some sort; I imagine Dani Filth would rather that than be ignored and, if there’s one thing you can’t do with these Suffolk sorcerers is ignore them.
Whatever your opinion, Dani and company have earned the right to be labelled National Treasures and their body of work speaks for itself. Never having compromised their vision, though the Sony release, 2003’s Damnation and a Day, felt needlessly overblown, especially following the masterpiece that is Midian.
Since then, Cradle have released some of their strongest material, with more recent records, Hammer of the Witches and Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay ranking as some of their best.
For their Damnation debut, however, the Filth are promising an exclusive Old School Ritual Performance which, I’m thinking, sounds like going back to the early days of the band; and having issued Total Fucking Darkness and Dusk and Her Embrace: The Original Sin into general circulation, can we expect a journey back to the fledgling days of Black Metal and Cradle’s attempt to Anglicize the Scandinavian?
Whatever they do, it’s bound to bring Damnation 2024 to a memorable end.
Orange Country metalcore mob, Bleeding Through make their Damnation debut this year and bring with them their 2003 album This is Love, This is Murderous in all its glory. Although their third full-length, the band’s first two records were rather low-key affairs, so This is Love… is considered their de facto first outing.
And what a first outing it proved to be. Starting with the iconic Willem Defoe line from The Boondock Saints, before dropping straight into the ripping bombast of Love Lost in a Hail of Gunfire.
Highlights of the set will undoubtably be Love Lost…, the other Boondock introduced Revenge I seek, the edgy On Wings of Lead and the title track itself.
The core of the band which recorded This is Love… reformed in 2017, with only the guitarists John Arnold and Brandon Richter not being part of the original sessions.
Also making their Damnation debut is Chicago, IL post rock / post metal instrumentalists Russian Circles who’ll be celebrating twenty-years as a band with the crowd at the Bowler’s and who, across their eight studio albums have both mesmerised and physically moved in equal measure. The sheer power of their music is likely to shake the building to its core. Hard-hats might be advised.
Formed in 2009 by former Terror guitarist Todd Jones, Nails is the meeting point of hardcore, punk, grind and powerviolence, all coming together to form the most unholy cacophony imaginable, This year’s Every Bridge Burning is the first album from the band in eight years and finds Nails in their familiar shock and awe tactical assault. No quarter will be asked, and none given when the band make their return to the Damnation stage.
At the time of writing this the final running orders of the Bowler’s three stages had yet to be announced, so I’ve split the rest of the bill into subgenres(ish) for general ease.
This year’s festivities take place mere days after Halloween and the vestiges of the spooky season will be in the air, those of a darker perspective will have something evil and unholy to enjoy in the form of Dragged Into Sunlight and their rendition of their Hatred for Mankind debut album from 2009. The balaclava-clad quartet plumb the depths of misanthropy and nihilism to generate the most infernal howls imaginable. No chance of salvation in any of the record’s fifty-minutes, and from the opening bars of Boiled Angel Buried with Leeches to the ambient climax of Totem of Skulls with further enhance the despair.
Australian progressive black metal band Ne Obliviscaris will play a run through of their own, with their sophomore release, Citadel, turning a decade old this year. The sextet, who’re no strangers to Damnation, have previous with the headliner, having supported the band on their 2015 tour, and know the tricks of turning complex dark tunes into epic bombastic blasts.
The Ruins of Beverast is essentially a one-man project of atmospheric blackened doom, fleshed out for the live environment. Inspired at a young age by Darkthrone, multi-instrumentalist Alexander von Meilenwald who, other than his full-time work with Ruins… finds time to lend his talents to all manner of other acts and artists within the genre. Danes, Hexis combine black metal with sludge and hardcore and create a pummelling racket that incorporates the best element of those styles.
If you prefer your extreme music a little less cvlt and a little more visceral, why not check out the Death Metal Damnation is serving up this year? The war machine that is Memoriam need no introduction, with five albums of rampant confrontational music under their belts, this hybrid of Bolt Thrower and Benediction is the pinnacle of what the UKDM scene has to offer in 2024. While the tunes harken back to the member’s previous bands, there’s nothing backward looking about anything this Brummie four-piece do.
Virginians Inter Arma staddle so many genres they could have landed in almost any of the categories I’ve used here. The blend of death, black, sludge and post metal is a storming experience, that’s the musical equivalent of alcohol and an energy drink, in that your body simply doesn’t know how it should handle such a thing. With their latest record, New Heaven, out this year, we can probably expect a mixture of the old and the new. Gatecreeper made waves at Bloodstock Open Air last year, when the sun was shining brightly; imagine what sort of atmosphere the band will generate in the darker confines of the Bowler’s?
Fuming Mouth have come all the way from Milford, MA, to be with us, bring their crust-infused DM; 200 Stab Wounds started the year touring with Cattle Decapitation, and made a lot of friends in the meantime with their uncompromising brutality, and Enforced take the extremity of DM and mix with some Crossover Thrash.
Making a swift return is Celeste who mesmerised 2022’s Night of Salvation with their headlining set of the Assassine(s) album. The French outfit bring the post metal and then tarnish it with blackened sludge. If you caught their set back then, you know what kind of noisy battering is heading our way. Local lads, Pijn don’t have far to come to deliver their post rock melancholy, heavy and cathartic the Manchester mob have mastered the morose and aren’t afraid to use it.
German death doomsters Ahab make swift amends for their last cancellation last year by making as speedy a return as possible. Another band with a couple of decades behind them, change to air material from 2023’s The Coral Tombs record must have the four-piece chomping at the bit to hit the stage. Gaelic band Hangman’s Chair imbue their sound with a wistful melancholy that might not hit as hard as some, will reduce even the most stoic to tears.
Following Lord Dying’s unfortunate withdrawal, death pop collective High Parasite, featuring My Dying Bride’s Aaron Stainthorpe, will fill the gap with the gothic sounds of Christian Death and Grave Pleasures, taken from their spanking new debut, Forever We Burn. Black Tusk, with their new album, The Way Forward, promise a punishing performance; and fellow Americans, Rezn, out of Chicago, IL, bringing the psychedelic sludge and shoegaze to the party.
Dutch super-group Dool gather together members of The Royal Blood, Elle Bandita, GGGOLDDD and The New Media for a dark rock experience and Occult stylings; A.A. Williams is no stranger to the dark and morose and promises to be a highlight of the festival for me.
Flying the flag for a more modern sound is post hardcore outfit Gillian Carter whose edgy compositions will no doubt bring chaos to whichever stage they find themselves upon.
All the elements at in place to make this Damnation event a memorable one and to kick off the celebrations of the twentieth year. But there’s thirty-nine band here to remind us all that Damnation #19 is not just making up the numbers.
Roll on the start of November!!!
Photo credits: Tim Finch Photography
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