Damnation Festival 2025 Review

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hello everybody, and welcome to That's Not Metal. We are
here with you every Friday talking about all that has
gone on in the world of riffs, and it has
been a very good week for them here because we
have been at Damnation Festival. That is myself, Parenheish and
Elliot Paisley, who is here the two of us. This
weekend we headed off to Manchester for another edition of

(00:48):
the UK's biggest dedicated extreme music festival. I think it's
officially the biggest indoor metal festival in Europe now or
something like that. And there is much to say about
the size and scale this year, in particular as it
expanded for its twentieth anniversary. But we were back at
one of our favorite favorite events in the calendar and

(01:09):
we're gonna let you know all about it.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Elliott's.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
There were various points across the weekend where I bumped
into you and you seemed half dead, heavy going.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
I don't, I don't know what happens to me this year?
I was, I was, you know, actually is don't happen
to happen. On Friday night, I went to see Swans,
which I should have calculated for that I should have
counted in my head that the next couple of days
might have been hardgo also, just like it was, every
road that I needed was shut, so I was. I
was on the brink of death for about three days.

(01:41):
But no better place to be on the brink of death.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, it was an intense weekend for all, even those
amongst us who did not shit the bed, which for
those not privy, that has been the major takeaway seemingly
from the damnation internet circles. The story of the guy
who posted saying morning all anyone else literally shipped the
bed last night, seemingly tried to do a good thing
of locating which food stand may have been responsible for

(02:06):
any kind of bout of food poisoning, only to have
no one else come forward, so that will live an infamy.
My favorite thing about that was the comment underneath it, saying,
I read this in the Jennifer Pig destroyer voice. It's
the only way it makes sense, and that killed me
off for a good while. Neither of us did any
bedshitting that I am aware of, but still a toll
upon us. I am back to suffering from festival flu,

(02:29):
which I feel like every report I've done like this
of late to get gets bummed up by that, so
I'm sorry for that, but's worth it. Thanks again to
the Damnation team for sorting us out. As ever, I
didn't actually catch you know, Gavin or anyone across the
weekend because everybody's running around busy, aren't they. But it
was a fantastically run event as per genuinely can't remember
a single moment of anything like even over running or

(02:51):
anything like that. And that might mean more this year
because it was the big one. Twenty twenty five was
Damnation's twentieth annivere event and for it to market for
the first time in its history, it officially expanded to
a two day festival. It has you know, we kind
of tracked its growth over the last few years, coming

(03:12):
back after COVID to the state of as I said,
you know, being one of the biggest indoor metal fests
in the world. Now, there was a bit of a
strange limbo period, perhaps with the Night of Salvation event,
which we'll address in due time, but for now, you know,
a pretty bold leap has been made to turning Damnation
into officially a two day festival that is double of

(03:33):
the band slots you have to fill. That's more tickets,
you have to sell stuff Damnation has never had.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
To consider before.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
And there are a few talking points I think from
this year's festival about where Damnation might be going as
a festival, how it's growing, what kind of trends are
we seeing in the audience, that kind of stuff. But
the most obvious difference is the fact that it's a
full two day now potentially a three day if you
are to engage in the pre show activities. We've both

(04:00):
been going to Damnation for you know, ten ish years,
maybe on and off. My first was twenty fifteen, so
exactly the halfway point of its history, the tenth anniversary.
Did it feel smooth to you.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
I suppose?

Speaker 1 (04:12):
How was it for you turning it into like a
proper two day experience.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, to the point where the idea of potentially not
being that in the future would seem weird now, which
is strange because Damnation the whole thing about it, like
me and my mates go over a year and it's
this big reunion where we all come from different parts
of the country or wherever, and it all descends on
one day. Whereas this time again partner with Swans, it
was a kind of three day four day excursion for us,

(04:39):
So the festival itself being two days, I think it'd
be weird to even if it's technically the audience of
the same size, to downscale that aspect because having it
for two days, not only does it it just make
sense and everything ran so smoothly, but it just to
me it kind of opens up the kind of bands
that you could book, because there's certain things where if
it was a one day of venue had be more selective,

(05:01):
might seem a bit far reaching. If you have two
days to play with, you can kind of get a
bit more experimental with the bands you put on.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, that's interesting, Like I hadn't actually considered that that element.
But there are a few bands on the bill this weekend.
A number of the bands I didn't see, but I
want to at least highlight that they are there, bands
like Meryl Streak, who are outside of, as you say,
the usual definition of what a Damnation band is. But
if you have got those more slots to choose from,
maybe that is where you can go. Here's a Meryl Streak,

(05:29):
here's obviously we're gonna get on into the likes of
Perturbator and whatnot, the sort of left field Damnation's booking.
I can totally see how, you know, those two days
could encourage that, And even if I don't necessarily see
every one of those, I think it is cool and
you know, healthy and more interesting maybe to have that
kind of stuff spatted along as long as you have
the core essentials of what Damnation is as well, and

(05:49):
for the space and size that it is in now,
it did seem incredibly normal, Like, you know, I can't
imagine it being a two day event back in the
Leeds student Union, you know what I mean, going there
a day in.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
A row will probably would have felt a bit strangely,
a bit rough.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
But you know, maybe it's the soft launch as well
of it kind of being a two day event when
it was the ramped up Night of Salvation the previous
couple of years. But there was no sense at all
I got in twenty twenty five of them having bitten
off more than they could chew, you know, like if
it felt like, oh that's ambitious turning to a two
day thing, you wouldn't have like you could have gone
this year and assumed it had been that forever. Because

(06:25):
the population across both days, I think that seemed pretty level,
you know, like I imagine probably one day did probably
sell more day tickets in the other one, but it
wasn't visibly noticeable if one day had like significantly outsold
the other. It felt like a lot of the same
people were around for the long haul. It was tiring, obviously,
and that can become a talking point when we get

(06:46):
into like the closing bands of each day. But you know,
for myself, by the time of Napal and their Sunday Night,
I was still functional and I was able to watch
and enjoy them and expanding the experience. It kind of
adds to feel like we've been saying this every year
for the past view since it moved to the BC,
But the kind of the unprecedented element of you're not

(07:07):
seeing this anywhere else because we're talking about underground bands,
like we're talking extreme metal bands, who if they sell
out the Underworld at five hundred tickets, that's a big success,
you know, Like I've just seen that Conjura like saw
out the Underweld for the first time, like a day
or two after Damnation, Like massive congrats to them, that's
fucking awesome. But like that's the level of kind of

(07:28):
like game changing moment for the kind of bands that
we are talking about here. Essentially playing arena type shows
in a room of this side and being able to
draw this many people. There is something about that that
is like you are stepping through a portal into a
different reality for twenty four to forty eight hours. You know,
It's like, oh, these bands were all used to seeing

(07:48):
them in our little corners, but here we will come
together and these bands are giant and doing that for
one day is enough. But managing to sustain it over
two days, with all of that extra scale and that
requires it makes it that little bit more sort of
pinch yourself unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, there's a lot of two day festival's, a lot
of three day festivals out there, but they don't know
because of the thing they provide maybe and the sort
of environment that they take place in. They allow people
to have slow starts. So I mean, like you go
to the main stage at Download and they might be
ten thousand people when the first band comes on, it's
one hundred thousand people later, damnation. It's not like it's

(08:27):
only ten percent of the people that are going to
be there all day show up for the first band.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
On each day, it's more people turn up early than late.
That's what.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, it's like you're in it for the long haul,
like everyone goes all day, which on top of the
thing of you're absolutely right, these extreme metal bands playing
an arena, it's it's among the smaller end of that
get to enjoy that wave as well because everyone's.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Will there, absolutely and like you were saying kind of
about some of the more out there bookings or whatever,
I think just the thing with two days is the
bill that it allows for because I think when you
think about those legendary Damnation sets, so you know, you know,
Dragged Sunlight doing hatreds Mankind or Nails last year, back
some years, you know, the Mariner set or bolt Thrower

(09:14):
twenty fourteen, that whole twenty twenty two top end of
like Jane do Prowler in the yards thought of this
or whatever. I don't think this year really had anything
kind of an individual moment that will live in such
infamy as those, you know, but the strength and depth
put across those two days. Now, we were saying every
time something new got added to the lineup in the

(09:34):
run up, like yeah, fair enough, this is one of
the most universally strong weekend festival lineups probably ever assembled
in this country, like if you like this kind of music,
And even with that in mind and the strength of
the bill that the Damnation team managed to put together
for at a two day event, for their first official
two day event, my biggest takeaway from this particular weekend

(09:56):
is that Damnation I think has grown to be a
festival kind of beyond its bill because the lineup is
always great, right Like, it just always is, and everybody
trusts it to be great, and obviously that's a huge
part of why it is successful. And if somehow one
year they just chat it and booked a load of
bollocks it, like, yeah, it would have an impact. I
don't think it necessarily at the too big to fail level,

(10:18):
but certainly if we are to look at like the
headliners for example, or the big like you know, huge
money bookings that festivals have to throw money at bands
to get people to turn up, the success of Damnation
I think we can say at this point, based on
this year, certainly is not hinged on the headliners, because
I think we've reached the stage where Damnation in itself

(10:38):
is the drawer where more people seem to be buying
you know, blind tickets than ever, like right now, as
we speak, right as the previous weekend has ended, more
people seem to be invested in Damnation as a brand
and a weekend experience, and as you were saying, maybe
getting together with people every year, whatever it might be,
than they are, you know, kind of fair weather waiting
to see if the lineup is particularly their thing or

(11:00):
not before biting the bullet. Obviously, there is always that
that that demographic, but Damnation has genuinely cemented itself beyond
actually what is booked every single year, certainly in terms of,
like I say, the big money.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Bookings, definitely, and I think part of that is because
and again this is maybe just my view of it
or our view of it, because it's a favorite sort
of music, but it doesn't necessarily invite part timers and
the bands which we've called extreme metal or underground metal
or whatever it is. Most of the big bands or
the bands that could headline Damnation or could take those

(11:36):
like high ranking spots, I can't think of many that
I don't like, Like, obviously you have preferences, but it's
not like something like download or even you know, nowadays Bloodstock,
where there are bands who could headline or could subheadline
or be in those top brackets, who I don't enjoy
it at all. There's Damnation. If you if you tried
to imagine who would be your least favorite headliner, it's

(11:57):
hard to think of one that would stand out as
so's there's that depends ability as well, But I think
you're right also the way they just they fill it out,
so it's not even if they were to put two headliners, well,
I wasn't crazy about the idea that the bill would
also be reflects of that seems kind of impossible.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, because you know, for all of the hubbub about
Damnation's twentieth anniversary and them pulling out the stops and
all this stuff, Napalm Death and Corrosion Conformity are not
the most blockbuster headlines that they've ever had, you know,
And that's no slight on those bands. We absolutely revere
them both. Like you just said about Damnation headliners, there
aren't any at all, if you know, many, if any,

(12:36):
that we wouldn't be excited to see, and that was
plenty excited to see both those bands. But cooc maybe
a bit of a Damnation outlier band where when they
were but people went, oh, cca, you haven't considered them
as a headliner. And then Napalm Death are such a regular,
you know, site on the tour and circuit. Neither of
those invoked that kind of like, oh my god, they've
booked what kind of you know, for example, of the

(12:58):
bolt Thrower twenty fourteen, like oh my god, bolt thrower
of that kind of ferrara. Neither of those at the
you know, those headliners aren't what made the twentieth anniversary
a big deal, right, But it didn't need that from
its headliners. It wasn't waited on that. Instead, it was
just waited on the vibes of everybody just happy to

(13:18):
be at Damnation kind of on its own merit, which
just I think seems to grow and grow all the time,
particularly now it's banning into a weekend event and so
as ever, but like I said, it just grows and
grows like it was a total mates fest. So, you know,
thankcept to everybody who said, hi, hung out whatever. The
Night of Salvation is what it should be. I think

(13:41):
now because they did run the pre show event shrunk
back down to here's a few bands in a smaller
venue to get you warmed up beforehand. So we've gotten
over the kind of controversy of the last couple of
years having what was still labeled as its own separate
pre show event, and this weird sort of like is

(14:01):
it or is it not, you know, a first day
of dan Nation, which I think was a headache for
the Damnation team. But you know, if you've booked an
all day event with a bunch of prominent international bands
in the same size venue that you're still trying to fill,
even if it's named something else and ticketed slightly differently,
it is functionally still the first day of the festival
in my eyes, pre show for the party eager somewhere small.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
That now makes sense, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
And this year they had it as a secret bill,
whereas you know, they sold out all the tickets, and
they were like, there's gonna be a few bands who
are also at Damnation, and they'll turn up and you'll
see who it is on the day. And they sold
it all blind. And that's a fun idea, I think,
provided you are again into the majority of a Damnation bill,
and provided you book the guaranteed rages. And it turned
out to be Dead Guy, Raging, speed Horn Stamping Ground,

(14:44):
and Conjura playing Maya, which, yeah, that's a perfect pre
show bill in my eyes. There was some sort of
theorizing as you'd imagine being a secret show. Who would
before The most frequently named one that it wasn't was Code,
And I was like, don't have it be Code, because
not only would I be annoyed to me because I
wasn't at this show, but that's far too esoteric for
like a blind by show.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
As well.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
You turned up to a bunch of people who haven't
brought their ticket to see this, like, you know, really
bizarre prog rock black metal band, Like it'd be bad
for me missing it, and it'd be a bad show
for them. Have it be Speedhorn and just something Larry
And it was so good, Elliott, you've already alluded to it.
You and I had very different individual pre show experiences
on the Friday night where you went to see Swans

(15:26):
in Leeds, which, by the sounds of it afterwards, it
almost turned out to be something you regret, or at
least was paying some kind of price for.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
It's really hard to say because Swan has been one
of those bucket list bands forever, and once I realized
it was going to be the same week and I
thought in the same sort of part of the country,
I thought, perfect, this is going to be some light.
I didn't really account for what Swan show was and
how much traveling I was gonna have to do the
next day. In Yeahdiyada, they played five songs, two of
which not only I neverhood, but just didn't exist on

(15:56):
it don't exist on any record and never will. The
whole thing was over two hours forty or so. It
do you know what the first ninety minutes, my friends
are we all had the same experience. The first ninety
minutes we were transfixed. It was like hypnotized, fully in it,
getting the Swan's experience. And then for I don't know

(16:17):
what happened, but some of us, we all came out
of the hypnosis at once, and it was so hard
to get back in. And a Swan show when you're
not in the zone is a weird thing. But in
a way, we actually got a full gig, but then
we had another gig afterwards immediate. It's like we had
an hour and a half, which is a normal gig length,

(16:38):
but then we did have a second hour and a
half to go, and we all kind of woke up broken.
I'm not sure what happened. I'm not sure it's something
in the air or in the sound. I don't believe
in vibrational energy per se, but something must have happened
because we were knackered, like fully defeated, which I don't

(16:59):
get the pression you had a similar experience with the
Bender you went to see.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, so while you were doing that, I went to
see Saxon playing Wheels of Steel, supported by Udo Dirkschneider
of Accept playing Balls to the Wall, which they had
inflatable balls everywhere. The bassist had balls written on his
guitar and Udo looks a bit like a ball as well,
so it was all very fitting. And then Wheels of Steel.
Side A of that record is Motorcycle Man, Stand Up

(17:26):
and be counted seven four to seven and Wheels of Steel.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
And I know you've got your.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Thing about Saxon, but that's that's a pretty unbelievable opening
runneran album in my books. And it doesn't use me
to know end that in this episode all about Damnation,
I get to insert Saxon into their Yes, but yeah,
like you, you messaged me at one point eighty five
minutes into the show and Swans are finishing up their
second song, and at that exact moment, I was watching

(17:52):
Biff sing fucking like denim leather or something, and I
was like, Yeah, I think I'm more primed for the
good vibes of the weekend and into of course Damnation proper,
though you got there later than me on both days
because you were having to come in from somewhere in
first year Swans fucking like broken, broken minded experience, So

(18:12):
I'll take us few the first kind of several bands
of the day solo. The first band that I saw
was the band who opened the main stage, which is overhead,
the Albatross, who are a post rock band. They've been
quite you know, bigged up by the you know, Damnation
selling their event beforehand is like, this is going to

(18:33):
be something you really have to see, you know, opening
the main stage, which they've done before with bands like
Nordic Giants and whatnot in that kind of slot. And
I think it was definitely a set that a lot
of people seem to have had a really like strong
emotional response to, and it's been one of the kind
of spoken about sets of the weekend for sure. I
will say for the most part, I am outside of this,

(18:56):
you know, like I am on and off with my
post rock maybe and I walked into this maybe you know,
got twenty minutes or something, and it was sort of
orchestral swells, some your stops for some dramatic kind of poetry,
spoken word bits and while words flash up behind them
like love and pain and whatnot. And I have selectively

(19:16):
made it sound a little bit better than that. It
was maybe with that, but you know, because it had
its moments of drama, like any post rock show would.
But I would say, you know, unless you are a
very big, particular enthusiast for that kind of music, I
didn't necessarily have a huge response to it.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
I did see.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
This was after I had left to go to the
next band, but I did see at the end of
their set they had put up a tribute to Brian Fitzpatrick,
who was a kind of core member of the Damnation
team who passed away not long ago. So absually of course,
huge respect for that move, very very classy, and I
understand why again there was that level.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Looking a strong response for them.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
I'll tell you what I am an enthusiast for death metal,
and I went over to the second stage to see
neck Rot, and that was the first band of the
weekend where I locked in because Neckro are killer. They
are a old school death metal power trio essentially, which
is not something you see like Mega often necessarily, and

(20:11):
they really really work it because there's just something about
neck Rop that feels like you could have plucked them
straight out of nineteen ninety or ninety one, where there's
a lot of bands maybe who feel not like Cosplay necessarily,
but there's bands who feel like almost like an approximation
of what an old school death metal band is, but
they don't quite have the genuine sort of source about them,

(20:32):
whereas Neckro legitimately feel like you could have gotten in
a time machine, grabbed those guys off of the streets
of whatever American city they might be from, yanked them
into the future, and they are playing that exact same
kind of music.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
And they are one of.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
The only bands I think who write death metal songs
like the old bands did, by which I mean legible riffs,
you know, kind of stompy tempos and big actual vocal hooks,
Like there's a song on their newest album called Drill
the Skull and it's just it's a genuine, like monster
tune for this kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Have you spent much time.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
With the neck Crop?

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Did they e have an hour like twenty seventeen ish?
There's one from Yeah, I remember hearing when it came
out and being a founder, but I haven't really followed
them all that closely.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, they've got three records and they're all great, and
like I said, the one last year has a couple
of these like genuine kind of killer tracks on it,
and there were because there were three piece. They're kind
of not reliant on overloading the sound so much necessarily
as much as it is the swagger right like it
is big ballsy, catchy riffs. I think they should be

(21:36):
more popular than they are. I think in the era
of you know, Everyone's Loves Undeath and two hundred dab
Wounds and Sanguine Sugarbolg and all these type bands, and
like I think Neckro are sort of, you know, in
a kind of category of bands like Gate Creeper in
terms of like as they actually write in the kind
of songs that you want to hear will stick around
kind of in your consciousness from that kind of music

(21:56):
and for a kind of you know, one of the
old school death metal bookings of this is Damnation Festival.
They went down Absolute Treat really really like them on
the main stage. After that was I guess the first
like massive draw overall for a big name who are
really going places at the moment. Castle Rat was on
the main stage at this point and Castle Rap. I

(22:18):
mean you've probably if you've been following that all press
in the last sort of twelve months or so, you've
probably seen slash heard of Castle Rat. We of course
we reviewed their new Sorry that their first album last year,
haven't they? And then this year they put out the
second album, which we didn't actually review because it just
came out.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
It appear where there's.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Loads of stuff going on, but it's like really been
going places for them, even compared to like when we
review the first album, I was like, keep an eye
on this band. I think it's this has got the
hall marks of something that is gonna blow up into
something a little bit bigger. And now I think off
the back of this newest album, they seem to be
pretty anointed by like a lot of areas and they're
very much a rising thing. And it's cool for Damnation

(22:58):
because you know it works on that right, Like I
wasn't necessarily shocked by it. But Damnation and what is
essentially cheesy old school heavy metal not always hand in hand, right,
Like Damnation leans more extreme metal era onwards, shall we say,
And that combination of like this is both something with

(23:18):
a very classic aura about it where you have big
fists in the air rifts and stuff like that, but
also it has the air of kind of a buzz
band where people who aren't necessarily even you know, following
the records and particularly h have, you know, there's a
curiosity factor and they want to come and see the
show that did come together to make it feel like,
oh shit, there's a lot of people around here to

(23:39):
you know, who are definitely here for and here to
see Castle Rat and I've seen them a couple of
times this year. And the show like it's very choreographed,
Like it's very I mean she takes about three minutes
to like introduce each member of the band, you know,
with like we have here the Druid or whatever, and
of the Rat Reaper es lady who comes out who
is just there to kind of wiggle about and have

(24:01):
a sword fight with with the Rat Queen at the
end of it. But I cannot say it did not
feel really good to again be at someone like Damnation
in this big room and have big, like marching harmony,
lead heavy metal guitars and stuff like that. Like on
a track like Wizard from the Newest album says, it's
like and it's just a very simple little thing, but

(24:25):
it really locked in. And they're a very comparable. I
think either side of the Atlantic there's two of these
bands who are kind of on the up right now,
and obviously in America it's Castle Right and here it's
Green Lung and Green Lung. I think when you watch
them are a bit more spontaneous, and I would say
maybe the word alive I would maybe use, like Green Lung,
you can see that they are just guys absolutely like

(24:48):
locked in and flowing with that kind of just you know,
aura of heavy metal coming coming through them. Castle Rat
is a very staged, very deliberate, quite arch you know,
showcase of this kind of thing, but the kind of,
you know, the sort of instagram worthy factor of like
this is a show, you know, which is again not
every band at someone like Damnation, which tends to lean

(25:08):
more into underground music genres, has that level. The new
album I think is good. I think, you know, the
first album maybe it still has my favorite like individual
songs of theirs like Christ for Me or Dagger Drag
or whatever. But I think, you know, this new album,
they've kind of drawn it, kind of the pieces closer
together into something that's very recognizable and clearly it's really

(25:29):
working for people. And there are like again of highlight
songs on it, like Wizard and there's a song Siren,
which has like a thrash metal kind of breakdown part
that they played that and again hearing when you're watching
the sort of seventhies doom thing to then click into
like ah thrash palm, you know, muted chugs and stuff,
really satisfying, and you know, the pieces of the show
that are tied to the new album. I mean it's

(25:51):
very like it's deliberately you know, pun intended ratty, right.
That's because that's kind of the appeal of what they
do as well. Well, I'm saying it's very choreographed. It's also
very like hand crafted costume, very bespoke and stuff, and
so like during the song wolf. I presume it's the
woman who plays the rat Pepress. She like ran out
wearing like a wolf kind of what's the word, like
a wolf skin hood and.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Like waved herself around and stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Is like I'm an animal.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
But the crowd very much you know, bought into it,
and there's a whole thing where essentially they like harness
the power of the crowd to defeat the rat Reperess,
which does essentially make it panto like it's very much
like the bestowing to me your energies and I will
you know, vanquish her or whatever. But it's very it's

(26:35):
very deliberately, you know, it's very efficiently and like well
put together, carved out panto. I suppose, like when the
rat Queen Riley when she goes down having been you know,
injured in the fight, but then she gets back up
again and then suddenly opens her mouth and spits out
a massive load of fake blood that she's obviously kind
of quickly you know, like down that before getting up

(26:57):
when she's on the floor.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Like it's it's I think.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Also they hit a really nice line and I felt
this way for ever since I saw their first like
promo photos of being obviously very big fantasy over the
top thing, but also feeling kind of tangible, like it
is it's got that kind of eighties tabletop game element
of like it's so it's it's kind of diy to

(27:22):
a point of being able to invest and buy into it,
and that kind of line I think beyond just being like, oh,
it's a big Pyro show where they have a million things,
is I don't know a particular thing that carsa rat
have at the moment, which kind of I'd be interesting
obviously if they continue to get bigger how that kind
of continues, But it was, you know, it really works
what it is for what it is right now. And

(27:43):
if Damnation want to continue booking some kind of more
old school heavy metal stuff that has an appeal into
you know, more underground metal audiences, I very much agree
with some of the requests I've seen in places like
the Forum recently for bands like Eternal Champion and Visigoth
and whatnot. If you were to get someone like an
Eternal Champion at Damnation, I think you would see obviously
maybe not on the same level of like hype, but

(28:04):
I think you'd see some similar positive response to a
band like Castle rat. After that, I went over and
I went to see Dead Guy, of course, returning after
they were last here a couple of years ago. It's
weird that Dead Guy were like not a band for
so long and now literally every other damnation so far

(28:25):
they've come back. They are just regulars there, and I
was saying, this is about Dead Guy, right, Obviously the
difference between this and the last time they were here.
Last time they were here they basically had the Fixation
on a co worker stuff and maybe a bit off EPs.
Now they have a whole new album and when we
review the new album, we were like, I can't believe
that Dead Guy have just plugged right back into Like
it's one of the most insane cases of a band

(28:49):
after thirty years making an album in that kind of
span of time, and it just feelings like they have,
not that they haven't aged, but like they've just so
seamlessly plugged back into the mindset of what they're about
as a band. And my main takeaway from this particular
Dead Guy set is exactly that they played a mixture
of you know, classics from Fixation on a Coworker and

(29:11):
then new songs and if you were not familiar with
Dead Guy, you wouldn't know that. It's just it's so
like absolutely blended together in that thing, even though I
know that you probably weren't here yet for this set.
But like when when you listen to like the new
Dead Guy material, it's crazy, how just like unsort of

(29:32):
unpretentiously Dead Guy as they were thirty years ago, it is,
it's mad.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
It's it's thirty years you kind of take it for granted.
But I might even said this at the time, but
like that's only a handful fewer years than when Black
South made thirty Enough the Never Say Die. I mean,
it's a wild amount of time. And you think about
that band and that you go, they sound so much
older and so much slower Dead Guy just that second,

(29:58):
that second record, If it weren't for the product, you
really would have no clue.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, And as I'm saying live, that is very much
now what it is that they were playing, like certainly
like the first couple of tracks on the record, kil
Fee and barn Burner and stuff, And then you've got
Apparatus or whatever from Fixation, and those two things next
to each other is just absolutely seamless. And then you
add that onto what is already the innate Dead Guy

(30:22):
appeal of its kind of metallic hardcore from before it
became very homogenized, and there is still this like hearing
metallic hardcore but played as this like manic black flag
ranting members falling apart. Nothing really hangs together neatly, and
all of this is complimentary by the way, Like the

(30:44):
guitarist he does the backing vocals. For some reason, he
had his mic stand literally at about waste level, so
he'd be playing and then suddenly he just bends down,
like have to fully lean over to shout gango. So
I don't know if that's an intentional choice or what,
but like nothing, nothing seemed to hang together in a
normal way for about a Dead Guy. I think is
a great deal of what makes them interesting and special

(31:06):
because it is this like rickety, almost decaying but really
nasty and scathing kind of sound, and the they're very
lovable I me even the fact they did the Night
of Salvation right, and they were the one international band
who did the Night of Salvation, and they are they're
like they're in name Sure it's a niche, but they
are in name band right. They're a band who have

(31:27):
a legacy. They're a band who have like fucking decibel
Hall of Fame features and like a documentary about them
and this kind of stuff, and to come back and
still be no ego enough to be like, we're a
hardcore band, will turn up and we'll play your pre
show where we've not even been I know they kind
of leaked at themselves, but we've not even been officially
announced to be part of it. For whatever fee that

(31:48):
might have been. That's still the vibe you get from
a Dead Guy show. It's the bunch of it's just
a bunch of unks and we love them and they're
they're incredible, the kind of crue side stage. One that
was a guy side stage and I don't know who
he was. Someone told me after see's like a food
review or something. But there was a guy aside stage
who was like stealing a bit of the spotlight because
he was going absolutely mental and like dancing and throwing

(32:08):
his arms around, and if you were sort of on
the pop part of the stage where you could see him,
and he was having like videos of him films and stuff,
and it's like, who the fuck is this guy? That's
like apparently it's like the number one Dead Guy fan
influencer or whatever, but it's just it's it's ramshackle in
a brilliant way that I love that they can come
back after so long and still essentially feel like they
are that getting the van bunch of bunch of guys

(32:31):
and now they have a bunch of like killer new
material to bolster out a set list of what was
all the killer old material.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
So Dead Guy great.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
As long as they keep booking them and they keep
coming back, I will continue to go see them because
I don't think we should that for granted that Dead
Guy are not only around again but continually as strong
as they are. My early highlight of the Saturday on
the main stage was Mesa, who I were one of
the bands I was really like most looking forward to

(33:01):
checking out a Damnation. They're off the back of like
a really long, like many many date long tour with
Paradise Lost, which I wasn't able to go to unfortunately,
so I was like, yes, I need to definitely see
them at Damnation. But like they have been like really
like hard at work for the past like month and
a bit or whatever it is, doing show after show
after show, so they're clearly like what they're doing is
very like slick and put together at this point. But

(33:24):
I have been listening to that album like all year,
and the thing I was really looking forward to seeing
at Damnation is just that like saltoriness about it, like that,
I mean a bit of a swing coming off the
Dead Guy when it is, like I said, just a
rickety hardcore show. But that total immersion of that Mesa album.

(33:44):
I was really looking forward to seeing it out Damnation. Then
I remember they're playing on the main stage. It's like,
fucking hell, this is like a really like you a
large room to be kind of turning into this sort
of noari goth uh, you know, kind of sphere like that.
But Mesa were, I mean as cool as cucumbers, right,
Like they look incredible. They look like Typo Negative if

(34:05):
they were around in the seventies. Like that is the vibe,
like it's so classic rock via the evolutions of goth
rock and then do metal and all of this stuff
and that kind of noir soul vibe that they have,
particularly with you know, the front woman who is so
beguiling and so entrancing in her performance, and they have

(34:28):
this like low lighting in their particular obviously for the
big room, but they kind of kept the lighting very low,
and so they turned it into that like you are
in like a nineteen forties jazz club or something where
somehow there is a goth rock band playing and you
have like this that kind of jazz singer at the
center of it, essentially, who when one of the guitarists
is off doing some incredible like space rock prog solo

(34:51):
or something, she's just kind of, you know, hanging around
at the sidelines. But the eccentricity of the album as well,
where you have those like post punk goth riffs and
rhythms on stuff like at Races, which really kind of
immediately kicks you into that kind of hypnotic post punk
sort of feel. They open with fire on the Roof,
which is just like a big hard rock song essentially,

(35:14):
but then you've also got the track later on the
album which has that We'd Fucking Buy You riff with
the slide guitar is like, I think they only did
stuff off the newest album, which was fine by me.
I don't know if anyone else might holding up some
older stuff or something, but even just when this one album,
the scope and variety of stuff that they could play,
and the best bit for me is the track immolation

(35:35):
on it, which is they like the pure piano ballad,
but in you know, a huge room doing Obviously I
was further to the front. I don't know how it
was at the back or whatever, but like I said,
managed to enrapture people and turn that large environment into
that smoky kind of bar environment with this just incredible

(35:58):
exquisite vocal performance on this very kind of stripped back
down song, but then does elevate with guitar leads and
whatnot coming in. They were mesa where pure class have
very much enjoyed them.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
This is around the time that you're entering into the picture.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Right, Yeah, this is when I got sick of being
stuck in the countryside in Halifax, which.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
You were for a while apparently, which I.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Was for a little while. But the first band I saw,
and this was the first. There were bands earlier who
I definitely wanted to see, but the first one which
was sort of non negotiable, was Portrayal of Guilt because
they've been on the bucket list for a few years now.
Basically since we're always alone carry I think I think
that's one of the best, if you call it hard

(36:43):
hardcore adjacent records of the decades so far, which is
why it was so nice of them to decide to
not play anything off it, which at this point, between
this and Swans, I was starting to take it seriously.
I was like, the bands have conspired against me. They've gone,
what does ediot want to hear? Let's not go anywhere
near that. But so the set for this one was
about I think how man they played most from quite

(37:06):
comfort was christ Fucker, which is strange because that was
like the weird, sludgy, borderline death metal follow up, so
we were always alone, which was kind of the the impression.
I guess that was the sort of sort of the
hype one, a few songs off Devil Music, a few
other bits and bobs. I actually think that was a
really smart choice because as far as a band displaying
themselves maybe to an audience who might not be super

(37:29):
familiar with them, the songs on christ Fucker are so
powerful and when they play, when they played that loud,
they sound so meaty. And then between that and the
stuff off Devil Music, which I think that really shows
off their kind of outsider art flair, which is another
thing that I think really pulls them away from some
of their peers that I keep going wanting to call

(37:51):
them a hardcore band, but I'm not sure that's completely accurate, because.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
I mean that's they're really unique sounding, I think in
the whole heart, I mean they could for me, they
kind of bridge the gap between like hardcore and scream. Oh,
and then whatever you would call bands like full of Hell,
sort of noisy grind, you know, sludge whatever, and to
you know, bridge those worlds and even just you know,
I think I watch about twenty minutes Portrayal Gill because

(38:15):
I'm seeing them again with Death Evan in a couple
of weeks, and I've seen them a couple times before.
But they are just foul, like they are so particularly live,
like the death Growley does is so just cavernous. But
the clean guitar parts, like there's there's like a legitimate,
identifiable portrayaler guilt, clean guitar sound that no other band
at the moment is doing, or if they do do it,
you go, oh, it's a bit like Portrayler Gilt. And

(38:37):
when they play those songs with that kind of weird,
horrible just like muddy kind of undistorted tone. They are
as upsetting as when they're like fully laying into it.
And I think, you know, when you watch their their
their their shows, maybe you know there's necessarily like a
huge amount of I don't know, EBB and flow in

(38:58):
a set maybe, but because there are lots of are
very short as well, but they are like at least
like short little minute and a half two minute just
fucking nightmare snippets where you go, what was that?

Speaker 2 (39:07):
It was horrid?

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Well that's what That's one of the reasons it feels
so disconnected from hardcore, not just musically, but especially now
at a time people say hardcore is not a style
or a sound, it's it's an ethos, it's a it's
a community or whatever. If I jumped on stage and
tried to grab the mic off the guy and portrayal
of Gils, I think you would bite me. Like there's
just a real unfriendliness to them, Like I'm sure they're

(39:32):
nice guys, but there's no like, there's none of that
hardcore kind of bravado of like you know, get on
the stage, I get my arm around you. There's there's
none of that thing. It's like you say, it's just
it's horrid, but they also do in their own way
put on a show. Because they've got that short film
that I think there's it was titled with Devil Music.
There were clips of that going in the background. Yeah,

(39:53):
there was a bit between two songs. I can't exactly
when it happened. Well, I think they played a three
six Mafia song over the PA which again just like
super bizarre, they're a wicked It's the combination of styles
and the presentation is really unique, and I think I
think it's just exactly the sort of thing The Damnation
should be booking, and again maybe the sort of thing

(40:13):
where in a previous year they might have decided not
to if they had less to play with, but just
having bands like this were so interesting and them getting
to play in front of I presume a bigger room
than they'd ever play otherwise in this country. It's it's
just they were an excellent start.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, they were booked on like the on the on
the class Finder. They were on at the same time
as Crippling Alcoholism, and like, I'm not into Crippling Alcoholism
per se, they're still time I know, but I was,
you know, I was kind of curious about that because
I I'm seeing Portrayal Guilt again in a couple of weeks,
so I might half and half it. But I was
happy to just watch some portrayler Guilt because I think
they are a I think you know, there's a lot

(40:52):
of people who see them and then go that is
a band who are one of the more kind of
leaves of mark on you certainly live bands in kind
of street music right now. I know that Dim Skewer,
who were kind of a rising UK kind of post
metal band, got booked in to fill that crippling alcoholism slot,
and I'm sure that they, you know, pulled a solid
crowd and had a Google over it as well, so
you know, good give for them around this point. I
don't know if you saw any of orbit culture. I

(41:14):
used this as a I thought of food break because
I've aired my grievances with orbit cultures before, I suppose,
and I did go out and ended up I met
up with someone and ended up just didn't even plan to,
but just had a bitch about like production and whatnot,
as old men tend to do. Were you about any
point here?

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Oh No, I've basically the same that I hadn't eaten
in like seven hours, so I thought, yeah, you and
I have basically the same complaints, so it seemed like
the right moment for me as well.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, but Orbit Culture, I think you know probably a
band who will I don't know, I'll be much damnation
again because they seem to be almost rising, kind of
out of this world, I suppose, but you know, I'm
good for them, kind of on on on that mainstay
slot went back for and when you sent home sent
me over the list of bands that you had seen them.
I'm surprised not to see this name on it, because

(42:02):
like you who went to offul Fest of all people,
I can't believe you didn't see brodikin.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
This has been This is one of the ones that
I'm most annoyed about because I forgot I didn't have
connection all weekend. I forgot to get a screenshot of
my Clash Fighter, so I didn't think to check. So
I was like, well, have fire on next, Let's go
and get a spot there and have a be a chat.
And then as I was going back through it to
check that i'd seen I saw I was like, oh
for Fox, like it was. There were a lot of
bands that I forgot on the bill until a few

(42:30):
days before the first one, then got excited all over again.
I somehow neglected Bronikin, which is infuriating.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, so brodick In are a brutal death metal band
and last year they released an album that was their
first album in it must have been coming up twenty
years or something like that. So in the dedicated brutal
death metal world, that was like a you know, oh
my god, brodeka In are back the niche within the
niche within the niche whatever. And I know there were
a lot of people because their first ever UK show,

(42:58):
because they never played in kind of the early two
thousands when they were making their their first records, there
were a lot of people who were into that kind
of music where this was like the bucket list thing,
you know, and uh, everything I'm about to say as
a compliment, but my mate who I watched this with,
was like, I feel like I've lost brain cells after
watching this because this was I mean, for a start,

(43:21):
they kept introducing songs as being off the X album
name CD, so it's like they hadn't times don't change,
we brittle death, You're still you're still advertising your CDs.
But every single song for Prodigin was and when I
say brittle death metal, it's not slam right, like it's
fast brittle death metal, like it's blasty as hell. And

(43:43):
every single song of Prodigin was. Again I know you're
you're like, oh man, I should have been there, and
it would be a case of like, oh yeah, we're
gonna slow things down, We're gonna do a slightly slow one,
just again and again. For about forty five minutes. They

(44:03):
had a full set of and it was, I don't
get wrong, like it was sick. It was sick as hell,
but it was like watching, you know, three guys go
absolutely to fucking town on their instruments. But it was
like watching guys who and then let's say like a
martial artist or someone who has practiced one particular punch
or kick again again and again until he is the

(44:26):
most powerful guy in the world at that kick but
hasn't done anything else.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
And this was like, it was an incredible thing because
I was like, you've.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Been doing this for like, you know, twenty five years
or whatever, and you haven't You came back and you
haven't changed or anything. Really your approach and it's like
you are people who are unbelievably dedicated, getting like years
and years into being unbelievably proficient at playing one song.
They played that song repeatedly and it was fucking awesome

(44:56):
and it was just like so absolutely head battering. It
did make me go, Damnation need to put Dying Fetus
because I don't know what that's I guess one of
the bigger deathut bands who probably never played Damnation. Obviously,
Dying feat is fucking crush wherever they go. But for
like a niche, brutal death metal poll, a band rocking
up for their first UK show, having a huge crowd,
you know again in that second room, it was always

(45:18):
populated in there, but just putting on a masterful display
of again again was brain cell battery was absolutely the
way to put it.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
But I wouldn't have changed it.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
It was a lot of fun, and yeah, the death
metal faithful who were like, I've waited twenty years to
see this band doing this one thing. I trust none
of them were disappointed because they absolutely delivered. As you
said on the main stage after that, High on Fire,
who haven't played Damnation ten years. The first time I
saw High on Fire was the Damnation ten years ago.

(45:52):
But every time I see high on Fire, I just
think like, is there a mightier band in the world
of metal? Just particularly live the full blown power of
three piece fucking blood and thunder heavy metal raw. I
don't know if you've seen High Fire before, how regularly

(46:12):
we might have seen them, but every time I see them,
I just get that, like a burning love of the
power of the riff rises within me and does not debate.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, this was This was another bucket list band for me,
especially following that Nola Special. I know they're not a
Nola baand but just being in the zone of sludgy,
stoner and flat metal, it's exactly what I was looking for,
and especially partner with the headliner that was coming later.
It was the sort of thing where I hadn't really
clocked it until the Dead come and thought, I'm getting
to see both of these on the same day. They're
so lined up. This is actually my first time seeing

(46:48):
Matt Pike on a stage, which star struck could be
too strong a word, but.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
He earns it.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
I think he's one of the characters who earns it.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah, you kind of look at that is the Matte
Pike old Matty nine toes is up there on healing
out those riffs, and you know, obviously i'd love to
see a full length set, and this was maybe more
like forty five fifty minutes or so. But yeah, as
far as you know, in setless wise, there's no way
they could have played everything I could have possibly wanted.

(47:20):
But I love that we got fairly even spread because
Come of the Storm is still a fairly new record,
and you know, it's a year and a half since
that record came out, and you couldn't blame it. They're
clearly still touring it, so they could just come and
play a bunch off that, which would have been fine
because that's gone up the ranks for me with hih
and Fire over the last year or so. But it
was nice. We still got a fairly even spread where

(47:42):
I don't know what a typical Harnifire setless pulls out.
I was not expecting rumors of war.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Oh yeah, that's a that's a staple. You missed the
fact that. Yeah, so they opened with I think it
was burning down from the new record, which I agree
that new record is fucking killed. It's one of the
best ones they've done in a while, and they're always good.
But when we got Hung, Dralled and Quartered into Rumors
of War right, which should note on the drums, they
had Ben Coller with them on drums because the drummer

(48:11):
Cody wh they've got on the new record for whatever reason,
he's kind of been you know, off the map for
them for a little while. But they've had Ben Coller
filling in, and you know, there's Damnation Royalty right there, right,
like one of the greatest drummers in the world, and
you know, seeing him do something that is obviously very
different to Converge because it is more sort of a
little bit more liquid, I suppose in those like Big
u Asso Sit High Fire, there's big kind of like

(48:31):
tom tribal esque grooves and stuff like that was you know,
just as a as a drum Norse and a fan
of these bands, it was kind of interesting to see.
But that drum fill, that drum pattern at the start
of Hung, Droll and Quartered is so powerful. And then
Rumors of War is like fucking a twenty first century overkill,
like just unbelievable banger, and that is a one two

(48:54):
punch like that is taking the piss levels of few
like pure punching through a wall fury.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
I think I think you're saying about it being one
of the most powerful bands. You know, for a three piece,
the amount of racket they create, it must take like
a fucking fair bit of work, like how do we
make the guitars sound cosmically powerful? How do we make
the bass sound like that? And just working in unison
with I don't think it's possible for Matt Pike to

(49:24):
play guitar in a subtle way. Everything he does is
just so loud and dramatic and overblown, and he makes
it look so easy. That's something with Hard Fight is
if you plug your ears, and even though that probably
wouldn't help if you if you couldn't hear them at all,
they kind of look like like they could be a
blues band. They're not throwing themselves around, They're not they're

(49:45):
not doing the Billy Joe thing of like hacking and
slashing the guitars. It all looks fairly laid back, but
the force that comes out of those speakers, it's mental.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, I mean, I agree.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
This was another set where like forty five minut whatever
they had, I mean, because I saw higher via headline
on the tour for the Newest album last year, and
it was fucking out of this world. This one was like,
oh my god, I can't believe you're at Snakes for
the Divine like already, like where has that time gone?
And as Snakes of the Vine, like I say every
single time it comes up. But that's a genuinely perfect
song for heavy metal, like absolutely stella those lead lines

(50:20):
coming in. I mean, I'm sure you felt they're seeing
it for the first time, right, it's just like absolutely
basking at the altar of the gods when it comes
to that shit.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
But he like that solo unreal.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
I have to say, on terms of the you know,
filling up a festival set thing, I thought it was
a very amusing choice to finish on Darker Fleece from
the Newest album, which they did do that at the
you know, the headline tour. But when you've got more time,
you've licened to it, when you've got a forty five
minute festival set ending on like yeah, we're gonna do
like the ten minute almost drone song from the Newest
album was a very funny choice, just absolutely milking the

(50:55):
tone for about two three minutes before kicking in at
the end. But yeah, like High of Fire are particularly
for like you know, a main stage Damnation band like
mid to late afternoon or whatever. You cannot there's like
there's no band better at the thing that they do
and just delivering that wallop like that was really something

(51:18):
who came after High on Fire?

Speaker 2 (51:20):
All right?

Speaker 1 (51:20):
This was Gost Ghost, the synth wave act who I
think I played Damnation before, out of the two synth
wave acts. But this made sense because he's been touring
as support for for Perturbator, which is a package that
seems to come around every few years or so. I
don't know if you saw this. I kind of watched
this from like the seats at the back because I

(51:41):
was like, I can I can see here and kind
of hear and also have a bit of a chill
and bit of a catch up with someone.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
But the thing I.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Like about Ghost is it is the most like poundingly, relentless, obnoxious,
borderline extreme version of what synth wave is. And even
though I was at the back, I certainly got that impression.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
Yeah, it was it was a headache. Like I say
that in a nice way. I I wouldn't go as
far as say this was like a letdown or anything.
I think maybe just just this is purely a personal
taste thing, But I don't know if it was necessarily
the most natural fit, if you know what I mean. Like,
I think you're right that it's the more extreme end

(52:19):
of that synth wave. I didn't really follow synth wave
very long, Like Possessed was probably one of the last
albums of that real Glory age that happened in sort
of to late twenty tens, and that album is superb.
I've not really followed Goss that much since it was.
It was odd because clearly a lot of it is
pre programmed, as it kind of has to be. There's
this other guard on stage on base. He was thrown

(52:40):
himself around, he was into it. He absolute points for energy.
But Gost himself was kind of away from the keyboard
most of the time, which I you know, it's to
be expected, but this kind of didn't dawn on me
until it was happening. But often at things like this,
if everyone's dancing, like if you're in a setting, then

(53:01):
you don't really notice that the DJ guys not necessarily
doing all that much, but it's something like damnation in
that room. You're just looking straight ahead. You go, Okay,
he's been away from the keyboard. I sound like such
a fucking old man right now, but it's like he's
been away keyboard for forty five sax. I don't know
what's like. I know, maybe this is more me and
maybe other people didn't have this experience at all. It

(53:22):
seemed to go down very well, but it was more
of a sort of stand there and let the waves
hit you.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Yeah, I'd be curious to hear actually when we get
to the other synth wave band on the bill, Yeah,
what you thought of that then? But I know there
was there are a few complaints as well that he
was one of the sets that played a fair bit
under his allotted time. I think he had forty five
minutes and he played about half an hour or something.
But again, from where I was kind of sat towards about,
it just sounded like the poundingly extreme beats of the
you know, kind of most overtly black metal adjacent. Maybe

(53:51):
synth Wave Band had, of course, to get a little
bit of a breather in because after this, when we're
entering the kind of closing run of the Saturday Death Heaven,
who this is? I think one of a few bands
that we're going to talk about, and this can be
more of a talking point maybe when we get up
to headliners. But the biggest crowds of the day weren't
the headliners, right like, I think the biggest actual draw

(54:13):
everyone really united in seeing something. Bands particularly were these
bands around kind of the six to eight o'clock maybe
up to ten o'clock whatever, you know, the kind of
upper middle I suppose, mainstage things. And when Death Heaven
got booked at Damnation and I saw there were like
three bands down, I was like, you know, obviously, fair

(54:34):
play to the festival book in whatever however that was
kind of decided, But I was like, Death Heaven are
I can't think of a more ubiquitous aside from a
few niche corners beloved you know, extreme band to have
emerged in the last fifteen years where people who don't
know shit about Damnation festival often will know who Death
Heaven are. And obviously they've branched across and they've been

(54:56):
playing other places like Outbreak or whatever. Death Eavan have
such a roared appeal. I was like, you know, you
could probably put Death Evan higher up that bill, to
be honest, and this was certainly evidence to that in
terms of the again one of the larger crowds of
the weekend on the mate it as you'd imagine for
Death Heaven and the other thing about that. Having said

(55:17):
them playing like Outbreak and whatnot. I have been waiting
all the year essentially for this because you know, the
new album came out and wasn't like March or something,
and it feels like they've played everywhere else where. They
had their summer where they played on the hardcore circuit.
Essentially they did you know, Outbreak and whatever the big
one in America is called, and touring and playing shows
with like God's Hate whatever, and it felt like, you know,

(55:40):
different corners maybe of the death even fan base got
to see Death Heaven earlier in the year, and all
year I had been thinking right end of the year,
Damnation and then as I said, they've got that tour coming
up kind of around it as well, I was like,
that's finally the time to see Death Heaven on this cycle.
And the combination of these factors Death Heaven arriving at

(56:00):
this you know, big arena they've already played earlier the
years what Outbreak is but putting on this scale of
a rip roaring Death Heaven performance two are clearly like
this is one of the as I say, fairly unanimously
agreed upon bands of the moment for our scene right now,
particularly maybe even this year, more than if they played

(56:21):
this like five, six years ago or whatever, because the
new album has been so well received. This was I
think one of the big I mean, it was one
of the highlights of the weekend for sure, but it
was certainly one of the kind of moments of it.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Yeah, I think this and the set that directly followed
it is my favorite one two of the weekend like this,
These were my two favorite sets, and right the second
of those, I'd kind of anticipated Death Heaven as much
as I'd heard brilliant things. There was a part of
me that it was strong to say doubt, but I
just thought, you know, black metal and post rock shoegayes

(56:55):
knew of all the things that they combine, they don't
necessarily trade in punch genres even I mean, I'm not
saying that black mel can't be explicitly furry, but that
atmospheric end of black Mail is often more of a
sort of stand there and enjoy it and I wondered,
and when they're playing Outbreak, I thought they're kind of
more on the American football end of things, maybe where
it's kind of you stand there and basking it, which

(57:15):
you know there's no slight against that whatsoever. So I
kind of initially start off kind of middle of the
crowd for this. Within about a song and a half,
it was I was right down the front. This was
something else, like the amount of power that Death Heaven
brought for a band who for less so these days,

(57:36):
but for a few years we're kind of seen. It's
like the poser weak black metal band. And obviously there
are a lot softer than bands like you know, like
Shooda or whatever. But when they kick off into something
like Brought to the Water, it's amazingly powerful.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
I mean they open with Doberman into Magnolia after the
newest record, and fucking I mean, Dobiman was great. Then
you get Magnolia and it's just like absolutely just blustering,
total power. As you say, When they got into Brought
into the Water after that, that was when like my
because I love that new record, but that kind of

(58:17):
you know, there's there's like the older Death Heaven fan
like Oh my god, I remember like falling in love
with this band kind of you know, over ten years ago.
Just all of that majesty absolutely flowing back to me
and again hearing reports from earlier in the year when
they were playing, you know, places at the hardcore circuit,
and George is a front man who always he used
to be this much more almost like he was always

(58:39):
an extremely physical performer, and they've always been a very
engrossing live band, Like they've always been a genuine, incredible
live band, like one of the best of their generation
for sure. But seeing the transformation of George doing that
kind of flowery arms, interpretive kind of movements that he
used to do into what we saw this BAKA, which

(59:00):
was genuinely like, oh that's a metal front man, just
like being like come on and like punching his fist
in the air and all of this stuff. I mean
to quote one of my friends who had watched it
with it was like outbreak, not even once because it
changes you, but that applying that rousing level again, large crowd,
large venue, onto the pure like genuine riding a fucking

(59:23):
jet engine like rocket fuel thing of death, and where
they only played fucking hard songs, you know, which maybe
that's the thing for them Nation. You know, they probably
played a nice mix of albums, but every song they
played was pretty full throttle. But Jesus that like I
didn't know what it was fifteen minutes and now I
can't read what exactly they had, but like it, it

(59:44):
did not stop in terms of the level of propulsion.
And that is the new track that was fucking like
rever later later in the set as well. It's like
that riffle things like hit just like sounds like a
fucking alien is playing. It's absolutely crazy, but particularly of
course when you're getting on the dream House and whatnot,
and it just feels like every person in that room,

(01:00:04):
who maybe a bunch of those, how their fucking lives
changed by that song, I don't know, but everyone is
just grinning and punching the air, and obviously the ending
fucking I want to dream moment, which is like genuine
oh yeah, an entire room shouting back a black metal
vocal refrain that is completely iconic and doesn't feel strange
or abnormal to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Be doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
But as I say, the level of propulsion and sustained
fucking gong ho fury in it not at all. I
mean if people were still, you know, ten plus years
in now have maybe not seen Death Heaven live, and
you imagine that it could be like you know, outset.
I love our set, but OLSS is very pleasant live.
Death Effort is a fucking bomb. Going off is something else.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Yeah, it's I mean, just to go back to George
Clark's performance, You're right, it was like a very mess
or performance, but it felt like every ten seconds he
was auditioning for a different band, where sometimes you're going, okay, now,
this is sort of like you want to be in
Converge now, it's you want to be in the Cure.
I can't what song it was. There was only where
he turned the way. I think he was drawing a
guitar solo. He was facing the drummer fully bumping and

(01:01:07):
grinding like nineties on. But I don't know. It was mad,
But I mean that moment when I went in dream
house when suddenly the pink lights came on and everyone
starts screaming that to me. I haven't actually listened to
sun Batha in a while because I typically if I
go for a old Death Heaven out on these days,
it's normally new Bermuda, but it reminded me of that

(01:01:29):
for me was such a period of discovery for music
and death Heaven. That record coming out was like front
and center of that. And hearing that song twelve years
after hearing it for the first time with all those people,
I wasn't quite prepared for how euphoric it was gonna be.
It was just like it genuinely felt like I sort
of suspended in time, like I don't know how long

(01:01:51):
that song lasted. It felt like ten seconds and ten
hours both at once. And the fact that that and
Brought to the Water, which are two of the best
metal songs the last twelve years or so, the fact
that they didn't feel like outrageous standouts against all the
new material, it shows you how fucking strong their new
record is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Yeah, but again, get to go back to to dream
House and thinking about complete like genuine classic, iconic songs
of you know, our musical lifetime show we say that
the modern kind of contemporary era of heavy music, there
aren't many that feel so differentive of that as a
dream House. And this goes back to what I was saying, like,
if there are any bands kind of since twenty ten

(01:02:35):
or whatever who feel like they are the Damnation headliners
right like in the way that Carcass Converge or whatever
they might be. I don't know if there's one from
the last fifteen years who feel more kind of primed
and ready and everyone would be totally gained for it,
as as Death Heaven and this was yeah, very much,

(01:02:57):
very much kind of punching in that direct, but they
were just fucking brilliant, as Evan, I'm so excited to
see the same you know band again in a smaller
venue in a couple of weeks time, just like this.
It's been a great year for Death Heaven. It's definitely
not the last time we are going to be talking
about death even this year on that stumble, because we
have a couple more months of wrapping up stuff to do,

(01:03:17):
and I think they are going to be a name
that's going to come up again and again, but finishing,
you know that that kind of that wait to see
this current sort of thing of death, even at this
huge you know event, was was really something. And the
set you are alluding to after this over on the
second stage, one that we had previewed as one of

(01:03:38):
particular interest certainly to us and some of our musical backgrounds.
Worm Rock coming back. Who you know, when I say
coming back, they're not being away for long, right, Like
we saw worm Rot like you know, two years ago
or whatever. But the original lineup of the you know,
the first couple of albums worm Era worm have always
been a somewhat unstable band, Like they would go away

(01:03:59):
for period to time, they would have people come in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
And out of the band or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
They would record albums and then the singer who's on
the album disappears and they've got someone else filling in
or whatever. But I don't know if it was just
that kind of level of instability that made oh, the
original lineup of wormro is back feel like are kind
of homecoming for people who have just been like on
the ride with them for a long time, but seeing
not only like a big stage or whatever, but like

(01:04:25):
a genuinely fully packed out like this was.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
For me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
It was the warmest set over the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
It was the one set where I was like, fucking hell,
it's a bit much in here.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
That for worm Rot, where I realized I've seen worm
Rock several times, but I don't think I've ever seen
them at a festival doing a large performance right, and
I was like, I've never seen one or with a
fucking backdrop, and here you are with like this huge
the incredible artwork from Hiss, the kind of gatefold artwork
of Makokagi, absolutely slicing that dude apart, just like blown

(01:04:56):
up behind them and looking at worm Rot in a
crowd of however many people that second room holds a
couple thousand whatever it might be, and looking at you
being like, this is something that evidently people have waited for.
They have bought their tickets specifically to see this. Have
all the kind of event type sets that could be
at you know, this year's festival, and worm Rot, who

(01:05:20):
the other times I've seen them have been in fucking
dives or whatever, big band, worm Rock. This is the
kind of thing that we're talking about with the sort
of pinch yourself. You don't see this anywhere else in
the UK certainly things you get a dam nation worm
Rock Elliott. I know for you this is like probably
the one. Wasn't that particular factor that I'm just talking
about really something to behold, particularly when the band rip

(01:05:44):
as violently as worm Rock proceeded to then do.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
Yeah, I've been so caught up in the prospects of
it being the original lineup. I hadn't really considered what
you're saying about them playing the biggest in the or
metal festival in Europe and it how busy that room
might be the thing with the nation. For me, a
calculation I kept having to make was if I wanted
to see something on the second stage, I had to
stand sort of far back or be ready to leave
the thing on the main stage, because that second room

(01:06:09):
feels like quickly to point where people kind of standing
in the foyest you have to. I don't know how
I managed it. I must have been very rude because
I was near death heaven. I saw the whole thing
and I somehow got to the front again for Worm Rots.
So if I barged past you, forgive me this once.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
I understand.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
I've seen worm a couple of times before, you know.
Once with you. We saw them at the White Hotel
in Manchester, which I don't think it's impolite to call
is basically a squat.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
It's the most crusty venue I've been to it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
The second time was on the Napalm Death tour, which
again they were great but it's you know, fairly early,
like most of the lights are still on, the room's
kind of half full. It went down really well, but
it's not the total ideal this This was so far
and away my favorite time seeing them, even though I
have amazing memories of those other shows, especially the one
of the White Hotel, which is just one of my

(01:07:06):
The whole thing around that was just weird, but this
especially was. It was the Wormrot lineup that I fell
in love with with Dirge back in twenty eleven. I'd
kind of what hope to see again, but it hadn't
really considered because no one who with the drama was
on stage back and forth playing a set list that
covered everything. I don't know what happens when those three

(01:07:29):
guys get together because Wormrot are always heavy, but they
were so explosively powerful a Damnation this year. It was
one of the most intense metal shows I've seen, at
least this year.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
It was just all go yeah and again because the
original lineup come back together, and that's to you know,
to clarify, the original lineup is the one that recorded
the first two albums, and then once you get to
the third album, obviously Riff the vocalist beyond every album,
but the drummer did change. So when we previous and stuff,
we were thinking original line up. Presumably that is majority

(01:08:06):
leaned on those first two albums, right, Abuse and Dirt,
and they played everything. If anything, I think they played
most off Hiss than any of the record. It is
still the most recent record, and I'm thinking like that
that drummer didn't play on that fucking record. He has
to learn those songs. Like imagine being I've just joined
this rejoined the band.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
You've got this fucking album and I have You're going
to playloads off it and I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Have to lock in. I mean, because I was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
I'm so impressed by musicians who play that kind of
lightning quick music, just in terms of like muscle memory
and locking in with each other. But particularly if you're
not the original guy who recorded that album in the
first place. To step in and have to learn all
those songs as well as reacclimatize yourself to the old
ones is something. But they're playing loads of his songs,
going to that kind of the early album thing. As

(01:08:52):
soon as while it was a mixed, you know, affair,
as soon as we got the intro from the first
from Dirt and that just kind of slow riff, no
one gives a shit. That did kind of take me
back to like, ah, yeah, this is that like old
you know, warm fuzzy worm rock feeling that we fell
in love with fifteen years ago or whatever. Here it

(01:09:12):
is on the stage and seeing the three guys together.
I had seen them with Arif before because I saw
them on the Voices cycle, but the times that we
saw them on the His cycle and they had that
guy Gabrielle filling in, I mean he was great, but
I think he was a little more stationary. Maybe Yeah,
I'd forgotten what a fucking ballistic missile of a human
being Rif is on the stage where he was just

(01:09:33):
running and leaping and jumping around on the spot and
going fully ape shit song to song, and it it's
such a shot of energy back into the worm rock
live bad way.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
I remember, like the Last One.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
And Rock a couple of live shows everyone's talking about
how and saying the drama was, and obviously he was
fucking phenomenal, but having a front man just fully channeling
the beast like that really added a new focal point
back into the worm rock li band that maybe hadn't
been there for the last couple of years, and not
only saying that with all the old stuff, but obviously
that also with the his stuff that he recorded as well.

(01:10:07):
We're fucking where talkie fails at the type of violence
and all of that stuff. It was Yeah, it was absolutely.
I mean I wasn't like right up the front like
you were, but even sort off to the side like
I was. It was just it felt like the room
was kind of just quivering with the energy of what
they were doing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Yeah, and you know, these guys being out of the
game for a couple years at least, you know, two
of them, you wonder are they going to be some
you know, a bit of rust when they come back.
Arif is just he's such a rock star, which is weird,
like for a grindcore band that's fairly atypical, but a
his voice is just wild, like the versatility that he

(01:10:44):
has from going those gust or grouse, those shrieks when
he goes into the hardcore register. He nails that. And
then again some of the stage patter of the one
who says that we're going to do a slow one,
this one is an eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Grind.
I suspect this one might not be slow one at all.
I suspect it's gonna be nine said, oh yeah, okay,
it's it's already over and then like Fitchery, who you're right?

(01:11:08):
I mean, I don't know what's happened in his absence.
I don't I don't know if he's been working on
music at all. But he's such an interesting like yin
to rash It was it. Rashid was the last guy.
She she's yang because Sheid played like he made it
look difficult. I mean like he just threw himself around.

(01:11:28):
You had that sort of animal from the Muppets thing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
If you just.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
Don't look below feature shoulders. It's like he's, you know,
sitting in a crane or working at a desk. And
then the amount of kinetic energy that goes to his
hands and feet is mental. Get hearing him do Pale Moonlight, Like,
not only do you have to learn of these new songs,
you've got to do the new the really hard drum solo.
Actually you're obligator to learn that. It just and I

(01:11:56):
love the bit when they were doing we're talking ends.
It's time for violence and then people running on from
side stage so like the mic and join in. It
just had this real homecoming is exactly the wood. It
felt like it was like Wormrock's birthday or something. We
were all just selling it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
It felt like seeing those three guys back up and say,
I never saw that lineup exactly, but just seeing them
together and kind of maybe however many people in that
room had been fans for a long time. Whatever, it
did have this air of like it's the boys like
it is, it's it's the homecoming, it's the the for
all the great stuff the recent lineup had done and
you know, absolutely fair play to everyone who's been in

(01:12:31):
Whemer over the years. It just someone felt right about,
like these three guys coming together and not even obviously
they're playing lots of here, so it's not like they're
throwing their recent history under the you know, under the
bus or anything. And the vibe I got from this
seeing how full the room was, how energetic the band
and the response to them was, and like I said,
with like a big you know, the artwork backdrop behind
them and stuff. It reminded me of seeing Pick Destroyer

(01:12:52):
when they did Prowler in the Yard there a couple
of years ago, and the vibe it kind of confirmed
to me what we had sort of been saying about,
which is I looked at worm Rot and I went,
this is a classic grindcore band, like this is this
is not just a current band that we all like
currently doing that thing very well. This feels like watching

(01:13:13):
like the band of their generation in that realm kind
of cement themselves as that in the way that when
you watch someone like Pick Destroy obviously, which we're going
to talk about a litt bit later, but it just
so cemented.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
One of the takeaways actually, and this is going to
come up partularly later on for me, is from danash
in this year is those kind of modern classics, if
you will, and like bands you know, you don't have
to be nostalgic for fucking thirty years ago to think
of incredible metal music, right and seeing so like whether
it be Death Heavenue and dream House even their newest material,

(01:13:48):
worm Rot doing this in the scheme of things a
younger band and going like this is something that just
we're all so clearly passionate about and clearly means a
lot to us. Yeah, I mean Spoilers, Big Dray Up
later on were very good obviously, but this was the
grind corset of the festival. Like worm Rock just absolutely
tore the place to pieces. And that's when you've got

(01:14:08):
that kind of competition, I mean fucking nap, right, and
worm Rot still felt like the band in that kind
of uber fast micro song got around that everyone was
talking about, right like even a couple of days after
they played it really says something so massive, uh, you know,
commendability to worm Rot Perturbator as the I guess you
call them again the Damnation running all the restrained because

(01:14:29):
headline has barely seemed to matter. But I suppose a
fisher you call them the subheadline. At the festival. They
were the last thing on the main stage prior to
the headliner and an outlier, right because I said, there
has been since we've at Damnation in small amounts Ghosts
you know has played it before. But Perturbator is like
the big gun in that field, right obviously, along with
Carpeted Brute, but Perturbator kind of being drafted in to

(01:14:52):
play Damnation, which demands then a bigger level of you know,
bigger slot, bigger level of production all this kind of
stuff than those slight, rattier ones maybe working their way
up the sidelines, have historically had at somewhere like Damnation.
It's the kind of left field booking that again worked.
I mean I was stoked when it was announced, and

(01:15:13):
it's the kind of thing that I thought that is
going to be a memorable Damnation booking, right because it's
not a death metal band, a metallic hardcore band, whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
It could be. Seeing that level of.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Essentially, I mean, Perbator is a big kind of industrial
rave show essentially, and seeing that poured into you know,
the BC in Manchester for Damnation. I've seen Pertabata several
times before because I go see him like basically every
time he tours because I love it, and like I
saw Maber this year at Mystic Festival, this kind of thing.
I got the impression that for a lot of that

(01:15:51):
Damnation crowd maybe they hadn't seen Perdator before and this
was their first time seeing something like that, and that
response was really interesting to be book I got a
lot of holy shit, I didn't know this stuff could
be like that from people who maybe hadn't seen stuff
like Pertabata before. Because again it's not every often you
get essentially a big electronic rave type show at somewhoy

(01:16:12):
like Damnation, which the extreme metal festival, But.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
In terms of.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
A genuine kind of like you can he's not at
that size yet, but he does play large venues. You
can imagine something like a Beta going on to become
like an arena size project because it is again the
production one is like that kind of rave style production.
Elliott Perturbator. I don't know if you've seen Perator before
or not, but certainly in an environment like Damnation, it
stands out a mile. But the response that seemed to

(01:16:40):
be there was a whole lot of I think metal
heads you haven't seen something of that before.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Being like whoa yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:46):
I think the wow factor of Perturbator, like if we
are going to compare them to Gost, I think they
had much more of that visually, sonically and again, like
I would imagine the ideal place to watch them at
per Space would be where everyone's you know, busting a move.
Rest assured me and my friends we were body popping,
or we were at the back near the beer stands,

(01:17:07):
so I don't think it was impressing anyone, but in
the case of this, it's I think a visually sonically
it's it's just I mean, one of the coolest looking
drum kits of forever, just so sick.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
I love those two little podium because pera bit live,
it's two guys, right, it's Nick who is on the
keyboard and also whips out a guitar every now and then,
and then the drummer. But they're both on these little
platforms that kind of move back and forth, and they'll
like come together and then they'll slide away from each other.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
It's some futuristic shit.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
Yeah, and one of the more ambitious, certainly non headliner
stage sets I've seen for someone a Damnation. And also,
I think fundamentally most importantly, of all the synthwave bands,
they just have the best songs. I think Dangerous Days
and The Uncanny Valley. If I was to do like
top three synthwave albums of that period, there's a very
good chance that would be one and two like the

(01:17:59):
jams that are on it, or Outrageous Again. When they
did the one two of Neotokyo and Weapons for Children,
which the first two songs on the Uncanny Valley, I
was like, this is this is the money.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Neo Tokyo kicking in with that intro just felt like,
I mean, it in its own sort of synth wave zone.
It feels like when the war zone opens up at
a metal set, right, and like a particular song comes
in and you go oh fuck, and the wall of
death opens all that kind of stuff. The intro in
Neotokyo was like that, like shit is about to absolutely
boom of of the Perata set, and there's you know,
songs like Future Club and whatnots well that have like

(01:18:31):
genuine hooks in them. I mean even you know, like
we you went there when we reviewed the new record,
but like I'm really into the kind of current more
sort of gothy noir, post punk influenced Pertabta material and
he's playing like Apocalypse now. The song from the new
record which has Christpin from Ulva singing the hook, and
obviously he did not have Christopher from Ulva there. The
hook itself was you know, overtape. But there are like

(01:18:52):
kind of if you are so inclined, there are sing
along esque moments now in a Perta Beta set, but
it is still built on those hard fucking beats, and
certainly in the era where I was you know, the
rare occasion of a Damnation set where people are buggying
and people are just like absolutely lost. I mean, for me,
it's just utterly instills. It's almost like you don't have
a choice so that you watch it and if you

(01:19:13):
were to stand with your arms folded ten minutes in,
there's something inside you that is just absolutely throwing down
and seeing that happened to, you know, essentially an extreme
metal crowd at a dedicated festival like Damnation, was it
totally like it was it was the payoff for the
booking for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
It was killer.

Speaker 3 (01:19:31):
Yeah, it was just it was. It was one of
those things where I was watched we say about Death
Heaven like this seems right sets up to the headline perturbator.
I think certainly before this might have been too rogued choice.
But I do think if we are looking at a
two day festival going forward, it's like, well, now this
ability to play around, you could do a lot worse.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
Yeah, And he's always like I know, as a as
an individual, Nick Kent, he has always belonged to the
kind of metal world to some degree because these he's
very deep into it and he has a lot of
links and stuff like that. I mean, the fact that
fucking Ulva feature on an outseets you know feature on
his new album kind of says it all. When I
say about Death Heaven almost feel like a Damnation headliner.
To me, that seems kind of maybe uncontroversial, least in

(01:20:15):
the kind of band they are Perturbate. Obviously having like
a full on electronic band in that position maybe is
more of an outlier, But again in terms of the
size of the crowd, in terms of the response to it,
in terms of the the acts where you were still
hearing their name being dropped later down the lines, like
oh my god, that Perturbator set.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
Was fucking unreal.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
Yeah, like this another of like the real people, even
if they had necessarily brought their ticket to see a
Perturbator or Death Heaven or whatever, they were clearly the
acts that drew everyone into the room and left the
vast majority of people incredibly impressed. And like I said,
as someone who goes sleeput a better regularly, it was

(01:20:55):
essentially the pert a bit of show that I've come
to expect blown up to you know, fill this large room,
but seeing a lot of people see it for the
first time was really gratifying because you know, we're now
ten years or whatever past the kind of synth wave
being like a trendy thing. You know, we're now at
the stage I say, that's when we review Perbator is ams.
But we're now at the stage where it's like only

(01:21:16):
the actual visionary survive I suppose, and ten years plus
into that seeing Perturbate are still blowing people's minds and
it's not this fucking passe a eighties pastiche whatever, Like
there's genuinely something there that even people who think they've
seen it all kind of get a real kick out of.
It was fantastic. And yeah, in terms of particularly as

(01:21:38):
we're saying, a two day bill, right, you can book
stuff like this that maybe would otherwise that slot would
have to go to a black metal band or a
death metal band or whatever it might be. Perturbator is
like the best fucking outlier electronic type show that Damnation
could feasibly book, and it was fucking great for that
the headliners on the other two stages. This is a

(01:22:01):
rare occasion for me because normally I can't be pulled
away from that other stage. Rare occasion for me where
the black metal stage headliner is one that I was
happy to miss, which was kind of, you know, cool
in a way because I went to go and see
the other band, who I'll talking about a minute. The
thing that's happening with Gearya at the moment is me
and Sam were discussing this recently when they released their
newest single, and I think we will continue this discussion

(01:22:21):
because I'm very curious about the album that is going
to be from, so we will continue that certainly when
that album comes out. But one of the most bizarre
trajectories that is happening to any metal band I think
right now, as I said, we will continue that discussion
when the time comes. But you know, I have seen
them live a couple times before and I thought, okay,
I'm not dead set on seeing them. I heard, you know,

(01:22:43):
a lot of people were impressed by their set there,
but I went to go and see a band who
I've never seen before, and we're another outlier pick at Damnation,
which is the World's a beautiful place and I'm no
longer afraid to die. Who were topping the smallest stage
there and this is an EO band, right Emo A Damnation.
Can you think of any such occurrence.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
But we've said before that it was an interesting time
for them to book them because their newest album that
we reviewed is scathing in a way that you know,
you said when you were were talking about like I
likes this band, where they were the kind of sort
of pleasant post rock influenced emo, you know, kids jumping
into a pool on the album cover.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
Whatever, emo band? Why is this album so angry? And
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Really curious to see it live.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
I was curiously at Damnation, where again the timing of
them booking them made sense, but it's still an outlier band,
and again I'm not like the most familiar with their
whole catalog. The impression that I got was I went
in and to least what it sounded like to me
was they opened by doing some of their older material,
because it started off a little bit like what I what,

(01:23:51):
you kind of know older While it were played to
sort of roughly sound like right, it was at times
it was quite buoyant. It was quite you know, they
had sort of like bouncy old rock melodies and whatnot,
but also some kind of long form, languid, you know,
kind of slower parts, and the vibe was like oh,
you know, this is nice. You know, this maybe is

(01:24:11):
a bit weird to be seeing this animation, but this
was nice. And then about halfway through the set they
started kicking into the newer stuff and the switch of
like the woman who's on the keyboards, who was just
there doing those kind of nice backing vocal parts, suddenly
she's like lurching around and like doing this banshee shriek
and like the fucking the pterodactyls are on them was

(01:24:36):
really really vicious. And yeah, they must have had some
like really dedicated fans there because there was like the
single long parts and whatnot earlier on. But it was
a really cool vibe of the set list gradually almost decaying,
like because it started off with that breezier feel, and
then by the end they were doing those songs from
the new record, like the one about the kind of
you know, the healthcare situation and stuff in the US,

(01:24:58):
and it just felt like every thing was just getting
doomia and drearier and more.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Unpleasant and pissed off and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
And I mean, I'm into the idea of like, as
an extreme music community, maybe like allying ourselves with like
real emo and post hardcore in order to defeat the
evil ones, you know, because like this had the virul like, yeah,
you know, you are an outlier, but there's clearly there
is some crossover in just people who are like, you know,
interested kind of underground music fans. And it did remind

(01:25:28):
me a little bit of seeing ash Andspire on that
same stage a couple of years ago, just in terms of,
like this is a collective of like, you know, kind
of people who can barely fit on the stage, but
there's something eccentric going on with people playing different instruments
and whatnot. It's just you're playing you know, post rock
derived emo, post hardal music rather than you know, post
rock inspired progressive black metal. And like the punk song

(01:25:50):
from that new album, at the two and a half
minute one they've got, like I swear there was like
three vocalists at that point, just like absolutely lurching around
each other. And yeah, I'm happy I went to see
them in terms of getting a different flavor at Damnation
again that I would be happy to see return. And again,
that's a band who I've been I've known the existence
of them for at least a decade, right, but it's

(01:26:13):
only this year with their newest album that I've started
to take a bit of a you know, a genuine
kind of interest in what they're doing. And it's nice
that that can still happen. You know, bands who have
been around for the while can kind of do something
to surprise you and hook someone who maybe wasn't necessarily
along there for the whole ride. But yeah, that was
a particularly the headliner for the stage as well, like
I realized, Lad, But I enjoyed them very much and
I wouldn't be adverse to seeing either them back or

(01:26:36):
other things that maybe also toe that line between the
crossover and all between emo.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
And extreme metal.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
I suppose there maybe aren't loads of bands out there
who do it, but I think worlds replace evidence that it,
you know, it is possible. Headliner day one Corrosion looking
for me, and we were so primed for this, right
like we have spent the last sort of month whatever
it might have been over only that's my patron Where
we do are like really deep dye fucking many hour

(01:27:02):
long in depth discussions of stuff. We've been doing a
Nola Sludge special and we've been talking about all that
generation of bands, and yes, I would be totally down
for nex Ye's Damnation to feature I Hate God and
crow Bar and so on. I know Acid Bartha accounted for,
but I Hate God seemed doable, right, But we've been
doing on that, We've been loving them, and I don't

(01:27:23):
know if you felt the same way. This was like
the treats. Specifically for us, this was like our victory lap,
like literally me and you having just completed that big
long undertaking with that special and getting rewarded with a
nice set of CEOC songs.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
And had definitely the band you'd want for your victory lap,
like for your your your wedding reception or whatever it is. Like, Yeah,
after all that, obviously I would love see I Hate God,
but bringing something like you know, these upbeat, good time
boogie rock southern metal songs. It was. It was exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Yeah, And I say this when they got booked, and
it's very much the vibe I felt as well.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
There is.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
It's an extremely rare occurrence for a Damnation headliner to
be no question asked a good time because I love
I've never seen a Damnation headline set that I did
not enjoy that The pocket of band that feels that
slot are all my favorite bands, right, But it's an

(01:28:25):
extreme music festival, right You're either getting put through some
fucking nightmare ringer with Electric Wizard or you know, your
your your ripping death motal songs with Carcass or whatever
it might be. Going through this kind of you know,
big expansive long form experience with Cotton Luna whatever. You
don't get a lot of like fun sing along have

(01:28:45):
a beer jam sets to top Damnation. And I don't
know if there are many other bands at all who
they haven't got who actually could do that, right, So
se WHI they were of an outline headliner that they
are the perfect prime band to do that again. And
so in the history of Damnation headlines s lots it
had that about it, which is a really fun, interesting
way to end the day. We'll talk more about again

(01:29:07):
what made c s E great in a second, but
I think this is obviously now at the first day's headliner,
it's the time to bring up one of the main
points that I have kind of been thinking about with
this year's Damnation is as I was saying earlier the
headliner convo, and the nice way of saying that is
to say that Damnation is its own brand and people
come for it and they don't need the headliners or whatever.
The flip side of that is Damnation has turned into

(01:29:31):
the festival where people consistently leave before the headliner, and
if you are genuinely excited to see the headliner, it's
undeniable that a bit of the atmosphere is sapped somewhat
or dips by the fact that you are watching the
band who are at the top of the poster, who the
entire thing has been building up to, and they have

(01:29:51):
a third of the crowd size that the band who
played at twelve o'clock opening at that same stage do.
And the most more common thing, as I know, like
we said, I know that Kuragaformia are not necessary the
biggest draw of all the Damnation headliners they can have.
But the common kind of you know, piece of reasoning
for this, I suppose, is that people just be tired, right,

(01:30:13):
and the Damination headliner goes on at eleven o'clock finishes
at midnight. Again, I was fine, I was up for it,
but a lot of people don't want to hang around
until midnight. Then you have the logistical elements of maybe
people have to catch like I know, trams are cited
a lot, or you know, whatever it might be, whatever
travel they might have to go through. Is the Damnation
headliner going on until midnight too late?

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):
I know I said that I was dead for most
of the weekend, so maybe I'm not the best person
to us, but I I like it. I think it
makes it different from other festivals. But I do understand
that logistically and atmosphere wise, it maybe takes a knock
if I would. We were sort of pondering as a
group about this over the weekend and we wondered, I
don't know if this is true or not, but like

(01:30:59):
you say, Death Heaven getting and personal, it's getting the
biggest crowds and then it being smaller for the headliner.
You wonder, could that just be something they factor in
in the future where you actually get the bigger bands
playing earlier. And then you treat this almost like you know,
in the second stage headliner goes on at Bloodstock, and
it's like, you know, most of you probably want to
go to bed if you're sticking around have this, But

(01:31:20):
then it's like, we know, if it's on the same stage,
whoever's going on last is headlining?

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
Do you know what I mean, yeah, yeah, I agree,
it's a tough one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
If they were to flip ordering around, I think it
would have to be that the main stage headliner, you know,
closes that stage, and then maybe you put the other
stage headliners on after them. But even then, like we
said about people who have to go and get travel
or whatever. I I don't know how logistically much of
a knock or an ask this would be, because obviously

(01:31:50):
you'd have to lose slots. I wonder if it's best
just have the festival finish at eleven, because even if
you have to lose again one, two slots whatever earlier
on in the day, you'll have to book less bands.
I don't know, but it's undeniably weird have it. And
I know I'm not surprised that Death Heaven, for example,
got a bigger crowd than Kroaga Conformity, because Death Heaven

(01:32:10):
are much more a darling of the damnation scene than
Corrosional Conformity Yard. Right, But there's still something just the
headliners should feel like the kind of huge celebration at
the end of this day of great music, right, And
it's become we saw it with Cradle Filth last year.
And you could kind of write it off. Then it's
like we'll Cradle are a divisive band, right, Like, not

(01:32:32):
every person who's come to see, you know whatever ex
avant gard Damnation band is going to be into seeing
Cradle of Filth, but seeing it with Krosia Conformitian, even
to some degree Napalm Death. On the following day, I've
started to wonder, is Damnation again. I'm up for it,
and I'm happy to hang that late, but just to
get as many people as possible on side, right, I

(01:32:55):
wonder should it just end a little bit earlier and
just have a couple less bands on the bill?

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
I can consider that. And also if it's on a
Saturday and Sunday, I mean, I'm not getting the best
person to ask because I showed up late both days.
But theoretically you could move it an hour earlier, couldn't you.
I don't know, Because there was one point where it
was getting towards the end of Corrosion, and you know,
I'm looking forward the holes, I'm not really paying attention
to who is there isn't around me, And my mate
sort of tapped me and said, like I wish probably

(01:33:21):
moved to the back soon so that you know, we
could beat the rush to get to get a cab.
And we both looked over our shoulders and realized we
were the back, like we hadn't moved, but just gradually
had sort of filled out behind us. We would stood
by at the mixing desk. So I don't know when
that happened to how much of the show was like that,
but it undeniably does put a bit of an odd
thing where, especially because I was so unaware of it,

(01:33:43):
because I was going, yeah, we're all loving it to
clean my wounds. You know, half the festival's.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
Gone yeah, and it's it's weird because what you don't
want is you don't want a band to be booked
to headline Damnation, who you're really excited to see, right,
Oh my god, I'm finally going to see this band
headlined Damnation. But part of you goes but I know
it's not going to be as good as seeing it
somewhere else because the atmosphere will have gone because everyone
else will have gone home. Right, and Croage reformed me again.

(01:34:09):
I haven't got the stats to anra, but they might
well have had the smallest mainstage crowd of that day.
I don't know, because everyone else who isn't interesting to
see great reformity has gone home, And would those people
more inclined to stick around if it happened a little
bit earlier, Maybe a little I don't know, but it's
it's again one of the things too, there's not a
lot with the nation logistically right now that feels like
it needs to be improved. Like there's it's a pretty

(01:34:31):
bang on the money in terms of what it's trying
to do festival. But the thing that I just kept
thinking about this year was like, it's it's fucking weird,
and again maybe just puts a little bit of a
dampen it on things that the headliner never do, like
consistently now a couple of years in a row does not.

Speaker 2 (01:34:47):
Feel like the big.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
Gung ho celebration at the end of the day that
headliner is kind of suppose that's why you're paying that
band the big bucks, right, Like, that's why you're giving
them that that that treatment, And it's I just don't
to get into some kind of repeat pattern where Damnation
headliners consistently a little bit sad compared to the rest
of the day, because that just feels wrong. You know,
but obviously none of that is Cus's fault. Who to

(01:35:10):
the people who were, you know, imbued with enough life
force to stick around fucking so good, they were so cool,
and it was again for us, it was like, Oh,
it's the guys who have just spent all this time doing.
But like when they came out to you know, they
did like a long, kind of bluesy woozy intro. That's
I think it's the track at the end of Wise
Blood and then at first like proper song on the set,

(01:35:33):
clicking to King of the Rotten and from there you've
got all of these like we were saying, good time
kind of hard rock, Southern rock, genuine jams played by
some of legit fucking rock stars like Pepperkin and cool
as fuck Woody Weatherman whose name is Woody Weatherman and
is wearing sunglasses indoors. What a fucking dude. That is

(01:35:54):
a credit like seasoned rock lifers up there.

Speaker 3 (01:35:59):
And I think I was saying earlier about how you
can experiment with the headliners if you make it for
two days. If this was a one day damnation it
closed on croasion and conformity, obviously I would have had
a lovely time, but they would have been a part
of you going like this is this is a curio.
But knowing that we had napalm death like the Uneasy
Listening band the next day, having the easiest listening known

(01:36:21):
to man headlining your Saturday is such a nice juxtaposition.
And they, you know, they brought exactly what they should
have done. They had an hour to play with and
it was just basically gracest hitset. It was like all
stuff from the classic run King of the Rod and
Vote with a bullet closing on a long winded take
of Clean My Wounds and Pepperkin and Woody Weatherman just

(01:36:42):
two of the most laid back guys on the planet.
I think it was during Clean My Wounds they tried
to have a bit of a some kind of guitar battle,
but they clearly hadn't coordinated it properly, so they were
playing over each other. They went back and forth like
four times. They just shrugged it and half forget that,
and it was like there was no distress, there was
no anger, there was no ego. It was just like
like we're rocking out, like who's mad?

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
Oh yeah, I mean, there was that incredibly smooth as
fuck a bit where they For the past couple of
months in the States they've been doing a tour opening
for Judas Priest, and I think it's clean My Wounds again.
Clean My Wounds is like a three minute hit single, right,
but to it live, they do that thing where they'll
jam out a section and prolong it or whatever and
then they'll punch back in for a last chorus, that
kind of deal. But that part during the sort of

(01:37:25):
long jammy bit where they somehow managed to seamlessly develop
into the riff from Victim of Changes and obviously everyone
who recognizes that the room like, oh, that's awesome, and
then before long you're back into nahcking it down And
like you're saying, I think it was was like vote

(01:37:46):
with a bullet, King of the Rotten into seven Days
early on and then vote with a bullet and who
got the fire and obviously Albatross near the end as well,
like everything that we've been saying about them on that
special as being the band from that of like heavy,
like nihilistic almost like genuine hard times music that is

(01:38:08):
no less large all the time, the band who have
got those fucking MTV singles that just absolutely unite people
if you were there for it and you know those tunes.
It was like a real joint. And I hadn't seen
credit for me in I think maybe about nine years.
I've seen a couple of times, but it had been
like maybe approaching a decade, and particularly with this refreshment

(01:38:28):
I've had, but seeing those guys come back and just
just be as smooth and as slick and as cool
as they ever were. They did have that mad backdrop
where we were like, what the hell is this like
fucking double headed eagle Illuminati shit backdrop, And then we
were like kind of commenting on it, and then Pepper
was like, this is the cover of our new album
and we were like yes, and mean.

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
You literally looked at each other with a.

Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
Kind of just a glee having an insane home to
deal with.

Speaker 3 (01:38:54):
I kept staring at that, and I was trying to
imagine how they asked the art director to get that done. There,
So we want two birds but human bodies, many arms, yes, uh,
sort of in the meditation pose, one of them has
the Illuminati. Good I can't, I'm I'm sure I'm forgetting
crucial details for this thing. It's one of the maddest
images of all time, but you.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
Will see it. So when their album is announced, I.

Speaker 3 (01:39:18):
Believe it's a double album hence they so it works
quite funny. One of the people I was with in
my group isn't really a CEC fan, and I kept
looking over to see, like, when's he gonna lock in?
When's he gonna get it? And I could see there's
a sort of an inkling of hesitation to them. And
then Pepper said the phrase too much pork for one fork.

(01:39:40):
For whatever reason, he decided yet, Okay, I find this
band is good. I do like this band.

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
Just it was.

Speaker 3 (01:39:46):
It was a really cool set. It was It was
I've never had a Damnation set headline set that I've
not enjoyed. To me, this wasn't like one of the
absolute upper echelon ones, but the vibe of it was
so distinct and so fun that it's super notable for
that reason. Like it really I've never been to Desert Fest,
but it's the sort of thing whereas I feel like
I'm there or again seeing something really grown on the

(01:40:07):
second stage of Bloodstock, it was just purely a good time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
I mean, incidentally, the first and probably best time I've
sinen Croaging for me was headlining Desert Fest, and it's
nice to get a bit of that vibe, you know,
put over. It's a little bit like Cradler Filth last year,
where I don't know if they'll enter the regular rotation
of Damnation headliners. I'd obviously I'd be so game to
have them back at any point, even if it's not headlining, right,
even for you to put them, you know, second before.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
Whoever it might be.

Speaker 1 (01:40:32):
But even if they don't enter that regular rotation, like
you're saying, like it's it's a Damnation headline set that
hasn't been done kind of in that way.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
And it was.

Speaker 1 (01:40:42):
Particularly again, as I say, with the knowledge that the
next one on the following day was going to be
much more fucking pedal to the metal.

Speaker 2 (01:40:49):
It was. It was really slicking, really really fun.

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
Onto day two. Golly, that's a lot of great bands
we spoken about. And there's still a second day of this,
which was essentially the vibe going into day two of
Damnation kind of disbelief like we're doing this again, really
Christ But days two of Damnation, this is where I
think we should mention that the billing and the kind
of booking of the twentieth anniversary Damnation, there was kind

(01:41:12):
of a rough theme going on between the two days.
It obviously wasn't a complete one to one every single
band on one day has never played before whatever, but
roughly the first day was kind of supposed to be
kind of fresher two Damnation names. The second day for
the twentieth anniversary was supposed to be a just great,
big family reunion essentially of all of the Damnation regulars

(01:41:37):
and the highlights and the bands who if you have
been going to Damnation for ten twenty years, these are
the bands that you will have seen time and time
again and consistently had a great time with because they
are so ingrained in the fabric of it. And because
of that, when I looked at the bill for the Sunday,
I was like, this bill is fucking amazing, Like there
are so many incredible bands here right, but obviously it

(01:41:59):
is a lot of bands that we've seen there regularly
that kind of I think maybe not necessarily that level
of again, that kind of unbelievability about it per se,
But I hadn't I don't think fully prepared myself for
what are kind of best of like the highlights going
down memory lane of being a regular attendee of this festival.

(01:42:19):
This turned out to be on this Sunday. And it's
not just a kind of like a shit excuse to
kind of book bands who were just easy to get
right because they still put work into making it. So
they put effort in. Like they got ted Mall to
reform for the first time in like fifteen years or something.
They got Stamping Ground to reform again just for this
like they did the last time, but again after like

(01:42:41):
ten years or something like that. You know, Code, who
had played some of the earlier Damnations but they hadn't
really been regular around in a while. They got them
to come back over for it. Onslaught, who had like
a live album we record the Damnation years ago, they
were back. Devil Sold Soul, who were you know, part
of the early Damnation framework but hadn't played it in
a while. They were coming back, along with the bands
who we have seen them more recently. This that what

(01:43:04):
I was saying about the good feeling of just being
at Damnation, even with a lot of the newer bands
that we saw on the previous day, that atmosphere I
think went into overdrive on the Sunday because we were
seeing so many of these like just beloved family members
essentially that are the bands that play the Sunday of
this Damnation.

Speaker 3 (01:43:25):
Well, there's that thing that happens whenever you're preparing for
any fest where you get the clash finder up where
you know there might be bands you want to see earlier.
They kind of pepping around, and then there's often like
a sort of like a lock in period where you
go at that time that's when business starts, and depending
what festivals might be earlier or later. I was looking
at the one for Damnation. I was kind, when does
it like where it's going to be hard to get

(01:43:46):
a drink or knowing when to get food or knowing
when to have a sit down and chill out. And
I was going, Ok, the first band where it's like
that's when we're in the zone. I was like, that's
got to be primordial. I went, that's at three o'clock.
That's it's a nine hour lock in, do you know
what I mean? Like some festivals you know you're talking
about even festivals I love, it might be the last

(01:44:07):
four or five hours. This was like again waking up
Necker and going like okay, brace yourself because there's there's
no coming up for air. Looking at that lineup, it's
one of the most stacked runs of bands that probably
as like in this country, in the field of extreme metal,
it's got to be up there with one of the

(01:44:27):
best runs ever.

Speaker 1 (01:44:29):
I agree, and like we saying what you look at
you do look at that main stage and go, what's
the first kind of slightly bigger band? Go? Okay, Prime
Ordial as you say three PM. Having them not go
on five six at least was like fucking out, there's
some big stuff going on here. But when you say
that's the lock in right before that, not only are
their bands that I was really excited to see, like
Code on the other stages, but fu fucking onslaught second

(01:44:52):
on the main stage, who are you know? Forty years
in the game thresh metal band? And the first band
on the main stage who will get to in a
moment of course was Conjurer, who absolutely are you know,
in their relatively short time of being a band, have
cemented themselves as one of the bands that everybody at
Damnation just likes and wants to see, and that manifested

(01:45:12):
in the crowd that they had I don't think there
was practically any moment of this day that wasn't a lock,
like at least in terms of a sustained right. It
was pretty incredible. As I did on the first thing,
I will take us through the earlier bands on it.
The first band I saw, so the first clash between
the two stages was Hidden Mothers on the third stage.
I think it was their first time playing Damnation, so

(01:45:34):
good for them, that's cool. And over on the second
stage was Ted Moll, who I mentioned, and Ted Moll
had my curiosity peaked, right because Ted Moll, as I
said before, they were kind of inspired into reforming for
this just as an excuse, this kind.

Speaker 2 (01:45:49):
Of like go down memory lane thing, Ted Moll.

Speaker 1 (01:45:51):
Are you know before my time of actively following this stuff,
I suppose, so I missed the Ted More phenomenon. And
when this was like booked was when I saw basically
people of a kind of demographic between thirty and you know,
thirty five up to forty whatever being like, give you
fucking Ted Moll back, right, because this was a man
who were a staple of the UK metal scene circle
around two thousand and seven, and I don't have that

(01:46:14):
nostalgia for it, but I was very curious because I
know that they're from kind of the same kind of
London devilry sort of scene that produced bands like Aca
Cocker and Voices Later and stuff like that, who are
like some of my favorite bands. And I was like,
this is a it seemed I don't want to say,
the joke band, but the more lighthearted, kind of kind
of ridiculous bone headed party Star are kind of band.

(01:46:36):
The vibe I least got from the sort of legend
that people spoke about Ted moll right, their name is
a brass eye reference, right, Like it's a little bit
it's fairly tongue in cheek, but from the same world
of like these like, you know, for being extremely you know,
beloved credible bands like Aca Cocker and whatnot. And I
was like, I'm really curious about this. I'm gonna go
and see it and Ted more Honestly, it was like

(01:46:57):
watching Aca Cocker's Shithead Little Brother.

Speaker 2 (01:46:59):
It was so weird.

Speaker 3 (01:47:01):
It was a lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:47:02):
Fun because it's this mixture of kind of like groove
death metal, Like they had these sort of sugar e
ending breakdown parts of songs which were very good actually,
But then Aca Cocca's kind of spirit of like Drummond bass,
you know, inflections and stuff like bizarre pivots in songs.
So it was just kind of a strange, very boisterous

(01:47:23):
genre meld to the point that legitimately I can't remember
the top of my head, maybe Skindred or someone count,
but this is a potential, I think, first rap metal
performance because let me tell you, the front man, like
who's primarily doing death growls, but occasionally he would just
start throwing out the rhymes. And I was watching look

(01:47:44):
at people around me, and I was like, this is
actually this is like a Damnation opening band that if
you wanted to, you could do the rolling dance too.
It was like a real particularly I get the people
who have the nostalgia for it. It was a really
like fucking caution to the wind. Let's party like it's
two thousand seven, as they would say at the start occasion,

(01:48:04):
And I was trying to pin down what it is,
and it's like, it's like, okay, this is party metal
for people who religiously read Terrorizer.

Speaker 2 (01:48:10):
This a very particular little niche.

Speaker 1 (01:48:12):
But it was a lot of fun and uh, you know,
I listened to a little bit of the album since
and it's got that kind of genre melding spirit to
it that I don't know if Acaccca somehow has always
seemed too serious or daunting to you. This is like
the fucking just do a load of cat and go.

Speaker 2 (01:48:29):
Mental kind of It was.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
Really it was out there and as I said, like
the genuine rap metal bits did take me and the
people I was with off guard. We're like, hey, are
we hearing this right? Is this what this guy is doing?
But it was something main stage opening band Conjurer, as
I've just said, one of the bands that of the
last kind of ten plus years that have most kind

(01:48:51):
of cemented themselves in the Damnation demographic as like a
band that people are passionate about, right and genuinely care about.
Obviously they'd play The Night Salvation doing Maya as a set,
which that kind of indicates that that album, you know,
is viewed as something of a modern classic at this point.
So it was great to see him opening this huge thing,

(01:49:11):
which that was one of my takeaways from this was
so they got this like video wall there. Now there
wasn't actually any Pyro this year if you were looking,
you know, for the nail style last year, Pyro or whatever.
There wasn't any of that this year for whatever reason.
But there was this like big kind of video screen
that during a couple bounds in particular, was very well
put to use. And I thought Coundra was actually one

(01:49:32):
of those bands because they had this really cool sort
of you know, liquid almost optical effect style backdrop behind
them that just made them look like it was almost
like watching a music video or something like where they
are immersed in this kind of you know, atmosphere and
that while playing almost all songs from the new album

(01:49:53):
they play. I think it was choke at the very end,
but at that stage, at the very end of the set,
I was leaving to go to the other stage. So
for me and what I saw, primarily it was a
set of all new songs and that was kind of
like the thing that made this Kundura set really interesting
to me because Kondura are one of the bands, like
many of us here in the UKSH there's this handful

(01:50:13):
of band that we've all seen, loads of Titans, right
like Kanjura employed to serve Spybard whatever, these kind of bands,
and so obviously I love Maya to pieces there's a
fantastic record. I really enjoyed the latest record as well
that the one before, the newest one even, but there
are those staple songs that I've seen them do so
many times, and it was a real palate cleanser to
go into a Condura set and it'd be like all

(01:50:34):
material basically that I haven't seen before, and it really
made me, like, you know, it got me further in
tune with the newest album, which we reviewed like a
couple of weeks before before this festival, and I enjoy it.
I think it's good, but certainly like it seems to be.
I mean, I think I liked the previous record a
lot more than a lot of people did, but the
reaction to this current record seems to be people maybe

(01:50:56):
getting back on the wagon with Conjura if they were
a little bit more iffy about the second album. Like
it's just been the most unanimously positive response that they've
had since Maya, right, and seeing them do this like
it can still very very involved, but with this incredible
level of like you know, knowing when to have the

(01:51:16):
delicate touch and then knowing, as they do, when to
just fully laying together, which when they do that. Condur
are one of the most powerful current live bands that
we have on this new material that to me was
like fully fresh, you know, new drama and everything as well,
it was a bit like, oh, this is a new
look Kundra in a way like this is this band
I've seen many times before and very familiar with, but
I haven't seen them do a show of this kind

(01:51:38):
of stature maybe. And as another case where I was
looking at a band being like, even though you are
you know, you're less than ten years into your at
least prominent recorded output at this point in time, but
I was like, this is a band who, like if
they were to disappear right now, which God forbid, I
don't think they will, but they have some kind of
stature and some kind of lego in what they're doing

(01:52:01):
right now. As being such a beloved band in the
UKSNE and seeing people be so up for an album
of material that is like two weeks old, right was
like really it was.

Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
It was encouraging.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
It made me feel good about the state of you know, like, yeah,
there's a lot of stuff in metal to be angry
about or you know, dismissive of or whatever, but these
bands who are really hard working and doing something with
genuine vision and passion behind it. They are there and
it can environments like seeing a fucking huge, packed out
crowd at twelve pm for the first band on the

(01:52:34):
Music Danation and it's Conjurer doing all new songs and
people love it. It reassured me because they they've sold out
the underworld off the back of this new record as well.
So I think Condura, even if you know, I think
some people maybe had their their kind of aim too
high for Kondura, being like, yeah, they're a sludge post
metal band, They're going to sell up Brixton Academy immediately

(01:52:56):
the end of the mind, it's clearly not going to happen. No,
but the slow and steady approach that Kanjura are doing
to really in great shit themselves as a key part
of the certainly the UK, but to some degree also
the global heavy music landscape. This was I think they'll
probably feel similarly about this set, like this was a
moment where you could see it kind of coming together
and paying off, and yeah, like one of probably the
more noteworthy and will live in the memory coundre sets

(01:53:19):
I've seen in a while. The reason I of course
went over to the other stage. Was Code playing on
the second stage, which if you heard our Damnation preview
album club episode where we spoke about their album Resplendent Grotesque,
you'll know this is the band that I said I
was most looking forward to see all weekend because even
though they're on the kind of again, the sort of
repeat style day, it was the band I hadn't seen

(01:53:40):
before who I considered to be a favorite band of mine,
who just because they hadn't been so present in the
last decade or so as a live feature, I hadn't
been able to see them even if it was like
like one PM or something here, Like really early on,
I was like, I have got to be absolutely in there,
and I went right up the front, like Lis, you're
right behind the barriers. The closest I was to anything

(01:54:02):
the entire thing, and evidence of how much I enjoyed
it is Damnation posting. Like the photo slide shows for
every band throughout each day, there's one of me during Code,
right up the front, pulling just the most overt stink
face where I'm very clearly enjoying myself to some great degree.
Because Code this bewildering at times, like you know, we

(01:54:26):
were discussing their out and be like this almost like
fucking like Peter Gabriel Genesis or something if he was
in like an urban London based black metal band with
this really claustrophobic, tightly wound, caustic approach to sound, with
them being in some ways they're almost like the UK's
answers to DoD Heims Guard and bands like that, all
of these things coming together where they are, as I

(01:54:47):
said earlier to if they've been put in that salvation.
They're a esoteric kind of prospect. But when they turned
up and the set that they played, they played one
newer song from the previous couple of releases and everything
else was from the first two albums, which are total
classics of the black metal world for my view, certainly

(01:55:07):
of like the Naughties and that period. They open with
the Cotton Optic, which is the first track on the
first record, and that has just one of the sickest
like that's exactly what I want a black Little Rift
to sound like. Just that's probably the song that photos
taken any foot during because it's just so gnarly, and
they have these points throughout these songs where they will
just slip into a full on dark Throne style fucking

(01:55:31):
go evil rock and roll, almost black metal, necro Norwegian
style rift, but then also the passages where it will
go into that full, as said, kind of English folk,
almost balladeering kind of moments. They played a couple of
those songs as well. There was again those moments where

(01:55:53):
like you have to be very into it to be
locked into it. Like they closed on a song called
Brass Dogs, and it's like seven minutes of like just
floating out into kind of the ghost dimension.

Speaker 2 (01:56:02):
It's very eerie.

Speaker 1 (01:56:04):
But a lot of the set was also waited on
the bangers and like smother the crones from respect to
rotest the opening track, which does have, as far as
I'm concerned, a fucking mad ballworthy gang vocal at the
beginning of just chanting shit back at them. I was
having such a good time during this, and the new
front man as well, who I've never seen code live,

(01:56:25):
but the frontmen they've had for the last handful of records.
I was pleased to see as well as enjoying his
performance on the record. Place is really in rapturing live
and brings a kind of manic energy where he during
the Blackmolt parts would be quite feral and would be
quite easily about to kind of fly off the leash
somewhere unhinged, but also at the same time having that

(01:56:46):
sort of English gentleman you could have around for tea
kind of weird like Victorian Victoriana kind of character that
you would also associate with like the Code material. And yeah,
I enjoyed this so much. Just the fact that I
am again ten plus years now into going to Damnation.
Most of these bands we're talking about here I have

(01:57:07):
seen before. I'm still able to tick off bucket list
type bands at Damnation, even at fucking one pm, right
like an early slot band. In terms of the fees
or whatnot, I can't imagine they had one of the
bigger ones. But for me it was a huge deal
getting to see Code. And I can only you know,
thank everybody who's involved for continuing to make stuff like that.

(01:57:28):
It happened, so yeah, Code. I mean, don't wait so
long to buck them again if I know that they're
on and off in their activity, But like as many
times as I get to see Code, I will take
the opportunity to do so, particularly if they're just knocking
out true classics like they were for those sort of
forty odd minutes that they were they were doing those
if you still haven't heard particularly respelling grotesque but you know,

(01:57:50):
even the latest record they've done the first one and
you're interested in like left field but still really fucking
catchy and immediate at times. Black metal I cannot rec
code enough as one of like the hidden gems really
of the genre's history. Back on the main stage, as
I said, second band on a fucking band forty years
in the game. Onslaught right, Onslaught, UK thrash metal band

(01:58:12):
from the eighties. They were one of our handful of
UK thrash metal bands that we'd like to wheel out
and be like, look we have testaments and exoduses as well,
even if they never got as big, and Onslaught are
one who I guess someone like Centris or whatnot might
maybe has a little bit more of that kind of
sort of American style thrash sensibility at times. Onslot to
me have a little bit of like the proto extreme

(01:58:35):
metal energy that like Early Creator or Destruction or whatever
has and they were doing particularly they waited the set
on their first record, Power from Hell, which turns forty
this year, and there's songs on that that have that
same kind of like this is discharge worship, but like
absolutely beefed up into a thrash metal context that does

(01:58:55):
feel like bombs falling on you. Vibe that some of
that material has, so I enjoy seeing that. And then
they detoured around a little bit. They did a kind
of iron fist by Motorhead, because why not you bound
to get people on side if you do something like that,
and uh yeah, it was. It was like a legacy set. Certainly,
like not a band who are currently band are like

(01:59:17):
particularly hotly tips talking about a lot, but you can't
really go wrong with putting you know, a like I
assume for Damnation are relatively cheap in the scheme of
things thrash metal band where they don't have to book
a creator or something like that, but they still get
the job done right like it works and I got
to see some material that maybe I hadn't seen before
in that realm. Enjoyed that. That was good, and Damnation

(01:59:38):
legends stamping ground back over on the second stage. Who's
stamping Ground? I was thinking about them a lot this
week because I know they played the mat Salvation and
I was seeing them here and Stamping Ground can't of
fascinate me if I stopped to think about them for
too long, because they're a UK hardcore band, but their
audience is entirely Damnation, and like, I don't I don't
know if Outbreak or whatever woul book them. Maybe it's

(01:59:59):
too nostalgic and not current, but they still have you know,
they've got fucking hate prey playing satisfaction of death desire right,
and obviously that's ubiquitous in a way that Stamping Ground aren't.
But Stamping Ground are a UK hardcore band who there
be all and end all are people at Damnation Festival
who probably saw them in two thousand and five, two
thousand and six whatever might have been the first year

(02:00:20):
that they played it, right, So them playing Damnation is
you know, completely normal. Even if they go ten years
of activity of inactivity kind of between them at a time,
they will still just merge every now and then to
play Damnation. I know. The last time they play it
in like twenty fourteen was like people talk about it
as like one of the most crazy, fucking violent, split

(02:00:41):
the crowd in half type sets that Damnation's ever had.
But then you listen to them and they sound like
a vegan straight edge band. They sound like Archangel or
something like obnoxious, just batter you to pieces, you know,
sort of a very English variant, shall we say, of
that kind of thing. But they've got those like Slayer riffs,
that that kind of shit it has. They've got the

(02:01:02):
nastiness in tone, and I don't know what it is
about stamping ground and damnation, but they come back after
like ten odd years, and yeah, maybe because they're that
this particular audience is ten eleven years older than the
last time they played it. Maybe it's you know, it's
not as biblical again because everybody's kind of feeling the
wear and tear a little bit. And you know, it

(02:01:24):
wasn't the tightest hardcore st I've ever seen by any means,
which you know, they've been off the road for fucking
eleven years.

Speaker 2 (02:01:28):
Sure, why not.

Speaker 1 (02:01:29):
But there was one point where the singer was like,
our job here is to just see how many teeth
the cleaners have to like sweep up at the end
of this.

Speaker 2 (02:01:38):
And that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:01:39):
It's just absolutely battering UK hardcore with that kind of nastier,
metallic hardcore of circa two thousand edge, which if you
like that shit that's in spis, you know it's experiencing
a renaissance at the moment, that kind of stuff. We
talk about that shit all the time. Maybe Stamping Ground
or a band who haven't been fully picked up on
by that, but they're good at it.

Speaker 2 (02:01:59):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:01:59):
A particular Officer Down, which is there? That's their song, right, Like,
that's the song you are waiting to hear was Danpurground.
So when obviously they leave it to a last and
Officer Down is like one of the great I suppose,
sort of a cab type songs of that era of
certainly UK hardcore, and it just fucking boots the door down.
They got the guy from Ted moll out, so he's

(02:02:20):
like on one side of the stage just roaring it
and people are climbing on each other's shoulders to yell
of sir down. And I've never seen Stamping Ground before,
and I essentially feel like I got like, yeah, I
imagine this is what every single Stamping Ground show was
like for maybe in smaller venues, different environments, whatever, but
the fundamental essence of having your teeth blasted out and

(02:02:42):
then yelling officer down at the end of it was cool.
Like I said, their audience seems to be entirely damnation
based rather than crossing over into the actual hardcore home
of like Outbreak and those type places. You never see
them playing them. I'd be curious what the appeal would be,
I suppose.

Speaker 2 (02:02:58):
But if you like that.

Speaker 1 (02:02:59):
Kind of muse that that record of Theirs with you know,
all those those killer tracks on, it's good. Enjoyed it, Elliott.
Once again, this is around the time sort of three
o'clockish where you entered the story, right.

Speaker 3 (02:03:09):
Yeah, I walked in around the last five ten minutes
of stamping ground. It was it was full into the
FOI I kind of again knowing the legend that twenty
fourteen said, I kind of didn't want to see some
of it, but it was so full that I couldn't
really get half decent. Yeah, So I decided best to
bline and get a decent view for Primordial, which was
the first band that I was I have to have

(02:03:30):
one of the bands was most excited about all weeks
because I've never seen them before. Again, they're one of
those bucket list bands. Wow, and well, this was something.

Speaker 1 (02:03:38):
That's I want to hear your take on it there,
because mine is the take of someone who goes see
Primordial every single time they're in the UK, because I
just they're one of my absolute favorite bands. I've seen
them at Damnation at least two times before. I think
they said this is like their fifth time playing dmination
or something. So when it comes to the again the Staples,
the band whose book on the Sunday Primordial, Yeah makes
total sense when you fill in, You're okay, we need

(02:04:01):
an now the thrack. Whenever Primordi are probably in an
ext wronger bands are like, yeah, well we'll get them.
They'll like they have that history with it. But if
this is your first time, I want to hear what
you made a Primordial.

Speaker 3 (02:04:10):
The way you said you're curious, it makes me wonder
if you're gonna have a different view now. But given
you know cut out the Heart on Fire, I think
they'd forty five minutes and I've never seen them before,
and there's a huge laundry list of songs I would
have loved to have heard. Yeah, you know nothing off
Redemptions at the Purist's Hand, which is my favorite Promordio record.

Speaker 2 (02:04:30):
No how it.

Speaker 3 (02:04:30):
Ends well thank you very much. Nothing off We're Greater
Men Have Fallen, which again, like those feel like at
least two classic records, and the last one, which is
has maybe one of their best ever songs on it,
Like I just thought, surely, surely we're gonna get so.
But given that, given that they didn't touch those albums,
there wasn't a moment of it that wasn't exceptional, as

(02:04:52):
Rome Burns opening again a bit of hard fire. I
don't know what's typical of a Primordial set as Rome
Burns opening Mighty Hell Exile amongst the RUMs is probably
one of their lesser records, but the song they picked
off it was wonderful. I mean, we're talking about great
one tunes across the weekend. The Coffin Ships into Empire
Falls is basically as good as metal gets.

Speaker 2 (02:05:18):
That's peak music. That's that's just yes.

Speaker 1 (02:05:21):
When you're saying if my takes different, my take is
someone who Primordial are a genuinely contender to be my
favorite live band I've ever seen, just time and time again,
and my take was I've seen them do fucking biblical
I will remember that to the end of my days shows.
And this was a forty five minute greatest hit sets
Primordial show in a very large room of not everyone

(02:05:42):
necessarily completely plugged in to see them, right, they were
reliably fucking fantastic this. I don't think this is a career,
real highlight show for them, but as a band to
turn up at three o'clock and deliver forty five minutes
of incredible music absolutely, because they have like eight minute songs,
they fit in five of them. And I agree, I

(02:06:03):
just want to see Primordi. You'll play two in a
half hours all the time. I just want to see.
And I know they played recently, they played a show
in Dublin, obviously a hometown show for them, and they
were kind of feeming as like a deep Cuts set,
and they were pulling out songs from the Gathering Wilderness
and whatnot that they hadn't played in years. And like,
I kind of figured that we wouldn't get that stuff
because it's a festival and you need to just do
mPire Falls and roam Burns and that kind of stuff.

(02:06:24):
But yeah, very nostalgic set, I thought, which again makes
sense for the festival environment because I think the late
two thousands into the early twenty tens is when Primeorudi.
You're kind of flirted with being a big band and
maybe breaking out a bit, and then recently they've kind
of retreated back into being more of a niche band maybe,
so it made tense to basically just go, yeah, the
majority of what we're going to play is just from

(02:06:45):
that kind of thing where I said, the newest song
they played twenty eighteen to Hell All the Hangman, that
song from Exile. It's fucking incredible live. It's so, I mean,
it's a great song on record, but I remember seeing
that the Damnation of the Year that came out and
just it like turning the fucking old Leeds room. It's
some bizarre like Irish trad come killing joke, like goth

(02:07:07):
post punk dance party, like incredible energy to maintain that
for like seven eight minutes like it is. But the
staple songs which you see them, have I seen Primordial
in nine ten times whatever I've seen Rome Burns Empire
falls every one of those times, but they are the best.
They are. So Rome Burns never used to be an

(02:07:28):
opener for some reason. Recently they've kind of booted up
to that opening slot, which is kind of interesting, but
really like leads you into this kind of like dark
world that they're in. The Coffin Ships is the best
song that's ever been played at dan Nation, because it's
in like the top two best songs ever, Like that
is up there with the Mount Rush Moore of Heavy

(02:07:49):
net Was songs that have ever been composed by any
band ever. The Coffin Ships, I genuinely believe is not
only up there, but bests the vast majority of them.
The sheer level of drama and reverence and serious you know,
history and everything that kind of goes into imbuing that
sort of making the moment is I've never seen the
Coffin Ships and it not feel like the world stops

(02:08:13):
at that particular moment. Empire Falls is the fucking perfect ending.

Speaker 2 (02:08:20):
I think I've said it before.

Speaker 1 (02:08:21):
It might be my favorite, like standard band closer because
as soon as that whereas the fighting man am I
he and even if you are a kind of a casual,
primordial fan, that's probably the chorus that you know, so
everyone evolves get into it. And Alan as a front man,
I mean he's sometimes he's in a cheery mood. Sometimes
he's a little bit more serious. I think a lot
of the time you see someone like a Damnation and

(02:08:42):
he's just having a good time. You know, he's making
some little jokes, but also evidently like the most even
more than bad like Castle Rat whoever, it is so choreographed.
But someone like Alan with with Primordial is the most
naturally gifted heavy metal front man. That the first amount

(02:09:03):
that can possibly have.

Speaker 3 (02:09:05):
Yeah, I mean, whatever kind of heavy metal front man
you like, he ticks the box because he's he's got
the sort of barred element of people like Ronnie James
Deal or Bruce Dickinson or even like a Danny Filth.
He's got an intensity to him that you mentioned killing joke.
It's not that different from someone like Jazz Coleman. When
he goes into his wretch, it's alarming, like he's for

(02:09:29):
a guy who's so distinct. I wouldn't say that the
word like cartoonish, but he doesn't. He's clearly like a
character on somewheow it's him, but it is a very
character for performance. He manages to pull from so many
different things. He's he's almost like a microcosm of the
band he's in.

Speaker 1 (02:09:47):
I mean, that's a recurring bit I enjoyed. I don't
know if you noticed this where he was just repeatedly
trying to get other members of the band to throw
the horns, particularly the drummer, where he would do this
thing where he'd like fist pump the drummer and the
two of them would like you know, pop out the
fingers and throw the horns. And sometimes he was doing
it when the drummer was not quite ready to be
doing so he's like doing some kind of involved Irish
tad Tom Patton And basically you just got Alan insistently

(02:10:10):
throwing the horns. That this drama, but there's there's a
fun element to it, you know. Again it's it's heavy metal, right,
but again the gray fog of casting that aura out
that you get during like the Coffin ships particularly obviously
when I say gray literally they are for all their
heavy metal kind of pageantry, they are an intensely moody

(02:10:33):
and extremely bleak at times band. And seeing that just
even if it doesn't sway a raptor an entire arena,
like I think it was more people down the front
where I was who you get your dedicated few kind
of you know, big primordial fans, but yeah, I mean
like for a three PM festival band, provided you see
him with the right crowd who actually you know, know
them there basically might not be a better for the

(02:10:56):
kind of brand of heavy metal that they are in
this sort of underground environment, that might not be a
better bad at it. And like I forty five minutes
not enough. Obviously it's perfect for Damnation. I'm not saying
they should have given them more or something. I just
with me when I see prim Audio, I just want
to see them go and go and go and go,
because yeah, I mean, I fucking I saw him last
year and they were doing a slightly longer headlining set
and we manage get at least a couple songs from

(02:11:17):
like how It Ends with that title track and Victories
a Thousand Fathers and stuff, and they are still producing
some genuinely top tier, unbelievable songs. But to pick basically
five of the best songs from one of the best
catalogs that's ever been in this type of music, no
notes in terms of any moment where that could have
been a little bit better, Like they just throw themselves

(02:11:39):
so fully into what they were doing. At this point,
I had a little bit of a break. I know
that raging speed Horn again another firm Historic Damn. They
might have played even the very first Damnation, the Historic
Damnation band. And what I was saying about Spehorn is,
as I was walking outside, I noticed that the room.

Speaker 3 (02:11:54):
Was fucking packed.

Speaker 1 (02:11:56):
So clearly again the dam they should have faithful very
much there for Speedhorn coming up back again after year
after year. I know that Psycho were on during that
stage as well. Again sort of my froggy post metal band.
Obviously I returned for Old piggyd Pig Destroyer, and I
imagine you have to have done the same.

Speaker 3 (02:12:13):
Oh yeah, this is this was again I'm surprised to
know on this is one of those down the fronts.
As I say down the front, I our plan was
to get as close to the front as possible, as
early as possible. This was the loudest sound check in
the history of man. What Adam Jarvis does to his drums,
I don't know, but they were agony to stand there.

(02:12:35):
So we're like, okay, we'll go, we'll come back maybe
ten minutes before they come on, and uh then we'll
get involved. They're one of my favorite bands ever, ever ever,
any shot on a probably my favorite grindcore band. Overall,
just about even on this day where I was at
my most at this moment, my most like tired from

(02:12:56):
all the traveling and rocking and things in between. It
only takes fifteen seconds of Pig Destroyer before suddenly it's
I'm alive again.

Speaker 2 (02:13:06):
Yeah, how was it for you? Then?

Speaker 1 (02:13:07):
Because I think I was more sort of maybe level
with the sound desk or whatever at this point. I
wasn't as far forward certainly as I was for the
couple of years before when they did Prowler, and uh,
for me, like this was just blistering right, like the
PI Destroyer even if you know the catalog really well,
it's a little bit like Napalm Death sometimes where you
just go, fucking our things are.

Speaker 2 (02:13:25):
Flying at me.

Speaker 1 (02:13:25):
Was such belligerent, intense speed, and pik Destory don't really
introduce songs the way that fucking Barney Wild, right, so
it would just you'll be like battered and bruised in
half an hour. Let you go, where the fuck did
that time go? And this was like, you know, no complaints.
They utterly destroyed, right, and they did all of that
stuff that they always do. It didn't have the level
of kind of momentousness maybe that, you know, when they

(02:13:48):
did Prowler a couple years ago, which was also the
first time the pet Stroyer played the UK in quite
a long time, this was like, oh, it's only been
a few years, but we're just back to old reliable
pic Destroyer turning up and doing it. But for you
a little bit further forward maybe, which again grindcoret in
like a huge fucking several thousand cap room doesn't always
carry to the far fun reaches. But how was it
for you in kind of the meat and the thick

(02:14:08):
of it?

Speaker 3 (02:14:09):
It was so Larry, I think this is it like
I would agree, it wasn't as we mentioned as the
last time, at least the last time played Damnation. The
last two times i've seen them have been very like
album weighted sets. Obviously Prouder in the Yard for the
first time, and on the Napalm Death toys around twenty
years of Terrifier I think, so they were.

Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
Doing loads of that, and then they did a similar
thing here of like opening with a run of Terrifier songs, didn't.

Speaker 3 (02:14:34):
They Yeah, over the run of Terrifier songs, and then
there was a bunch of Prowl in the Yard at
the end, but this time that they pulled a bit
from everything, and there's a bunch of if you can
call them no, I think you can, like Pig Destroyer bangers,
some of which I hadn't heard before because they've been
focusing on those two records, which are have obviously standout

(02:14:56):
moments and catchy songs in the mix, but are just
like pure horror across the two of them. But when
you get to like Phantom Limb and head Cage and
buck Burner, They've they've got dare I say, jams so
get into here, like loathsome the Diplomat Army of Cops,
which I've never heard before.

Speaker 2 (02:15:14):
It was like Diplomat rocked.

Speaker 3 (02:15:16):
Yeah, And you know Pig Destroyer now having a bass
player and kind of fuller drum tone sonically, they're they're
kind of better equipped to that, do you know what
I mean? Because like Prowl in the Ard, that's still
my favorite time I've seen them, and it was one
of my favorite. I think it was maybe my second
favorite show of that day. But like Picture with their

(02:15:38):
bass player in the lineup and the new sort of
samples guy who's got a very different character to Blake
Harrison and what he does it it was kind of
better suited to a more Larry rowdy Moshi Pig destroyer set.

Speaker 1 (02:15:52):
Yeah, I wanted to I was gonna pick up on
is that what you just said about the kind of
electronics guy, because you know Blake Harrison. I did think
about the fact that last time Pete Stroyerr on that
stage was a few years ago, was when they had
you know, Blake with them, and he unfortunately passed away
not not too long after that. But the current guy
they got who we had seen before because he was
on that Napalm Death tour. But there was a bit

(02:16:12):
towards a couple of what song it was, but there
was a bit when he just picked up his entire
sort of noise set up and just raised it above
his head and waved it like a fucking child in
a school cafeteria waving a table and chair around. And
I was like, Blake wouldn't have done that. Blake had
a very different demeanor about him, And what a flip.

(02:16:33):
To suddenly see a guy essentially throw throwing a tantrum,
throwing hit around like this is is certainly a you know,
I'm not saying one is better than the other both,
you know, great roles in the band, but.

Speaker 2 (02:16:44):
It was a different energy definitely.

Speaker 3 (02:16:46):
I mean Blake Harrison my friends and we always referenced
this one thing. He did join the Prowl in the
Yard show because we were just drunk about. He seemed
completely non He didn't seem to notice he was on stage.
He would just stand there sort of twisting the knobs,
put his hands in his pockets, look around. There was
always there was one bit. I don't know why it
made us laugh so much, but he just sort of
walked off slightly to the side again, not off stage,
just a few feet to the side, looked at the

(02:17:08):
back and just sort of just scratched the back of
his head and then turned around and went back. And
you're like, you are some people here. Yeah, it's like
he just doesn't care. This guy is much more from
the sort of like Sid Wilson's school, I mean, like
jumping on like the rise of kicking the air, whipping
his hair around like you say, lifting the thing up
and doing some presses with it. Got in the crowd

(02:17:30):
initially straight to the floor, and then he got picked
up and he had the biggest smile on his face,
didn't seem to mind they'd been dropped on his spinal cord.
They were just I don't know, Like I think it's
always a good time seeing PIGK Destroyer. They kind of
are a more fun band live than you would imagine
from the records, but this definitely felt like the It
felt like the kind of Pig Destroyer party.

Speaker 1 (02:17:52):
Yeah, you know, rest in peace, Blake Harrison gone but
not forgotten, but Peg Droy.

Speaker 2 (02:17:55):
Still still still good.

Speaker 1 (02:17:56):
Live this next slot, I want to briefly talk about clashes,
because last year I gave Damnation a lot of fucking
stick for doing well. I was still standby as saying
the most fucking heyne is like the worst clashes that
Damnation ever what they did last year when they put
Ahab up against a rich mankind. Yes, I am still
upset about it, but this year was a lot nicer actually,

(02:18:17):
considering how strong the bill was again these two days.
I think a lot of us were looking at the
two day Damnation and going that post looks incredible. God,
the clashes must be horrible. My my suffering last year
was rewarded, you know, because I actually had a very
easy time of it and there was only one clash
that made me go, oh, I was loking iould see

(02:18:38):
in that band, you know, and it's this one here,
which was Hell Rip up against Devil's Sordier Soul. And
in terms of a likeful like clash, it isn't one,
you know, So I can totally understand why it happened absolutely,
you know, no, no, no problem with that being done.
The fact that I was so scared of clashes after
what last year kind of wrought, and then I ended
up going, oh, I can actually see the vast majority
of the bands I really want to see, even with

(02:18:59):
it being expanded more bands than ever. Event was so
pleasant And I don't know if that was just unique
to me in my taste or how shared that might be,
but I just thought that was very refreshing to me,
and I enjoyed that very much, and again a relief
over me. The only bag, as I said, was Hell
Ripper and Devil sold Is Soul. And because we had
done the album club and the preview and stuff and

(02:19:21):
they were doing this kind of themed more one offset,
I did opt go see Devil Soldier Soul and a
bit gutted to miss Hell Ripper because I've heard that
they were fucking amazing, which you know they are reliably.
They're just a full on party star speed metal band.
But I've heard a lot of people describing there was
like one of the bands of the weekend, and you know,
props to the hell Ripper Boys for tearing it up
as ever seemingly. But I did go see Devil's Solded

(02:19:43):
Soul because they were doing a set themed more on
their first two releases, that being The Darkness Prevails EP
and then the first album, A Fragile Hope, which, as
we discussed on our Album Club recently, is by a
good margin my favorite the Devil sort of album that
I hold really close, and I've seen them, you know,

(02:20:03):
playing it before, but again like a decade or something ago,
and going into you know, the third stage and seeing
in a band who you could in some ways described
as a metalcore band, but this halfway fucking you know,
bastard hybrid between like a two thousands of metal core
band and a full on isis coat of lunar post

(02:20:26):
metal in the depths of its weightiness band. I was
just reminded all over again what a unique band they
are and what a cool thing that is to have
kind of offered, and I was thinking about the kind
of the you know, the peer group of bands they
came up along side, right, you know, because they were
starting off in the UK at the same time, as
we said on the RAM Club, bands like Architects and
Bring Me the Horizon and whatnot. And in some ways

(02:20:48):
it's bizarre that some of those bands are festival head
like not you know, Damnation of festival headlining like huge
outdoor major festival headliners, and Devil sort of sol play
the third stage of an extreme metal festival. But they
are so the one I respect the most, and they
are so the one I think who when they turned
up in twenty twenty five on this stage, I was like,

(02:21:11):
you are the most respectable position by far is being here,
because this is just a band who are still, you know,
twenty years in, still just in it, not out of
any fucking obligation or commercial ambition or anything, but just
a love of the game, and that came through in
this like hulking, suffocating but also sometimes beautiful performance of

(02:21:38):
that earlier material where the lurching horror of the low
end rifts on Fragile Hope really fucking got stuck into
it like a room full of people just nodding, sucked
into that kind of oceanic rhythm. They didn't actually play
as many of like the like I thought they might

(02:21:59):
have played. I think it's Awaiting the Floods, the kind
of like big Moshi type song. They didn't actually lean
on that so much. They leant more into the real
long form type material. And it was it was actually
it was watching the post metal band you know kind
of in there, but a particularly fucking good one and
also a unique one who aren't Diamond doesn't sounding like
like you know, cot of Leona or Armandry or whatever,
like a lot of them kind of are and even

(02:22:20):
with you know, them doing this old material, but they've
got the two front people now, and you've got Paul,
the guy who was kind of in the band in
sort of the twenty tens, who is a lot more
kind of like a bit more twitchy, maybe a bit
more live wire, a bit more kind of like running
around just throwing himself with total abandon and then Ed,
who kind of looks more and sort of you know,

(02:22:42):
just stands there almost still on the spot, but letting
the kind of music sort of flow through his movements
a lot more and that is this kind of duo.
You know, they compliment each other and they each feel
in something that the other one kind of doesn't do
so much. And the parts in songs, when you know,
something unconventional for a band of their stripe will take
the lead, like right, like a bass part will take
the lead, or keyboards or something like that. Just they

(02:23:05):
really like lit up the room and they really you know,
filled it and it's you know, they're like, I think
he said, it's like it's our twenty first year of
being a band or something, and they have evolved into
being this band with just like immense underground kind of
credibility and respect, you know, and Aired is rocking the
Silver Fox at the moment, and I was just looking
at them and I was like, yeah, like you could

(02:23:28):
be a band who return as Damnation Heroes for however
many years you would you would like to do. And
what a strange, funny little place in the UK music
scene they've kind of you know, carved out for themselves
and basically only themselves. There aren't many bands in the
exact position that Devil sort of Soul have been in,
but in terms of you know, evidencing and cementing why

(02:23:50):
they should absolutely have a home places like Damnation Festival regularly,
particularly with this fucking set of material. Very much enjoyed
double sort of soul, and as sad as I was
to miss Hell, I wouldn't have undone it. So that's
the best thing that I can say. Who was next
on the main stage only, as they said themselves, the
Damnation fucking house band. Because what I was saying about

(02:24:14):
the the vibes of this Sunday and the walk down
Memory Lane, and there's the bounds who bring the people together,
the Damnation favorites. I don't think there is a band
in the entire history of the festival who fit that
role and sum that up like a now in the
thrack who played was it like two years ago? I

(02:24:35):
think they headlined the second stage here there on the
main stage sort of late afternoon, great perfect bump them
up to that's lot. Sure, tell me I'm not alone
in this right. There was something for all, even bands
who got these big responses, whether it be stamping Ground,
whether it be you know, conjurate whatever, there's just something
in the air that's a bit different when a Nuna

(02:24:55):
thrack plays, specifically Damnation festival that just pit over anything
else in terms of fucking bombs away boys energy.

Speaker 3 (02:25:06):
Yeah, I've not seen them anywhere but dam nation, so
I have nothing to contrast it with. But there's definitely
something about that festival in that band where you can
feel the kinship. It's not typical of any any you know,
any other band playing it. I suppose obviously an Almothrak,
I've played it a lot. There is also just a

(02:25:27):
thing of they both feel like very treasured extreme metal
institutions in the UK of the twenty first century, like
kind of come up around a similar time. They seem
very naturally aligned and an Almothrak being a band that
they're not just any extreme metal band. They pull from
basically every conceivable aspect of it. There's parts of death

(02:25:48):
metal and there, there's black metal, there's industrial, there's you know,
there's post war, there's classic heavy metal, there's symphonic stuff
in there. They almost feel like a microcosm of the
festival itself, a celebration of all things like perverted, underground,
scary within the realm of extreme music.

Speaker 1 (02:26:09):
Yeah, and this is why, in my opinion, and now
the threat with the best band of the weekend and
it's because the people chose them to be the best
band of the weekend. And I'm not saying that it
has to be everyone's, but I am saying if your
favorite band of the weekend was someone different, oh that's
perfectly valid, but that's more personal to you. You will
have a personal reason why a particular thing connected with you,

(02:26:32):
en mass, No one gets a reaction out of a
Damnasian crowd like and now on a thrack. And we've
seen some good ones. We've seen you know, Death Evan
do really well whatever. I mentioned the bands, you know,
stamping around whatever on this day. But in terms of
turning up and just through force of will and force
of presence, turning the biggest fucking you know rum with

(02:26:53):
a lot into at least certainly the first like the
front half of it into just a wars. There is
just something extra about how a Damnation crowd responds to
an anathrat that I think is different to any other band,
you know. And I just looked around and I was like, yeah,
this is it, this is the moment and anun of
thract just do that reliably because it's not abnormal, right,

(02:27:15):
I don't even know if this is the best Anano
Threat set. I've seen it damnation in the last like
three years, like they do it time and time again,
even going into this, so Anathat obviously one of my
favorite bands, and of course I was excited to see them.
If there was one thing that I you know, I
wasn't not excited to see them, but if there was
one thing that made me, you know, not put them

(02:27:36):
at the top of this. I was like the bands
I was most desperate excited to see is. I have
seen them a fair bit recently, right, this is my
third time seeing them in the current kind of live
incarnation they've got, you know, the kind of the weird
sort of legacy band version of an our Thrat that
we currently have. And I did think. I was like, okay,
you know, I love nothing obviously, but it will mostly

(02:27:58):
be the same show, I imagine, right like that, maybe
one or two songs different, but I thought it would
basically be the same kind of show and set list
that we got headline in the second stage a couple
of years ago, now put up on the main stage.
Nathrak accounted for that, and it was almost entirely different. Obviously,
there's a couple songs that stick around set to set

(02:28:20):
because they're the ones that are guaranteed gonna warrant their
place doing that. But what an incredible breath of like, ah,
even though you just played a you know a couple
of years ago, you are so you haven't got a
new material, but you're still able to almost showcase different
sides of what you've got and what you've masked over

(02:28:40):
the years. And a Nathrak show in this particular version
of Natharak, where again, while I will always go see
them live, it's not currently a creatively active band, is
it right, Nathrak, but a Natharak show in this version
still had a surprise factor to it. Add that onto
the just biblica response from people, Yeah, it's easy formula

(02:29:02):
for me just at being like, yeah, that's that's the
at the festival for me and the.

Speaker 3 (02:29:06):
Fast it never that reaction never seemed to dip even
when they're like you said, the settlist, there was some
real surprises in there. They built there always a lot.
Two times i've seen them, they've pulled a surprising amount
off of them which they play loads off that record. Yeah,
it strikes me as odd because that's again maybe they're
out there, But if I talk to people about and

(02:29:26):
now on the thrack, that's not the am that people
there are sort of like what do you call it,
like unsung ones that seems to get hype more like
some people are really big into Passionate vanits Has, but
that one never seems to come up that much. But
for whatever reason, they they pulled some songs off that live.
The one for me was when it was getting towards
the end and I don't know if I want to,
but I started. I've got four or five songs left

(02:29:47):
that I can imagine some of the ones we're gonna get.
And then when the dragon devours both, when the lion
devours both dragon and child, it was like, what's this?

Speaker 1 (02:29:59):
What is it? So I mean it from the very
start right, so when you're saying about them, they play
like decideratum stuff. The nathrak opener for years now has
been that double of Acaronta Overbemus into Unleash. That's just
always like because the first one of those being instrumental
kind of leads is they're like, you know, that walk
on stage kind of track, And I was expecting that

(02:30:22):
and instead, in the conflation of the black fucking widow
and so from second one, and that's a song they
will regularly play, but having it be the first song
of the set maybe go oh, it immediately recalibrated me
in terms of like the running order of an afterreat setlist,
you know, and after that, we've got more fire than
Blood from the same record in and out of set lists.
Treat having it back killer when they then play like

(02:30:45):
they played Acaronta and Unleash in the middle of the
set really weirdly, which I think that should be. They
should treat that song the way that Trivium treat Rain,
which is that it should open every other tour and
then they don't play it.

Speaker 2 (02:30:56):
You don't know it should it should.

Speaker 1 (02:30:58):
Be they open the set with it and then give
it some time off, and it should be never moved
around anywhere else. So I was kind of like, oh,
you are still playing it like in the middle, but anyway,
this is kind of very deep in the weeds of
the nerdsire. And then after I accept this, but this
is kind of the again, the surprise of how it
rolled out. They also played the One Thing Needful from Desideratum,
which is maybe my favorite track on that record, and that.

Speaker 2 (02:31:18):
Was fucking killer.

Speaker 1 (02:31:19):
But as you're saying, we just kept getting like, oh, curveball,
we haven't played the song live in ages of fire
and fucking pigs back for the first time in ages,
and like when it's beeking about the video wall behind them,
Nathak with the band who just made it look like, oh,
I'm looking into a kind of just a hellscape like
you are, especially during a fire of fucking pigs, like
the entire wall is on fire. Basically not literally obviously,

(02:31:41):
but like particularly I was very close to the front.
It kind of my whole field of vision, you know,
was this kind of Nathrak assault on the senses but
a fire of fucking pigs back. And then as you're saying,
when the line of ours both dragon and Child, which
I haven't seen them do in proberly about ten years,
it got an actual like oh me, I was so
happy to see it. And yeah, this approach did mean

(02:32:03):
like a bunch of the heavy hitters got left out right,
like we didn't have, you know, between shit and piss.
We were born no bella momnia contra omnez, nothing off
the Codex necro, which I would have subbed something in
to have that particular Damnation history vibe. You know, something
of codes Necro submissions for the Week would have done
the job. But the spontaneity of getting these fucking nasty,

(02:32:24):
incredible tracks all through throughout the catalog, and then when
you get that, you feel like you have more earned
the big moments, and so when they arrive at the
ending and it's forging towards the sunset forward in Darkenment,
and this is when I was saying earlier about kind
of recent cementing of things and not having to look

(02:32:46):
to the past too much. Obviously, Natha are a band
with like a you know, twenty five plus year heritage.
I'm not saying they're Spring Chickens necessarily, but the songs
that the Damnation crowd booted the fuck off four the most.
Undoubtedly it was Forward and in Darkument as a one too,

(02:33:06):
And those songs are from twenty eighteen and twenty twenty,
and I think that's awesome. I think it's incredible, even
if the rest of the world doesn't fucking know that
Forward is like the best floor filler metal song released
in the twenty verse entry and they think it's fucking
I Prevail or whatever. Even if the rest of the
world doesn't know the fact that we have a festalite
Damnation where we know we can go in and you know,

(02:33:28):
if you go to download or something, the big songs are,
Oh yeah, we're waiting for Metallica to play these songs
from the eighties. We're waiting for Corn and olymp Biscuit
to play these songs from the nineties. I was just
it gave me such a fucking pep in my step
seeing a song like Forward that I reviewed on this
podcast when it came out. B I've said this every

(02:33:48):
time they played that song, but like just the fact
that the certified Damnation anthems everybody knows them and everybody
is gonna fucking pop when they play them. Are songs
like Forward and in Darkenment, which are from the last
five to seven years. Just not only does it show
the strength of the band that an Anathrakar and that
they can still do that, but it kind of again,

(02:34:10):
it made me feel warm about the entire sort of
pocket of the subculture that we're currently in. You know,
we've got dream House, We've got Forward, We've got these
tracks that are we're not fucking stuck in you know,
a state of kind of non evolution from nineteen ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:34:25):
Yeah, I think it's the highest compliments of both the
festival and the band that forward, which is, you're right,
it's a floor filler, but it's a terrifying song about
the First World War that gets treated like it's spit
it out. And then Endarkenment, which is, you know, a
song that's about what it is and as some of

(02:34:46):
the fucking maddest vocals in any metal song that he
could possibly deem popular, and.

Speaker 2 (02:34:51):
That's also one of the biggest choruses ever written. This
is it.

Speaker 3 (02:34:54):
It feels like the Trooper in that room and you're
like that, Yeah, so much good stuff about the people
on stage, and also all the people stood in front
of it. It's like guys were crushing it.

Speaker 2 (02:35:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:35:04):
And even from you know that latest records, whipping out
some of the new material and stuff, like every time
i've seen Aathrax since in Darkment, they've played the song
in Darkument and then one other song from that record,
and it's been different every time. And feeding the death
Machine from this was I'll be like our great another
Indarkument song I can tick off because I love that
record and I love every song on it, and I
really appreciate it. Again what Dave said before it, where

(02:35:25):
he was like, this is our most at the Gate
Sea sounding song, So this one is for Tompa, And
I just want to mention that as well, that I know,
like Pete Stroyer mentioned something as well, and I remember
that when we review Bloodstock Cup onces ago, we were
talking about how that was like a couple of weeks
basically after Ossie had passed, and there was this air
of like almost communal celebration at a festival of such

(02:35:46):
a pivotal important figure in our extreme microcosm. You know,
a few references flying around someone like Thomas Lindberg, who
you know, at you could imagine if they were still
here at the Gates headlining a Damnation Memory Lane type
you know, staple day because they were a certified Damnation band.
And yeah, I really appreciate that that kind of sense of,

(02:36:08):
you know, celebrating someone like Thomas who is not you know,
the most like globally famous, recognizable on the cover of
you know, Krang or whatever metal person that has ever been.
But for our community, I think it's cemented again what
a huge loss and what a tremendous figure in our
world he was, and obviously had the Haunted playing later

(02:36:28):
on who you know, They didn't actually explicitly say anything,
but that's members about the gates and there's a kind
of a cross over there, but even just that, you know.
And then then we go here feeding the death Machine.
Fucking great. Yeah, like I said, just chosen simply by
the spark in the air when people watched.

Speaker 2 (02:36:45):
Them at that.

Speaker 1 (02:36:45):
First of all, an Anothatay were the runaway winners really
of the weekend. After that, I had another little wanderer around.
You went to see Nordic Giants?

Speaker 2 (02:36:58):
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (02:36:58):
Which surprises me because I imagine you'd be of an
author and punisher man.

Speaker 3 (02:37:01):
I split it so I went to see right Half
Authorn Punisher and then saw a couple of songs of
Nordic Giants Authorn Punisher that this was one of the
sets that the most excited I'm most curious about. I
don't know if they've played Damnation before. I've never seen
them on a festival line. Of that, they opened the
main stage a couple of years us right, well, I
must have missed it, but they've been a band that

(02:37:24):
I'm bad artists whatever you want to call it that
I've I've been kind of fascinated by, even if musically
I've never really been wowed by it. But just if
you don't know what it is, it's a kind of
industrial one man band, but the instruments are designed and
built single handedly by the one guy in the band.

Speaker 1 (02:37:42):
Oh sorry, sorry, When I said they opened the main stage,
I meant Nordic Giants, not author that would have been.
That would have been fucking insane, if that would have
been so weird. Right, Okay, I mean Nordi Giants open.

Speaker 3 (02:37:53):
Isn't that much less strange, But anyway, that's that's fine
in a moment. But I was mostly interest this purely
like the nerdy reason of like I want to see
the instruments. I want to see the press thing that
he slides along the bar that makes the juttering noise.
I want to see that weird microphone that wraps around
his head. So I didn't manage to get that close
because I kind of went in with the rush after

(02:38:14):
the Nathrak and I was ready to to kind of
start doing my analyzing, and then the lights came on
and he'd been plunged into darkness, which is listen. I'm
not trying to I'm not saying that Author and Punisher
is purely a visual thing, although it's a gimmick or whatever,
but that is that has got to be. One of

(02:38:35):
the reasons why people are in that room is to
see how these sounds get made and considering you maybe
have the most distinct sound creation technology maybe in the world,
and then to put the lights behind you so you're
just a silhouette. I probably would have stayed a bit
longer if there was more to look at, because it's

(02:38:55):
the music is so punishing, and but you know about
like the Splits and Stuf, this is a pretty sad
one because Author and Punisher are about as brutal as
it gets, like noisy, caustic, just scathing and horrendous. Nordic
Giants was like walking into an episode of Blue Planets
or something. It's again talk about like odd bands. I've

(02:39:19):
seen them before. I saw them in Colchester maybe four
years ago because I was still at the university around then.
They swung through town and post Rock. I imagine you're
sort of on the same page. I sort of have
my favorites and I'm not really auditioning for new ones.
And I don't necessarily feel the iarch to go and
see post rock bands live at festivals and that sort

(02:39:40):
of thing. But Nordic Giants are definitely one of the
most at least visually distinct bands in that scene at
the moment, Like if you if you don't know what.

Speaker 2 (02:39:49):
It looks like.

Speaker 3 (02:39:52):
They sort of dress up like owls, one of them
on piano, ones on drums, and then they project these
I think their boutique but whatever, that sort of short
films and there's one prepared for each song, and so
you kind of just listen to the music. It's it's
like a tiny film festival where you're as much watching

(02:40:12):
the film as you are the band, and they're just
scoring it, and you know, it's very pleasant, very agreeable.
It's never going to steal the festival. But if you
do like that sort of thing, and you know, if
you're at a festival you're listening to like Pig Destroyer
and now on the thrack and you've got fucking Napalm
Death later, it's not a bad idea to nip into
the the Al Sanctuary and get some of that to

(02:40:36):
clean your ears out.

Speaker 1 (02:40:37):
Yeah, even though I will see maybe like one in
ten of them that actually play. I'm always happy that
the post rock bands are a presence at the Nation Festival,
and you know, and it fills out the variety of
the lineup and makes it seem a more exciting, interesting
place to be. I came back into the main stage
and watched The Haunted. I did go so over on

(02:40:57):
sort of the right hand side of the stage. There
are some seating, and I was like, I'm going to
sit down and sort of watch The Haunted to the
best of my ability. I've heard it didn't sound that
strong for me, and I kind of put it down
to like, okay, I'm on the side of the room.
I've heard, you know, sound complaints in the venues. They
always see to vary. People have different stories depending on
which part of the room they're you know, standing in,

(02:41:19):
you know, but I did hear quite a few people
being like, yeah, the Haunted didn't you know, the sound
didn't come together for whatever reason. I thought it was
all right, you know, I really like some Haunted material.
Because of the kind of sound. It was quite hard
and a lot of their songs are very very similar.
It was quite hard to determine like oh yeah, this
is like a particular noteworthy one. But when they play

(02:41:40):
you know that songs like All against All or whatever
from Revolver, I was like, oh yeah, cool, we've got
a bang it here ended on hate song. Quite no nonsense, really,
you know, just turned out thrashed them out cause of
Rucus off you go. But the Haunted, you know, played
I think one of the very early Damnations again, so
coming back for after a long period, but you know,
nice little savvy little booking to kind of slot them

(02:42:01):
in there. I was regaining a bit of energy. Went
into the black metally stage to see a band I
think are one of the leaders at the moment and
certainly in terms of popularity as it turns out of
straightforward black metal at the moment, which is Spectral Wound,
who I had seen earlier this year at Incineration Festival
and I enjoyed them very much, and I have enjoyed

(02:42:23):
their their latest kind of you know, run of two
three albums that they've been putting out. But Special Wound,
I guess it's just a thing that they do the
fundamentals extremely well. They're so popular in that scene, but
you see their merch everywhere, and they were you know,
second from the top on the second biggest stage at
the festival, and it was fucking full. You know, it's like,

(02:42:43):
this is just a little mettle band basically who just
do Nordic style shit with you know, a bit of melody,
but people fucking love them.

Speaker 2 (02:42:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:42:53):
I knew they were popular and I could see that.
You know, they're a high building, so I presumed it
would be fairly busy, and I see them getting thrown
around a lot. But I don't know, it feels like
there's that wing of like really fiery, melodic but still
quite raw black melt. It feels like a lot of
those names from like the maybe twenty tens, that sort

(02:43:14):
of it, Like some of them seem to have fallen away,
but Spectral Wound are, like you say, it's super popular
to the point where I was, I didn't think I
was gonna have too much trouble getting into that room.
I was again, I was planning to split it with Mantar,
so I thought it's final stand at the back. The
back was in the like basically by the toilets. It
is in the foyer bit again, so I sort of
had to muscle my way through to get a decent
view of it. But uh yeah, it's it's hard because

(02:43:37):
it's there's no gimmick or novelty. It's it's hard to
just sell it me on just oh yes, melodic, raw
black mel that's really good.

Speaker 2 (02:43:45):
Yeah, I think they're fucking sick. I think again.

Speaker 1 (02:43:47):
When I first heard Spectrum Weirdly a couple of albums ago,
I was like, Okay, cool, I know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:43:52):
I like it good.

Speaker 1 (02:43:53):
But I know the longer they've stuck around, the more
albums they put out, the more I have that they've
wormed my way into when I went to my heart
and made me go like, yeah, like you are. I
think compared them to Lampa murmur because I think they
played together and stuff, and they have Philip. There's a
crossover there, but Lampa Murma are like the really eccentric
version and Spectral Wound is just like a straight down
the line, no nonsense version. But they do the fundamentals

(02:44:16):
of it so well with great riffing and great melodies.
Like there's a couple of songs, they're two kind of
bigger songs. One of the thin one's kind of what's it,
what's it called aristocratic suicidal black metal, which is so catchy.
And there's another song called Frigid and spell Bound, and
they both have just like really like you hear them
once and you can hum them rifts and with this

(02:44:37):
kind of slight folky edge but without being like folk metal.
You know, it just has that kind of slight upbeat quality.
And I was looking around and people were dancing around me,
like throwing fingers in the air. One like this is,
like esaidally a roll black metal band, but people are
so you know, up for it, and the singer I
think it helps. They've got a really you know, physically
commanding front man, which I always love the touch of

(02:44:58):
the black kind of bit driving gloves that just makes
him look a little bit scary and like he's going
to strangle you, but he's doing these like big gestures
and stuff while those great fantastic guitar melodies are fill
in the air.

Speaker 2 (02:45:11):
And again it was a.

Speaker 1 (02:45:12):
Big room full for a straight up underground black metal band,
where if I were to bring them on review for
a show, I'd be like, come on, you know, like this,
I know this is kind of straightforward row black metal thing,
but trust me, it's good. But there's a fucking room
full of people who are like, well well into it.
And if Damnation won a book Lamp of Murmur based
on you know, their album that's coming out this today

(02:45:33):
as we're doing this, I think they would see some
similar results. But yeah, very much enjoyed to getting se
spectral and again very very good band. Next band on
the main stage in that second slot, and I have
to say, after Anaana Thrak the first, the next outstanding
band obviously is gonna be arm and Rah. Who if
if Nafrak are the house band in terms of like, right,

(02:45:54):
let's tear this shit up.

Speaker 2 (02:45:56):
Armor Rara are kind of like.

Speaker 1 (02:45:57):
That for Damnation for the we are gonna slowly nod
our heads and immerse ourselves in an incredibly soul kind
of scathing cathartic experience. And arm and Rah are such
a special live band. I think they're certainly today they're
a unique one. They kind of you know, they they

(02:46:18):
sort of picked up the bat on when Neurosis kind
of started winding down with it, you know of that
like Gray Nightmare World, tear your soul apart post metal
essentially and watching arm and Raw is again between you
know this and the last time they played Damnation. There's
nothing really special that's kind of happened in the interim.
They've not put out an album, you know, they put

(02:46:39):
like a couple of EPs earlier this year, but there's
not a lot of new material or anything to really
go on to make this particularly like a progression from
the last time.

Speaker 2 (02:46:46):
That they were around.

Speaker 1 (02:46:47):
But I love that arm and Rah have, you know,
none of the slightly more chined, strokey elements of post
metal as much as they do. Just the crushing despair
of it, just the fucking just the nails, you know,
just like absolute hell on Earth, fully falling apart inside

(02:47:08):
your brain as it's going on. They sound like toil,
you know, just that's the pure expression of toil. That's
what Armen are are and enrapturing you in that in
the live environment where they have just like you know,
obviously the big projection behind them, which they always have,
the pure monochrome black and white environment you're immersed into
where all color is just seemingly sapped from the world

(02:47:31):
around you when they are on, but also the clouds
of smoke that are like gushing forth from that stage
when they're playing songs like Evan Men's and stuff like that,
which are just so monumentally just fucking anvil on heads
but in slow motion heavy. And there was another point

(02:47:51):
where I was watching this band who are a regular
of the Damnation scene, another you know, quite long running
now but still a twenty first century band, and how
revered they are and how strong a connection there is
between that band and this particular festival audience. I mean,
when they started doing the song A Solitary Rain, this

(02:48:13):
like which it starts with this just very delicate quiet
you could hear a pin drop acoustic kind of a
clean guitar part. But as soon as people hear that riff,
there's this huge cheer that went up through the audience.
And it was another thing where I was like, yeah,
like this is another one of those songs that's like
this is a Damnation anthem, you know, like this is
the songs that are the lifeblood and the new classics

(02:48:35):
of what this is. And that's another one where you're
going back like eight years or something like. You're not
going back to too far, but it means so much
to people. And I mean, I think there's been some
lineup changes maybe since the lastime they're around, and they
think they have a newer basis who was adding some
female vocals and stuff. So that was a nice touch
that Deer kind of helped bring some new dynamics maybe

(02:48:56):
to the arm in our live environment, but it was
it was one where I just went, it's a privilege
to have been in a kind of a subculture and
a festival scene and whatnot where we get to see
this band so regularly, because this is such an out
there experience, right, Like, it's so not many bands in
the whole world of music are providing the kind of
live experience of arm and Rah provide. And the fact

(02:49:17):
that we and our little bubble here at Damnation and
surrounding you know, European Metaltoria or whatever, the fact that
we get to see about arman Ras so regularly, we
should count ourself lucky to be able to see that
because they're just reliably, every single time just absolutely world
ending and world breaking. So yeah, very much of course

(02:49:37):
obviously enjoyed Armen Rah. Finally we're getting to the ending
parts here with the two balands actually who had headlined
the either one of the two smaller stages on this
very interesting scenario here. So you and I went to
see Warning which I think was obviously we were going
to do that again. We did our ABM club on it.
We were talking about what a monumental record that watching

(02:49:59):
for this that they were going to be playing, So
I've actually I didn't get to see any of the
other thing that was going on, but I was really
curious about it because what a weird booking. It was
a widget dude playing their album trilogy right all the
way through, which meant this was I think it's the
only time this has happened a festival set slot Damnation,
which has gone for its listed here of the Clashminder

(02:50:20):
a full two hours and including overrunning into the entirety
of Napalm Death set where they were playing non stop
blistering black metal.

Speaker 3 (02:50:31):
And because we were.

Speaker 1 (02:50:32):
Watching Warning and then Napalm Death, didn't get to put
my head in. I am so curious about what that
crowd was, Like, I want to see like a time
lapse camera of how it changed over the course of
those two hours, and if anyone was there for the
full two hours, how intense was that because I imagine,
particularly Sunday night right ending, everyone's fucking knackered and you

(02:50:55):
get two hours of unrelenting that at you must have
been a hell of a fucking thing to go through.
Might be one of those sets that less enjoyment and
more just like soul scourging experience.

Speaker 3 (02:51:09):
Yeah, because I was saying, you have to be a
pretty major a fan to go. I'm missing Napalm Death
and I'm missing Warning. I'm here for the two hours.
But even I would see even a band. I liked
seeing three albums by them in a row in first
of an album, especially if you're familiar with it feels
like a very natural arc To me. It's a bit

(02:51:29):
like it's like doing movie marathons, where in your head
you think that this is gonna be so much fun.
I'm gonna watch all the Jaws films and then just
going through, like getting to the end of a second
or third film. It's not going to like what's am
I doing? Am I going to be here forever? Like
three black metal records in two hours? I don't know

(02:51:50):
if there's another band you could do the sport damnination.
So it's certainly notice when that says, like you said,
I'm very curious about what it was like.

Speaker 2 (02:51:57):
In the room.

Speaker 1 (02:51:58):
Yeah, again, I think I saw which you dude, you know,
playing kind of around the era of those albums the
first time out, but I would have been very curious
to see it again. It's a curio booking that demanded
this unconventional time slot. We went to see Warning, and
for everything that we were saying about how unrelentingly bleak
that album is when we did the album club preview.

(02:52:19):
Of the two options, this was I think the much
gentler on the physical being at least Sunday Nights thing
that we could have been doing Warning on the third stage.
I think one of the you know, beloved Damnation figures
in Patrick Walker, whether he's playing with Warning or forty
what Son just everyone was just delighted to have him

(02:52:41):
around because he's so revered that in that world. Playing
Watching for a distance. They were announced as they were
going to be having new material as well, because there
is a fucking Warning album coming out next year. Insanely,
then there was an announcement kind of you know, lead
up to the festival. They were like the new songs,
we don't feel they're quite ready in their life arrangements yet,
and we don't want to you know, debut them before

(02:53:03):
they're not ready really, so we Unfortunately, I just canna
be playing Watching from a Distance. I never knew how
they were going to fit it in anyway if they
have an hour slot, and Watching Your Resistance is a
fucking nearly hour long records, so I don't know how
the hell they would have fit in anyway, And certainly
Watching the Distance filled the time. I'm curious to hear
new Warning, of course we review the album, of course
when it comes out. If they were tour or anything,
I don't know. I want to hear the new material.

(02:53:24):
But for the confines of this festival set, Watching for
a Distance was basically what you what you needed. Elliott's
I've had the experience of watching Warning play this particular
Abbot Damnation before, very different, maybe because you went to
see Norder Giants or whatever. Maybe you know, you had
your moments of kind of slightly softer on the ears stuff.
But there's something about, at least how I saw it

(02:53:48):
entering into that you know, little Warning environment that was
such a it was like there's a war going outside
with all of these fucking, you know, blasting grindcore, black
metal bands, whatever, but there's a a little pocket of safety,
a little bubble where Warning we're playing and, like I said,
incredibly bleak, sad album. But that particular experience of having

(02:54:10):
that at that moment was really like what the doctor ordered.

Speaker 3 (02:54:15):
Yeah. I remember having a similar experience in twenty twenty
two when A forty what sun Plane and I think
it was between God Flesh and Converge, and there was
a feeling of like, we're listening to these lovely, warm,
like sun kissed Sea Breeze, doomy rock songs. Oh we
have to go and listen to Jane Doe. Now, okay,

(02:54:35):
well let's go and get screamed in the face. This
was like the moment of that at the festival, and
I in some ways I wasn't surprised because I learned
from that set what an unbelievable live voice Patrick Walker
has and how magnetic he is as a front man,
and knowing that going into this was like the banding

(02:54:56):
and a sound sublime and they did. I think they
had some of the best sound of the whole weekend.
I think the sound this year was better than previous years.
I think the curtaining that they'd introduced did much to
do that. They translated the sound of the record amazing
to the live environment. The thing that I wasn't really
prepared for was kind of how euphoric it was going

(02:55:16):
to be, considering it's like one of the saddest albums ever. Yeah,
I think it's because typically when you're listening to that,
you're often alone, and he sounds so desolate on it,
just go like, oh this is this is miserable. But
being in a room with you know, maybe a thousand
people or so, and you could feel a lot, you

(02:55:37):
can feel the love and the reverence for the band,
like there in the audience, and you saw how it
was impacting Patrick on stage. It was so in its
own way, it was so happy.

Speaker 1 (02:55:49):
It was very affirming for sure. And I mean I
love the little because obviously they're very fucking slow band,
but every like beat of that music counts, you know,
and Patrick between like, you know, for the several minutes
before his vocal parts even start in a song, he'll
be like mouthing the exact drum Phil hits. He'll just

(02:56:09):
be going like but da dah as He's like strumming
his guitar while the drummers do that exact thing behind
him like they I mean, obviously they'd fucking know what
they're playing it, but like every single second of it,
no matter how kind of snail pace it might be,
matters to them, you know, and they want to get
every single little beat of it right.

Speaker 2 (02:56:26):
And then into the.

Speaker 1 (02:56:29):
One again one of the rare albums that could be
displayed at someone like Damnation, where like you're saying, people
kind of hang on to every word of it, and
the particularly I mean when you get to Footprints. We
did it on the album Club Warning were selling a
fucking tote bag with the entire bridge lyrics to Footprints

(02:56:51):
on the side of it, so they know what they
have there, right, But being in this environment where in
a gentler context maybe than what we're saying about CEOC
where it's just like, yeah, riffs, fun times, people like
the little pockets you get a Damnation' like oh we're
gonna have a sing song, you know, and this being
the like much gentler version of that, more intimate perhaps

(02:57:11):
version of it, and then it has the big eruption
point of that Footprints bridge that I mean, that alone.

Speaker 2 (02:57:20):
Warranted the entire booking.

Speaker 1 (02:57:22):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:57:22):
That was one of the moments.

Speaker 3 (02:57:25):
Yeah, I mean there was, there was, there were a
few of those, but like much smaller. There was the
bit where he goes you know you love me, I
know you do in the title track I Wish You
here with Me Today. You kind of heard these swells
in the audience, but when that bridge came in Footprints,
it was like everyone was kind of hypnotized, and then

(02:57:46):
suddenly it broke and it's just like arms are in
the air, everyone's swaying, everyone's throwing their head back. It's
just it's the sort of thing which just by virtue
of the kind of bands that play that nation, it's
not typical, but it was like we were all at
I don't know, the Eagles or something.

Speaker 1 (02:58:02):
It was just.

Speaker 3 (02:58:04):
It was amazingly feel good, considering it's one of the
most heartbreaking pieces of heavy metal there's ever been. And
I think that's the moment where the show. The show
was obviously tremendous in the lead up to that, but
that was the moment where it kind of cemented itself
to me, as this is going to be one of
those damnation moments that, you know, decades from now, if

(02:58:28):
the fest was going or not, I will remember that
in the way that I remember, you know, Dragged into
Sunlight or Jazz one saying see you in Hell before
the break in funeral Opolis. It's just like little thirty
seconds to two minute moments which just stay with me forever.

Speaker 1 (02:58:44):
Yeah, to the level of polite appreciation. And I don't
mean that in a sort of like you know, half
hearted way. Yeah, just in a like just incredibly pleasant
to be around. I mean even like the way Patrick
on stage he had this little flask drinking from and
I can only pursue it like, you know, maybe it
was a fucking hard liquor. I don't know, but I

(02:59:04):
can only imagine it's the freshest herbal tea you've ever
fucking drank. Compared to our Alan from Primordial. He was
like vodka Red Bull. It's like those two guys, which
made me laugh when I saw a photo of the
two of them together backstage. I was like, those are
guys having such different days, very different entities. But yeah,
like I think I enjoyed this see for more than
I did the first time I saw Warning playing a

(02:59:24):
Damnation because just the vibe in that you know, small
third room was just so right for it. And considering
the whiplush I had last time of Warning into fucking Nails,
I guess it's similar again going Warning into Napalm Death,
but at least I could walk from one room to
another in a more normal manner.

Speaker 2 (02:59:43):
Napalm Death headlining Damnation Festival on.

Speaker 1 (02:59:46):
As said, the kind of Staples type day, This was
kind of built up a lot as essentially Napalm's biggest
headline show right there, doing a fucking five thousand and
six thousand whatever capacity, uh, sort of you know, huge
indoor hall like this. Obviously you can go see Napalm
Death in your town most years and they'll play three
hundred people. That's fucking crazy, right the fact that we

(03:00:10):
mentioned earlier about headliners, and I don't think it hit
quite as hard as Corrosion, but certainly it was not
five thousand people right like, it was a congregation of
people primarily sort of up the front path, the sort
of sound deskway. So the kind of the the accolades
around size of Napalm Death strow. I don't know how
much water they will hold in the long run, but
I don't mean that to take away from the fact

(03:00:30):
that being able to pull off a successful festival in
a huge fucking environment like this with Napalm Death as
your headliner is something too right home about right and
that's both in the wow, something as extreme as Napalm Death,
you know, topping the bill in this huge thing, but
also then for us who are so you know ingrained

(03:00:53):
in this type of music, Napalm Death are the fucking
gods right and we and we love and work ship
so many steps along the way of that band and
where you know, so many festivals they can play fucking
Glastonbury and they're a curio, but Napalm Death the closest
thing that this festival has to Royalty.

Speaker 3 (03:01:14):
Yeah, in a very different way actually actually not really
in a different way. It reminded me of when Bloodstock
got Priest and it was like, there's no one who
could possibly play this festival who doesn't have unfathomable reverence
for that band. And Napalm Death are the same where
it's like, I can't imagine a band playing Damnation that

(03:01:36):
doesn't have total respect. Likely highly influenced by Napalm Death
in one way or another. They might be extreme metal's
most important band of all time. I'd say almost certainly
the most important extreme metal bands to emerge from Britain.
And again, Damnation feeling like a sort of British metal
extreme metal institution. That's exactly what Napalm Death are. There

(03:01:59):
is just an alignment that makes.

Speaker 1 (03:02:01):
Sense absolutely, and considering there are some Napalm Best shows
where the tour earlier this year is brings to mind
where they went right we did this tour last year.
We're going to go off the beaten track set this
wise and we are gonna veer into areas where a
lot of people, you know, because their catalog is so
fucking enormous as well, we're going to veer into areas
where not everybody might even know these songs. They turned

(03:02:22):
up a damnation and basically like the closest possible thing
maybe give or take a couple of tracks to a
crowd pleasing festival Napalm Death set, and that was a
pretty perfect way to end proceedings. I think, like you know,
because we come out the third stage seeing Warning, we
were basically right up side onto the main stage.

Speaker 2 (03:02:40):
We were just right up kind of.

Speaker 1 (03:02:42):
By near the front of Napalm Death and we just
had a ball watching, you know, one of the greatest,
most revered bands to have ever come out of the
UK and certainly extreme metal ever and as they ripped
through everything from fucking scum right through to the newest stuff.
There was just so much to enjoy, all of the

(03:03:03):
classic Napalm death elements of Barney running around like a
fucking maniac in the way no one has ever run before.
My favorite moment came early on in the set when
he sort of like half launched himself against one of
the amps and all of the water bottles that were
stacked on top of it fell down, and then a
crew member very like scared maybe that someone's gonna trip
on a bottle or god forbid it fucking leaks and

(03:03:25):
causes an electrical you know, explosion or anything, to charge
out and gather up all of these water bottles that
Barney had, you know, very graciously knocked to the floor.
But it's just Barney, right, He's doing what he does.
He's doing the Barney moves that everybody loves and wants
to see when we go out there, and I took
We particularly love with Barney always the way that he

(03:03:47):
like there are noises in his head that he's grappling
to get out, like that's what you see. And it's
still like you've been doing this for fucking so many decades.
How are they not out of you yet? But there
was like those demons that are locked in his brain
that he's wrestling with. It's going to be one of
the most unique frontman. And the sounds that he is

(03:04:09):
producing physically combinations you can witness on a stage, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (03:04:13):
There are the most extreme singers, especially when they've been
in the game this long. You know, they have a
sound and you kind of you can predict roughly what
the next sounds going to come out of side their
mouth is like you know, uc Corpse Grinder and he's
in the pocket. He's crushing it, but he's in the pocket.
Barney's doing songs that I'm very familiar with, and he's

(03:04:36):
bending the words and shrieking parts that are normally growled
and grind parts normally streets and sometimes just barking in
a way that's much close to like a narco punk
than grindcore. He is a wild presence on stage, and
I think, like, you know, comparing the two other times
I've seen Napalm Death, like when I saw them on
twenty twenty four Campaign for Musical Destruction, that that was, yeah,

(03:05:00):
very grindcore focused, and the first time. They were sort
of on the new album, so there was a lot
of new stuff in there and a lot of deep cuts,
this just being like the greatest hits, but him being
that bit more intense. I don't know if he's Molts,
I normally seen him, but just him being more intense
than other human beings are just meant that it never
felt like it's as close as it could be to

(03:05:21):
a comfy Napalm death show, and that's not comfy at all.

Speaker 1 (03:05:25):
Yeah, science is deafening right near the start when all
was said and done, all these just like I said
to you on point, for as crazy asan as napon
fr there's the odd point, primarily in the two thousands
and twenty tens, when they would just knock out like
a fucking banger, like when I was said and done
or something like that. And just when those are present
and correct, it always adds something contagion, which has been

(03:05:47):
ruined somewhat by the video. I don't know if anyone
else has seen these, but the videos that Elliott has
shown me of former Napalm Deft drummer Mick Harris doing
Barney impersonations by primarily going contagion and that just means,
like I think for me and you, that was a
moment when I came in.

Speaker 2 (03:06:07):
All of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:06:08):
But when you're ending a festival with I mean, obviously
of course he got the little see what we did
there when they drop out a dead or usuff or something.
Another thing about seeing this huge, gargantuan, you know, room
with a bad neighbor headlining is when they end on
Nazi Punk's fuck off into Unchallenged Hate, and they've got
this big banner behind them, you know, saying no place
for racism, homophobia, fascism, whatever, and you've got a crowd

(03:06:31):
of people joining in for Nazi punks fuck off again.
It's one of those moments like, yeah, we're in the
right place, like everybody's got a good thing going here.
Pat on the back everyone, what a fucking sick festival.

Speaker 3 (03:06:42):
All unchallenged shage, Just like on that one, because I
don't know if I've seen them play that before, I
might have done. It seems like a big enough song
where I would have done, but for some reason I'm
not sure about it. And it's one of my absolute favorites.
And there was a bit earlier on when he was
doing one of it. He was doing a speech and
he goes, uh, hate a natural human emotion, and if
you don't confront it, if you don't challenge you, here

(03:07:06):
we go. Oh baby, this is resentment always simmers. No, no, no, no, no, no,
you can't. That's that is like if you saw Metallica
and they went death is a part of life and
it's creeping anyway, his hatless rise it. That's not fair.
Thankfully we got we got it in the end, so

(03:07:26):
all is forgiven. But yeah, they're just you know, they can't.
I think as much as it's kind of it's well
known with the nap on death being about for forty
plus years. At this point, Barney kept saying that, like
kept coming up that we've been doing this for forty years,
and it was actually a healthy reminder because you go, yeah,

(03:07:48):
like this is pretty fucking mental that you're making this
racket after forty years. Like Barney's probably about sixty, I know,
Like it's technically a younger man because Shane wasn't there
that day and it is napalm death. It wouldn't have
been any softer if he had been, like, it's it's
a thing to marvel at.

Speaker 1 (03:08:06):
Yeah, I mean, even on that note of Shane Henry
wasn't present as a few shows lately where he has
just kind of been taking some time off. And when
they introduced the current the live basis, they go, you go,
you're Napalm Death, right, you are a globally famous The
amount of people that could be I don't know being like,
oh I could, I'd love to play bassed for Napalm Death.
There's something just so wholesome and just so quintessentially Napalm Death.

(03:08:28):
This go, yeah, this is our bass said, He's Adam
from Southport and then.

Speaker 3 (03:08:31):
We just we just move on.

Speaker 1 (03:08:32):
But there's no I don't know ego or anything. It's
just like this is still forty years in essentially a
bunch of guys from Birmingham who are kicking up a
big old racket. Despite being total game changing fucking legends
of the history of music, does look completely different without them.
Here's Adam from Southport. Let's go, well, I thought I
recognized him, and it sons like I did. He's from

(03:08:55):
Corrupt marl Alta, which is where John Cook, their current
guitar player.

Speaker 2 (03:08:58):
Right, he's from that.

Speaker 3 (03:08:59):
So really was half Cromolels, half Nay Palm Death and
that folks so fitting for the Damnation twentieth anniversary because they,
to me are one of those bands from like ten
twelve years ago which were just so definitively tied to
that festival. I remember seeing them, it might have been
in the twenty fourteen edition, and it's like that guy
is now, even if he's just playing a couple of shows,

(03:09:21):
he's now in Napalm Death at the twentieth anniversary of
the festival. It it's kind of got a storybook quality
to it.

Speaker 1 (03:09:27):
Yeah, And then you know, here we are with a big,
long review of the festival that it is now officially
two days. There's more bands than ever to talk about,
and the stature of the event keeps coming back to
me even with I think there should be I think
something to be addressed about, for example, the sparkness of
crowds at the end of the night and that kind
of thing. But the stature and the scale of what

(03:09:52):
is there to be pulled off here and the unfalteringness
of vision in getting it there, you know, like Damnation
has never had to even now less than ever, I
think it has to kind of think about, you know,
to use the phrase selling out to gain a particular
audience or anything. It is just built on what it is.
I think there's more to say about Damnation before the
year through, to be honest, when we get into all

(03:10:13):
of our end view shows and stuff like that next month,
because it's it's a really impressive thing that they managed
to do over there, so you know, congrats on twenty
years of it. I don't even have a specific wish
list for next year per se, like Acid Bath already
accounted for, so I'll take whatever really and I trust
it will be great. So yeah, cannot wait for next years.
As it is Friday, I'm going to leave off with

(03:10:36):
the releases that are out today so it don't unduly
miss a week. This is mainly so I can have
it in the episode description for people. But if you
have got this far into our Damnation review, you're obviously
excited about the new of Mice and Men album, which
is called Another Miracle, which kicks us off.

Speaker 2 (03:10:50):
It's not a ninth album.

Speaker 1 (03:10:51):
I don't know whether of Mice and Men, I remember
when they had about three four I don't rememberhere they
got fucking nine of them, but that's out a Similarly,
the new Devil Wears Prada album Flower, which I've seen
a few reviews giving that a kicking because I think
they're going down the kind of pop metal core route,
But that is out as well. Rise of the North Star,
the complete anime brained French hardcore band, have releasing an

(03:11:13):
album called Chapter four Red Falcon Super Battle Neoparis War,
which is the most gundam shit I've ever heard, in
an album titled Hats Off to Him. Here we go
a little bit more on Brod for this episode. Maybe
Mike Patten's new band, Abbot Pattern, which is him with
two guys called the Avette Brothers Abbot Pattern South Auld
album out today. As mentioned, Lampa Murma, one of my

(03:11:36):
favorite black metal bands in the world today, has a
new album out today called The Dreaming Prints in Ecstasy.
There is also nineteen fourteen, the World War One themed
black metal band Have got Viribus Unitus, the second co
lab between Belwich and Aerial Ruins Stigeon Boo stigean Bow
Volume two is out and on that similarly co labby
Extreme Underground front Regana and Drows, Regana being more of

(03:12:00):
a kind of sludgie post metaly type band have got
a collab called Ash Souvenir. If you are into kind
of proggy techy, you know, cosmic ish death metal, Void Ceremony.
I've got an album called Abditum Grindcore. We have chair
Maker with Leviathan Carcass, and there is an EP out today,
I think a second EP from a Vour, the kind

(03:12:22):
of post Palm Reader Black Peaks band. I know there
are eyes on that project because a lot of us
love those bands. So the new Vowur EP is out
as well, and that's called a Stormlind with Silver that
poloshes us off. Thank you very much for joining us
through this, as said, thanks to everybody who hung out
at Damnation who said hi, thanks for As said on
its twentieth year, the vibes work were better than ever

(03:12:42):
and I think we can all keep carrying that forward
into the future. Next week here on TNN, it will
be the final reviews show of twenty twenty five. We
have some biginns that we haven't got to yet. We've
also got some underground favorites, the likes of Lampermurma for example,
and some others as well. So we'll be harying us
forward into next week and talking all about it so
you can join us there and then December is not

(03:13:04):
very far away, so cheers.

Speaker 2 (03:13:06):
Everybody will see you through all that. Bye bye,

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