Live Review : Damnation Festival 2021

Damnation Festival is at the end of the day a labour of love by a couple of fan boys who felt their distinct tastes in Metal were not be catered for elsewhere. Over the last sixteen years it has morphed, moved and grown, but it has never ever lost its deep-seeded independence. It is that independent spirit that has so connected it with its immensely loyal fanbase, to the point that the festival sold out in March this year, over nine months before the actual show. Damnation is not a corporate money-making exercise, it may now have a capacity of three thousand (soon to be nearer six) and command a headliner of Carcass’s stature, but it is still very much that labour of love for the organisers.

2021 has not been an easy year for any of us. For Damnation it has seen a secured bill of mostly American acts evaporate in front of their very eyes. However, their dogged resilience and determination means that they did the un-thinkable and managed to pull together an almost entirely homegrown line up that is actually stronger than their original roll-call of acts. This one day in Leeds offers a massive smorgasbord of extreme Metal treats. No matter if you are a doomster or a thrash head or a black metal devotee you will find something that is your cup of Jager. 

ROCKFLESH’s journey starts in the Eye Sore merch stage for the actually rather soothing and sedate sounds of London’s Mountain Caller. This is post metal through the lens of stoner rock. It is laid back, but has an expansive and explorative feel to it. Lead guitarist Claire Simson has a humorous and playful nature about her. She injects the between song banter with jokey asides, commenting that signs on the motorway seem to bunch everything further on than Birmingham as being the generic North. It is very much hangover music and provides just the tonic for those of us looking to be soothed back to health after the excesses of the previous night.

Abduction are the ying to Mountain Callers yang. They are heavy, abrasive and about as calming as a chainsaw. Hailing from centre of hades (known locally as Derby) they have evolved from a one-person studio project into a fully formed band. A/V stands centre stage looking like a cross between a soothsayer from Greek mythology and Muma-Ra from Thundercats. His nameless minions on either side have gone for the MGLA school of stage attire; raised hoodies and facing obscuring masks. They may specialise in the high theatrics (a skull of what I can only assume is some poor pop fan that got in their way is held aloft midway through) but actually this is a really really good example of big screen cinematic Black Metal. There is a lot of shade and textures in what they do and slow reflective sections make the monumental breakdowns far more effective. Really rather good indeed.

Party Cannon are the band that launched a thousand memes. They are known far more for their juvenile logo, than they are for their music (to the point where Damnation itself have nicked the style for this year’s official merch). Putting aside the graphics, they are actually a hugely entertaining live act. Yes, their brand of party slam is pretty straight forward and one dimensional, but who needs progression and time signatures when you have beachballs and inflatable sharks. This is The Ramones school of song-writing, short sharp numbers that cut straight to the point. This is music to dance to, it might be slam dancing, but it is dancing all the same. The pit is nothing short of electric. The entire downstairs section of the Tone stage becomes a vortex of convulsing bodies, soundtracked by buzzsaw riffs that causes your body to move. The most fun you will have with (most of) your clothes on.

Urne are one of this year’s buzz bands. Emerging from the ashes of cult heroes Hang the Bastard, in the shape of debut album “Serpent & Spirit” they have released one of the records of the year. Needless to say, the tiny Cult Never Dies stage is packed. We get a short but highly invigorating set that showcases brilliantly why they are spoken of in such reverential tones. There is the progressive weight of say Mastodon but it is coupled with an atmospheric sheen borrowed from Black Metal and an almighty crunch snatched from Death Metal. They use familiar touchstones to build something that is far greater than the sum of its constituent parts. Their epic but simultaneous harsh brand of Metal just feels utterly unique.   

Back upstairs for another of this year’s buzz bands and yet another room full notice. The festivals impending move to bigger premises on the right side of Pennines feels the right decision in the light of so many queues to get into the must-see acts. Like Urne, Dvne have also, in the shape of “Etemen Ænka” produced an absolute peach of a record. Complex, layered and utterly undefinable (I know, I have tried), it combines the intricate prog of “Laterus” era Tool with searing death metal. In the confides of the Eye Sore Merch stage they are utterly stunning. Their sound soars off the stage and engulfs the enrapt crowd. Their entire set comes from “Etemen Ænka” and it is fantastic to watch these dense, multifaceted tracks unfurl in the live arena. Just sumptuous. 

Bossk are a veritable Damnation institution, but that this is the first time they have been allowed to grace the main stage. They take their opportunity and run with it. This is as much an optical feast as it is an aural one. The huge screen behind them showcases mind blowing visuals that add an additional dimension to the show. Here at ROCKFLESH towers we view Bossk as Pink Floyd for the disenfranchised generation. This is prog, but very much prog’s dark underbelly. Because of travel restrictions the role of frontman Sam is played by Leeds resident Simon Wright. His yelps and screams are reserved and held back. Because of their restrained use they have such intensity when they do come. This is an immersive show that draws the crowd in and just transports you to another plane of existence. For the forty or so minutes that Bossk are on stage, time just stops and nowhere else exists in the universe aside from the Refectory. Utterly mesmeric.

Still under a hypnotic trance from  Bossk, we trudge downstairs once more. We had planned on covering Green Lung (alongside every other bugger) but their cancellation means that we instead opt for Ireland’s premiere left-wing thrashers Gama Bomb (we covered Green Lung’s super-sub Svalbard the previous night). Bouncy is the best way to describe both Gama Bomb and the packed house that awaits them. This is thrash with both a social conscience but also its tongue firmly shoved in its cheek. For their first show back on the mainland in over two years (“what the fuck have you done with the place whilst we were away” they deadpan) Philly Byrne has made an effort and is bedecked in a lime green suit that can only be described with the word, toxic. They are great fun, like overgrown children’s entertainers that have decided to start indoctrinating with left wing propaganda. 

Because they were so so so good last night, we decide to curtail our pogoing to nuggets of thrashy goodness and stick our heads into Svalbard. Yet again the queue to get in snakes down the main concourse and yet again they are just fantastic. We once more get ‘Listen to Someone’ (with Serena’s implored testimony that the responsibility around mental illness should not just be on the person seeking help) and the utterly vitriolic ‘The Currency Of Beauty’. However, freed from the shackles of doing an album in its entirety we also get a number of blasts from the past. Very much a band that I could stand and listen to all day, but there is more to see…

Back downstairs again for more homegrown Black Metal and the Cult Never Dies Stage is once again rammed. Even though they are competing with the mighty Onslaught, Wode have managed to pull a quite magnificent crowd. New album “Burn In Many Mirrors” is excellent and like most of last years and this year’s stand out releases, we have had to wait a while to witness tracks live. This is only their second gig back after the pause (a midweek support slot with Soar got torpedoed by Corona) but we a get an accomplished and well-rehearsed live experience. It is like they have spent the last twenty-four months waiting for this very moment. Their brand of Black Metal feels grandiose without resorting to great symphonic flourishes. It feels widescreen enough to stand out in a crowded market, but retains enough of Black Metals signature malevolence to not feel like they have abandoned their roots altogether. There is indeed very much something here.

It is impossible to describe Conjurer (but of course we are going to try to do so). It is Black Metal, but it is more introspective than that. It is Doom, but it is more nuanced and intricate than that. It’s Post metal, but with a lot more heft and sheer brutality. Essentially, it is something entirely different but instinctively familiar. It is heavy, gnarly and full of pounding riffs, but it also manages to be fragile, atmospheric and utterly emotive. Each track is crowded with inventive ideas, but also manages to be minimal and restrained. Where you expect more guitar you actually get less. It is that confounding non-inevitability that makes what Conjurer are doing so invigorating. You may have heard the tracks a hundred times before, but you still don’t know where they are going. Wonderful, completely wonderful.

Back downstairs again and even more people are trying to get into the tiny Cult Will Never Die stage. Mancunian legends Winterfylleth are the premiere Black Metal act that we have on these fair shores, however the strength of today’s bill means that they are here downstairs in the very bowls of the building. We are late starting which causes the packed in crowd a little anxiety. You can’t move in here and a feeling of collective claustrophobia sweeps over the room. However as soon as they begin any feelings of enclosed confinement goes out of the window (if there was one). Quite simply, Winterfylleth have become an utter juggernaut of a live act. They have developed a really distinct sound that combines brittle building Black Metal with exquisite acoustic interludes. 2018’s sparse but beautiful ”The Hallowing Of Heirdom” feels like a complete watershed moment as they have returned to the heaviness with renewed creativity.  

It’s only a hop skip and jump to the Tone stage but Conan are already in full pelt. There is a dearth of doom on this year’s bill, but if you are going to do Doom there is no finer place to call than Conan. They specialise in monolith like riffs that crash down like falling granite. Tonight, they are in an uncompromising mood and are unrelenting in their sheer intensity. We get slow pulsating riff after slow pulsating riff. They creep out of the speakers and pound us into submission. It is primal and the crowd are bewitched and tumble en masse over the barrier (including various members of Pist). It is the aural equivalent of sticking your head inside a blender. Invigorating and utterly exhilarating.  

Back upstairs and we have one of the most talked about exclusives of the whole darn weekend. Paradise Lost doing their second album “Gothic” in full. In many ways Paradise Lost are a band that has come full circle. The crunching harsh doom of “Gothic” has more in common with the material of their last three records than it does with the 11 before that. Subsequently this feels less like a pointless nostalgia trip and more like a reawakening. As wonderful as I found it, “Draconian Times” at Bloodstock, it felt in the end like an act going through the motions for contractual reasons. Yes, I cried plenty, but there was a lack of passion from the band. Tonight, it feels very different. It feels like they want to revisit and exhume this record, as they feel like it has more to say. Basically, they seem a lot more emotionally invested in this playthrough than they did with “Draconian Times”.

What we get is a haunting and bewitching performance. ‘Dead Emotion’, ‘Rapture’ and ‘Eternal’ all feel dark, mysterious, and full of creeping menace. This is doom reimagined as something ethereal and other worldly. The notes linger and you can feel the chill run up your spine. Halloween may well have come and gone but something wicked indeed this way does come. Final “Gothic track” ‘The Painless’ is utterly extraordinary. It builds with jagged intensity, Nick’s voice becoming a crescendo of indignity and then it abruptly ends. We don’t get short album closing instrumental ‘Desolate’, instead we get ‘Ghosts ‘ and ‘Darker Thoughts’ from their most recent offering “Obsidian” (an album they are yet to formally tour). That full circle movement is highlighted as you can’t actually see the joins between the material even though they were recorded thirty years apart. Paradise Lost sometimes let themselves down by looking like they don’t be want to be there, however this evening it was blindingly obvious that there was nowhere else on earth that they more wanted to be!

We are reaching the end as we head to the Tone stage one last time for its headliner, Memoriam. Whilst their forbearers Bolt Thrower were rather tardy in their approach to making records, Memoriam have not let the grass grow under their collective feet. Four full length records in five years is quite an achievement. Especially as they have all been really rather good. This is old skool Death Metal, the technicality has been left at home and instead we get strident grinding riffs. As ever, Karl Willetts is master of all that he surveys and paces up and down the stage like some wild animal. Memoriam are such pros at this that it is impossible for them to give a bad show. However as good as they are (and they are good) I have now other plans.

A chance encounter with an old friend had made me reconsider and decide on the spur of the moment to catch the second half of Year of No Light’s set. “They are the best live band in the world” he slurred (he had had a number of Ciders by that point). Well never a truer word has been drunkenly uttered, as Year of No Light are indeed utterly incredible. There was an intensity up on that stage that I had never witnessed before. I thought I had seen an atmosphere being ratcheted up before, but never like this. Every time you think it had reached a crescendo, they find another few levels of tension to build upon. It was euphoric in the way that the sound just kept piling up on top of itself. Wave after wave of sonic distortion. Just gob smackingly good.

And then there is one. But my god what a one. Carcass are probably the most influential and important band that Liverpool have ever produced (yes I know there was a certain load of hippies beginning with B but I am biased). To have birthed not one, not two but three specific genres is a feat in itself (grindcore, melodic death metal and grind and roll, if you are asking). They are pioneers, they are outliers, and they are just the most incredible band in the universe (again I told you I was biased). 

Tonight, they start at hundred miles an hour and just accelerate. Opener ‘Incarnated Solvent Abuse’ is thirty years old but still feels like the last word in speed and aggression. Since the world went to hell in a handcart, they have released a new album, “Torn Arteries”, however set lengths and rehearsal times (this is their first show in since 2000), means that we only get three tracks from it (all making their live debut). The majority of the show is therefore made up of stuff that is at least a quarter of a century old but still feels as fresh as (putrid) daisies. “Heartwork” tracks ‘Buried Dreams’ and ‘This Mortal Coil’, haven’t aged a day and still come across as the last word in melding melody with brutality.

The heart of Carcass is and always has been the relationship between Bill Steers and Jeff Walker. As musical partners they just bounce fluidly off each other. Jeff sneers and rasps his vocals, whilst Bill unleashes the most wonderful of licks. Tonight, both are in incendiary form and just burn off the stage. The fact that their set is as short as it is, is criminal, but no sooner as they arrive does the amalgamated version ‘Ruptured in Purulence’, ‘Heartwork’ and ‘Carneous Cacoffiny’ signal the end of the main set. But there is going to be more. We have waited two years (and in the case of Carcass returning to Damnation, eight years) to let them off lightly. “Torn Arteries”’ closer ‘The Scythe’s Remorseless Swing’ opens the encore and then we get a final blast of 2013’s explosive ‘Captive Bolt Pistol’ and they are gone. 

And that is it. Farewell to Damnation Festival at Leeds University Student’s Union. Carcass headlined Damnation’s first year at the Union in 2008, so it is only fitting that they should top its last hurrah here. We will miss the place, the labyrinth like corridors, the deckchairs, the supermarket, the pasty shop, the useless little bridge, the very useful balcony, the terrace bar. These have all been vital parts of the Damnation experience for the last thirteen years. But time marches on and the fact that the festival sold out nine months in advance and the fact that a good proportion of people spent at least some of their time today queuing to get into venues shows that it is time for somewhere bigger. So goodbye Leeds, hello (again) Manchester. See you in 364 days’ people (please please please can we be right this time…)