There is death metal, there is technical ornate death metal and then there is Septicflesh. I talk a lot about stripped-down minimalistic death metal and the joy that is hurtling noise with all the trappings removed. Well Septicflesh are the complete opposite of that.
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When their special guest slot was announced at last year's festival, having Malevolence in such a prestigious position felt like an enormous gamble. 12 months on, it makes complete sense. There is so much traction about them at the present moment, that it now feels inevitable that they will be the first extreme metal band to break out of the underground and into arenas since Slipknot.
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I love Wolf because they are European metal incarnate. They have been doing this for coming up to 30 years and they have never compromised and never changed. Fads have come and fads have gone but Wolf’s commitment to pure heavy metal has never changed.
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Soen make beautiful music. They have moved far beyond their position as a super group and have carved themselves a place as sumptuous purveyors of intricate and heart-wrenching progressive metal. They make music that talks to the soul. It is full of pathos and wrought emotions.
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The evolution and ascension of Whitechapel has been simply astonishing. 2016’s “Mark of the Blade” gave us an inclining that there was more to them then just guttural unrefined deathcore, but it was 2019’s deeply personal “The Valley” that saw them really transcend.
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Let’s kick out one of the big guns to keep you all interested. Amon Amarth have assumed Iron Maiden’s mantle of predictability entertaining. On the Sunday night we know what we will be getting. There will be fire, there will props, there will be an elaborate stage set and there will be more whoo-hoos than you can shake a stick at.
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There is something quintessentially classy about a three-piece. Everything is stripped back. There is no room for excess, instead you get pure unadulterated and unrefined beauty. There is no room to hide so what happens is that musical brilliance is able to rise to the top.
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There is a wonderful eccentricity to British metal and Green Lung revels in that. They recount us to a simpler time when nonconformity was about embrace the countryside around us. This is rural, spiritual metal that retreats back to the myths and tales that are at the heart of this emerald isle.
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There is not a band that encapsulates dogged determination more than Sylosis. For 24 years they have slogged their guts out. They have had more miraculous comebacks than Novak Djokovic and have changed direction more times than a formula one driver.
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These Greek mainstays (The Tolis brothers have been up to this for 36 years) trade in a really interesting version of black metal. It's not progressive in the fact that they don't pepper it with large sections of melodic noodling, however it does massively deviate from black metal's usual under-produced minimalistic corrosive self.
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I was going to leave this lot till right to the end but I'm so excited about this rare appearance in the UK that I am guilty of premature ejaculation and I have gone very early with my sumptuous ode to their majestic wonder. Eternal Champion are the greatest band you have never heard of.
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You cannot underestimate the impact that Deicide had when they first arrived on the scene in the late 80s. They were nasty, repugnant and offensive in a way that other fledgling death metal acts can only dream of. They have one objective to piss off as many people and ideologies as possible.
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Here at ROCKFLESH towers we've been in a bit of a tizz about Tailgunner for a good while. They seem to have done the impossible and unified our distinctly arbitrary writers. Whether it be our glam loving maidens, our NWOBHM sages who remember it first time around, our death metal deviants or are holier than thou hard-core kids, every single person who puts words together for a publication has a massive crush on Tailgunner.
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When is a black metal band not a black metal band. The answer is when they are Enslaved. Whilst they may cling to their old Nick bothering and corpse paint adorned roots, the simple fact is Enslaved stop being a black metal band along while ago.
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By the time Sunday rolls around at this year's Bloodstock we all need a bit of glamour poured back into our lives. We will have had more heavily inked young men scream at us about the inadequacies of life than you can shake a stick at.
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Following on from yesterday's Forbidden let's have another bunch of grizzled thrash veterans, but this time much closer to home, namely Preston. You see Xentrix were part of the motley bunch of UK thrashers that emerged in the late eighties.
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For those of us of a certain age, Forbidden's appearance at Bloodstock 2011 was manna from heaven. Seeing one of eighties thrash's forgotten heroes illustriously resurrected was genuinely exciting. But reunions are not easy things to maintain and the tensions that brought about the early demise of Forbidden were quick to resurface.
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Damnation 2023 is immaculately curated. This is not random bands thrown into some form of inconsistent order. Real thought and consideration has actually gone into who follows who. The entire day works as some sort of cathartic emotional journey, taking you from spiritual highs to desolate lows.
Directly following the astonishing Julie Christmas with Downfall of Gaia is a genius move. Whilst there are real differences between the acts, they share a common DNA strand of emotional resonance. It seems weird to pin this on black metal, but Downfall of Gaia is music to make you cry.
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We all love to moan. We are British. Finding fault in everything is our national sport. However the truth is, no matter how hard you look, there is very little, if anything, to criticise about this year’s Damnation Festival (The puddle at the end of the drive may well have been a pain but it was clearly outside of Gav and Paul’s jurisdiction). The snag list from last year's inaugural edition at the BEC arena has been conclusively dealt with. There is not a food queue to be seen, chairs are plentiful, and I am still supping the specially commissioned stout well into Saturday night.
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For many moons, Night of Salvation has existed as a low-key informal get-together on the eve of the Damnation festival, primarily aimed at those who found themselves in Leeds a night early. In 2001 the Lords of Damnation (Gav and Paul to their mates) decided to make it a formal part of proceedings with an emphasis on world-exclusive album sets. To say that it has escalated from then would be an understatement.
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