Live Review : Damnation Festival 2022 - "A Night Of Salvation" on November 4th 2022

Night of Salvation provides Damnation festival with an intimate opportunity to road-test its new home at the Bec Arena in deepest and darkest Trafford. Tonight, manages to be simultaneously low-key and auspicious. Low-key in the fact that there are only around 300 of us on site, but auspicious in terms of the quality and the prestige of the bill that they have managed to pull together. The closing two sets (Celeste’s performance of “Assassin(s)” and We Lost the Sea doing “Departure Songs” as their UK debut) are both world exclusives and according to both sets of artists unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. The undercard is also a Who's Who of upcoming UK talent with a hotly tipped Mastiff, Pupil Slicer and Ithaca all being given the opportunity to showcase why they are currently so revered.

Whilst the room is by no means full and we have all kept our coats on to keep warm, there is still an impressively verbose welcome for Mastiff. You get the distinct feeling that a good chunk of the people present have journeyed down from their hometown of Hull. Self-described as aggressive hardcore grinding sludge metal, Mastiff are essentially what Lamb of God would sound like played at half speed. They manage to be simultaneously aggressive and laid-back. The riffs are slow and pendulous, but are full of nihilistic intent. In fact, there are moments in the set where they feel they are being both frantically fast and also cathartically slow at exactly the same point in time. They are heavy and corrosive but managed to stop way short of being unlistenable. For music that is this existentialist, there is a surprising amount of melody and formulaic song structures. The tracks may well be dark and oppressive, but they are still enjoyable to listen to. They describe themselves as a miserable band from a miserable city, but this does an injustice to just how fun they are this evening. A highly auspicious start for Damnation’s new era. 

Pupil Slicer make discombobulating, uncomfortable music. There are no right angles or fluidity within their tracks and every note is completely disconnected from the one that came before. More sonic experience than musical fare, they still manage to be one of the most intense and intoxicating life experiences out there. It is a cacophony of noise that is both abrasive and alluring. You see for all its lack of structure and flow, there is still something utterly captivating about what Pupil Slicer are doing. It's a hodgepodge of different styles and approaches played simultaneously, and you realize the level of musicality and talent that is required to come across this unstructured.

Whilst to the listener it may seem like there is no rhyme nor reason about where a track is going,  the fact that the band have a plotted trajectory speaks volumes for what highly skilled musicians they are. The reception is generous but slightly muted and you get the distinct feeling that Pupil Slicer may be too extreme for an extreme metal festival. But the most exciting thing is the anticipation of what they do next. As vocalist and frontperson Kate Davies announce from the stage, tonight marks the end of the touring cycle for their debut album “Mirrors”. For a band brimming with so many ideas to be articulated there is now a huge expectation about where they go next.

Ithaca are hellbent on overturning metal’s penchant for being emotionally repressed. They wear their insecurities and fragility on their sleeves and make no secret of the fact they are laying their souls bare every time they step out onto the stage. There is a brutal honesty to their approach and their sound. They are using their music as a cathartic process of bloodletting, exploring their inadequacies and personnel traumas in a stark but explosive manner. That pent-up rage and sense of indignation powers them as a live act and they quite simply burn off the stage. But they aren’t just a blur of fermented anger, theirs’ is a textured approach full of pathos and reflection. The soft-toned interludes give the set a much more nuanced feel and ensures that when the breakdowns come, they do so with huge resonation. At the heart of Ithaca’s turbulent maelstrom of emotional angst is Djamilia Azzouz. A whirling dervish wearing her friability on her flowing selves, you can’t keep your eyes off her as she hops, skips, and jumps around the stage. There is something quite special about Ithaca and they feel one anthem away from universal domination. The world is theirs for the taking, they just need to write the song to make that happen.

Damnation has never been about familiarity. Part of its appeal is the opportunity to discover new bands and trade obsessions with other musical obsessives. Damnation head honcho Gavin McInally has been bigging up We Lost the Sea for what feels like an eternity. Having got them over for their inaugural UK visit, he has thrown superlatives around like confetti, piquing the interest of all of us who like a bit of ethereal post-rock. The atmosphere that greeting them is one of expectant anticipation as opposed to reverential adoration, as the audience prepares to see what all the fuss is about. They needn’t have worried, and we always should trust Mr. McInally, as We Lost the Sea are absolutely stunning. The unanointed may see post-rock as simply repeated phases of quiet followed by explosions of noise, but there is much more to it than that. We Lost the Sea take the template and expand it as far as it will go. 

Opener ‘A Gallant Gentleman’ consists of layer upon layer of sonic reverberations that slowly build, entrancing the listener in a prism of oscillating sound. It is quite simply astonishing and all you can hear is the sound of three hundred people collectively picking their jaws off the floor. Second track in, ‘Bogatyri’ takes a definite left turn in style and could be the soundtrack for a James Bond movie. It has a futuristic symphonic feel and just builds around you. The whole set is something else. Yes, on record “Departure Songs” is really special but presented live in its entirety it is superb. This is not a band trotting out their well-honed tour set, this is a band playing a set of songs that has immense emotional depth for them. The raw emotion rolls off the stage and you can visibly tell that all performers are having individual moments as they move through the set. In many ways, this set encapsulates why Damnation is so special. It doesn’t play safe and doesn’t recycle through a tried and tested set of bands. Its mission is to find bands that its attendees may not already be aware of but that it knows its audience will love. I am not sure how many We Lost the Sea fans there actually are in the room when they start, but by the end of the set we are all devotees.

Celeste specializes in ethereal, atmospheric Black Metal. They emerge through a shroud of smoke and to be honest for the majority of the set they are no more than ghostly silhouettes seen through a prism of hazy fog. As a simple but highly effective move, each member wears a piercing red light on their head. As far as stage sets go it probably cost no more than twenty quid from Go-outdoors, but the result is mesmerizing. It’s like watching four cybernetic cyclops scan the environment with malicious intent. Musically they are equally absorbing. This is a polished and accessible variant of Black Metal, but what it hasn’t jettisoned is the intensity. Johan Girardeau and his compatriots weave a tapestry of emotive but taught sound that just keeps coming. It is utterly all-consuming and assimilating. You can’t quite see them but you still can’t take your eyes off the stage.

And that’s just the aperitive. Damnation has always strived to do something different and to celebrate the diversity and variety that there is in extreme music. They don’t just want to give us what we think we want, they want to educate, challenge, and inspire us as an audience. They want to introduce us to the bands and styles that they love. In fact, they are no different from any of us. They live for this music and when they find a fantastic band they, like us, want to tell everyone about it. The only difference is that Damnation has a 6,000-capacity festival to do it with!

Check out the interviews: Mastiff, Ithaca, We Lost The Sea

Check out the photo galleries: Mastiff, Pupil Slicer, Ithaca, We Lost The Sea, Celeste