Live Review : Damnation Festival ' A Night Of Salvation" on November 3rd 2023

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.

This is no longer just a mere warmup, this year's Night of Salvation is a multi-roomed, multifaceted juggernaut with fifteen bands and eight ultra-rare album sets (it would have been nine, but sadly real life got in the way of Tuskar’s appearance. They have confirmed for 2024). It has become its own event with its own gravitational pull and you can taste the expectation in the air as we enter the vast confines of the BEC arena.

The Cult Never Dies Stage has been transformed into a Black Metal paradise and rapidly evolving English troubadours The Sun’s Journey Through The Night have been given the honour of opening proceedings. The brainchild of masked frontman “No One” their brand of Black Metal is creeping and contemplative. It has a lingering malevolence and rather than frontally assaulting you, it bides its time, building an atmospheric cauldron of crescendoing noise. Shrouded in masks and enveloped in smoke, they own the stage in a measured and minimal fashion. There is a fair amount of world-building going on which creates an immersive and absorbing experience. 

Over on the Church Road stage, Celestial Sanctuary are going for the full pelt-in-your-face experience. This is Death Metal at its most feral and unpleasant. There is a school of thought that this particular genre has become too refined and too house-trained. Celestial Sanctuary are part of a growing number of bands trying to make death metal unpleasant again. They are raw, unkept and ferociously malignant. The riffs are jagged and organic and blast beats rain down like artillery fire. A breathless and incendiary start to the Church Road Record’s Showcase.

Suffice to say, Viking Skull will view a description of being a little frayed around the edges as a badge of honour. There is nothing vaguely beautiful or exquisite on display here, but that doesn't stop them from being darn good fun. Like a reanimated corpse they have once more emerged from a deathly slumber. There has been a fair bit of shuffling around since they last distributed our senses. Jess Margera is nowhere to be seen and the original occupant of the drummer's pyre, Gordon Morrison, is firmly back en situe. Roddy Stone also seems to be missing action, with our Frank more than happy to pick up the mic.

We get the whole of Chapter 1 in its full repugnant glory. They aren't going to win any points for style or finesse (especially when Gordon has to piss in a pint pot halfway through the set) but that isn’t the point. This is simple stripped-down rock 'n' roll at its most corrosively wonderful. It bypasses any of the intelligent receptacles of the brain and instead dives straight to your dancing feet. Chaotic and dishevelled, it is wonderful to have them back.

If The Sun’s Journey Through The Night illustrated black metal's more pseudo-intellectual side, then Ninkharsag are bringing the uncompromising nastiness. Everything exists at a hundred miles an hour and there is no space or time for anything bordering on contemplation. But even within their impenetrable wall of oscillating sound, there is nuance and variance to be found. It's subtle and way down in the mix, but there are still some startlingly inventive things going on. Every now and again we get to a seam of pure melody, and it is those traces of trad metal that really make them stand out from the crowd.

Back on the Church Road stage Inhuman Nature are busily inspiring the first pits of the weekend. This is thrash as your grandma used to make it. Fast, furious and full of malicious intent. However, this isn't just a revivalist nostalgia trip. There is an underlying heaviness to what they are doing, which gives each and every track a real hefty feeling. Yes, the riffs oscillate with buzzsaw precision, but underneath it all, there is a monolithic foundation that makes your bones (and all the fastenings in the room) quiver and shake. Music to very much loosen your fillings to.

Let's tell it as it is, with opening number ‘The Reverie’, Bossk put down the marker for the set of the weekend. It heralds a rendition of “Audio Noir” in its entirety, and it is utterly magnificent. This is what space travel must feel like, as their performance is the equivalent of being foisted onto a cosmic journey. As a listener, you freefall through layers upon layers of rapidly expanding sound. The visuals mesh with the luscious soundscape, to the point that you feel like you are trapped within an infinite kaleidoscope, a cacophony of sensory overload. It is unlike anything else I've ever experienced, and it is only the first song. 

The music Bossk produces is beautiful, mesmerising and euphoric. But you can say that about other post-rock deities. It is the harsh tones of Sam Marsh's vocals that simultaneously brings everything back to reality and ramp it up to another level entirely. It is an astonishing juxtaposition as his jagged inflexions intertwine with the luscious pulsating riffs. It is like being wrapped in the most sumptuous duvet and then repeatedly punched in the stomach.

Whilst they have played the majority of the tracks on the album before, it just makes utter sense to have them laid out in the sequence that they were intended. Having ‘Relancer’ fade into ‘Kobe’ and then seamlessly meld into ‘Atom Smasher’ enhances extraordinary songs into something else entirely. They are no longer individual pieces; they are part of a heavenly suite that intoxicates the senses.

The audience is bewitched and during the set stand in reverential silence letting the majestic elegance sweep over them. However, as ‘Reverie II’ reaches its climax there is such an outpouring of wanton adulation that they have no other option but to return for an encore and delve beyond the intended album performance. We get ‘Lira’ from “Migration” and it operates almost like an airlock, allowing us to de-pressurise from the existential almightiness of “Audio Noir” and back into the monochrome ordinariness of the world.

The Infernal Sea expertly marries bombastic theatrics with nihilistic nastiness. They channel that true spirit of the Black Metal pioneers who wanted to create something that was otherworldly and definitely disturbing. There is an astonishing intensity to their performance this evening. They reveal in their position as UK scene leaders and ratchet everything up to well beyond eleven. Extraordinarily invigorating.

A post on Damnation’s social media feeds reads “Not all heroes wear capes”. As late as Thursday evening two-thirds of Din of Celestial Birds were coming along as mere punters and the other two were staying home to wash their hair. However, with the last-minute loss of Tuskar, the Dalmatian signal went up and Din of Celestial Birds responded. The two members of the band who had been left at home to feed the cats scurried up the motorway to Manchester and literally moments after arriving on site they materialised onto the Church Road records stage like the ultimate knights in shining armour.

It still would be seen as a Herculean achievement even if they had then turned up on stage and been a bit shit. However, not only do they save the day (and the bacon) they also manage to be absolutely extraordinary. Din of Celestial Birds characterise themselves as telling stories without words. For 45 astonishing minutes, this is exactly what they do. They create a pristine ecosystem of emotionally raw sonic waves. Their music has a real soul to it. There are no vocals but extraordinarily they still manage to fill the room with heart-wrenching passion. Every note, every melody is bathed in sorrowful regret.

At times there is real vulnerability and fragility at play, but then it builds and builds towards imperious culminations that just soar into the sky. For any live act what we witness would be extraordinary but for one that literally just legged it from their Ford Mondeo onto the stage, it is quite simply a superhuman endeavour. Suddenly Bossk's set of the weekend rosette looks less of a shoe-in.

Enslaved are moving in. This is the first of two ultra special and incredibly rare album sets. They are no strangers to this country, but this is still something very much out of the ordinary. Tomorrow night we get their legendary debut album “Vikingligr Veldi” but tonight it's the turn of 2003’s extraordinary “Below The Lights”. Extraordinary because this was the moment they truly turned away from traditional black metal and embraced their progressive tendencies.

“Below The Lights” feels so experimental and future-proof that it is mind-blowing to realise that it is now two decades old. This is the album where synths became an essential part of their sound and Håkon Vinje plays a central role this evening, living out all of his Rick Wakeman fantasies high up on his ceremonial podium. Watching the members of Enslaved work is akin to witnessing craftsmen weave together complex creations. Everyone has their defined role to play, but it is only when they are welded together that the true beauty shines out.

Those expecting harsh black metal are probably a little disappointed as this is Enslaved at their most grandiose and orchestral. It is big, bombastic and wonderfully world-building. Every new Enslaved album cements their position as probably one the most forward-thinking bands in our world, but tonight proves beyond doubt that this is not a new phenomenon and actually they have been pushing the musical envelope for 20 years now. Just just wonderful.

Tonight is very much a case of bumbling from one incredibly special moment to another. There is no opportunity to fully digest the stunning nature of Enslaved as it’s straight into another extraordinary moment with Sigh performing their peerless debut album, “Scorn Defeat”, in its entirety. Whilst only Mirai Kawashima remains from those who sculpted the landmark release, this current incarnation of Sigh provides an authentic and reverential retelling of the album.

Sigh has always been a highly theatrical live proposition and this evening the seven tracks that make up “Scorn Defeat” are as much acted out as they are played. Whilst very much their most traditional black metal album, it is still laced with cultural touchstones from the homeland. It is those Japanese influences that give it a rich emotional resonance usually lacking within black metal. Unlike the cold and austere personas of other purveyors of the genre, tonight's performance feels warm, passionate, and highly emotive.

Heriot are a bit of an outlier this evening in that they are not trading on an illustrious history nor are not performing an album in its entirety. What they are here to do, is to remind us no matter how wonderful these exercises in nostalgia may be, our music is not stagnant nor backward-looking. They are a clarion call that metal is still, 53 years into its lifespan, growing and evolving. 

They have no interest in looking backwards and instead, we get a highly charged and righteously angry crescendo of indignant noise. They steadfastly refuse to be pigeonholed or exist within one conceivable reality.  Instead, we get hard-core blended with math-core and then drenched in repugnant death metal. It's all the genres at the same time. Our beloved music is very much safe in their hands.

There are those who will argue that Leprous long since stopped being a functioning heavy-metal band. If that is true, then “Coal” is the moment before they jumped ship. Still rich in emotive texture, there are however moments when it becomes a howling cacophony of sheer white noise. It is that balance between fragile beauty and elemental power that makes it such a wonderful record. Their performance of it in full is quite simply spellbinding.

Einar Solberg reaches into the very recesses of his soul and bears all to those gathered in front of him. His voice is utterly incredible and reaches notes that even a pack of dogs would struggle to comprehend. But it isn't just the range, it's the emotion that he manages to convey with every syllable that he utters. In a single octave he manages to convey pain, pleasure and joy.

For a band that usually likes to be forward-facing, it is rather revolutionary to find them delving back into their past. The sheer truth is that they are now far better musicians than they were 10 years ago, so no matter how sumptuous “Coal” may sound on record, tonight's live version elevates it to a completely different stature. Personal heartbreak has never sounded so wonderful.

Whilst the room housing Church Road records stage is never more than half full for Deadguy’s performance of “Fixation on a Co-worker”, the entire inhabitants of the space become part of the pit. This is one of those pits that will become part of legend. This is one of those pits that those who plumped for food, the Star Wars bar or Ackercocke instead, will in the future firmly assert that they were part of it. It is one of those pits that requires reinforcement as a whole squadron of security sprint over from the main stage to bolster their under siege colleagues. It is one of those pits that channels everything into its gravitational pull, including Johannes Persson of Cult of Luna who can be found in its nucleus marshalling the never-ending wave of stage divers.

It doesn't matter that the room is half full because everybody who has made it in are having the time of their lives. Everybody in here is present because they adore Deadguy and this is a personal pilgrimage for them. I have never seen so much passionate aggression at play. It is brutal euphoria, a level of happiness that is only achieved when losing your shit to an album that you know like the back of your hand. This is one of those moments that people will talk about in years to come, even if most people who will talk about it probably weren't even there.

Ackercocke have once again brushed off the suits, this time to deliver a world-exclusive version of the highly underrated “Choronzon”. Devilishly deviant, it was the sound of a band pushing black metal as far out of its comfort zone as humanly possible. It is experimental, it is avant-garde and in places it is downright bonkers. Tonight's performance is so on point. It captures the wonton depravity of the record and then ratchets up the intensity. 

The sound is pristine and precise, and you can hear every single inventive guitar slide and shifting time signature. It is an absolute joy to watch the album unfurl as the bodies fly and the pit contorts. A stunning showcase for a band that never really got their due regards.

Whether you reach tonight's main stage headliner by way of “Fixation on a Co-worker” or “Choronzon” the truth is Katatonia's rendition of “Dead End Kings” was always going to be a much more measured and meditative experience than your previous appointment. That's not to say that it isn't wonderful, because it is. It just lacks the urgency and all-consuming energy of the performances that directly preceded it. 

The band do however go out of their way to make the performance special. Silje Wergeland has flown over especially to join them for “The One You Are Looking for Is Not Here” and Jonas regularly intones how privileged they are to be able to perform the album for us. Katatonia are wizards at creating atmospheric undertones and based in smoke and purple lights the whole room takes on an ethereal glow.

It is fabulous but, and there is a but, it just doesn't hold the crowd's attention. Whether it is tiredness, apathy or desire to save some energy for tomorrow, the audience starts to drastically drift away halfway through the performance. By the time we reached the utterly awesome ‘Dead Letters’, there is no more than 500 people left in a room that can easily hold 6,000. The performance of “Dead End Kings” is astonishing, but apparently is not how most people want to end their night.

So, 15 bands, eight exclusive sets and a pit that will go down in legend. And this is only the warmup, This is only the appetiser to wet our whistle before a full 12 hours of molten metal. Due to sluggish sales, it is unlikely that we will see a Night of Salvation at this scale again. If that is true, my God what a way to go out!

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Katatonia, Akercocke, Deadguy, Leprous, Heriot, Sigh, Enslaved, The Infernal Sea, Din Of Celestial Birds, Bossk, Inhuman Nature, Ninkharsag, Viking Skull, Celestial Sanctuary, The Suns Journey Through The Night